Cinder

Down to my last three RA Favorite books for this year!  Enter the world of futuristic / sci-fi in the city of Cinder by Marissa Meyer.  The time period is 126 years after World War IV which devastated the world as we know it.  Linh Cinder, a cyborg and mechanic, in her mid-teens, is an orphaned young girl now living with a “wicked” step-mother and two sisters, aka Cinderella type-fame.  The Prince’s ball is only a week away, yet Cinder is having to do chores and hold a job to finance the household of wicked step-mom Ardi. One of her “sisters” comes down with the fatal disease letumosis, which kills people within a week.  Cinder being a recreated human through technology is scorned by society as a ‘second-class citizen’.  Early in the story, while working as a tech mechanic, she is visited by the noble Prince Kai, whose father, the Emperor, is fighting to save the world from the wicked Queen Levana, of the moon colony, who has designs to take over Earth.  Kai is smitten with Cinder, but doesn’t realize she is a cyborg, and keeps inviting her to the ball as his guest.  Knowing that her step-mom won’t allow her to go, coupled with the realization she is a cyborg, she repeatedly turns the Prince down.  She does however fix his personal android, a discovery she later learns was broken due to the wicked Queen.  As the story unfolds, Cinder is given to the government by her step-mom, as a means to be the guinea pig of experiments on the potential cure of the illness letumosis. The doctor, Dr. Erland, learns through experimentation, that Cinder is more than a cyborg, rather she is a Lunar (from the same original country as the wicked Queen.  Lunars have special powers on Earth and Cinder is forced to face the reality of who she is with a showdown with the Queen.  Kai becomes the Emperor when is father contracts letumisis and is asked to try and negotiate with the Queen, who plans on marrying him, with the hopes of taking over Earth, but he is attracted to Cinder.  The book comes to a climax during the grand ball when Kai discovers Cinder’s real identity, at the same time Lunar learns new revelations of Cinder and that she is really the nemesis she thought she killed.  What revelations at every turn.  The pace is quick, the story engaging, and the plot thickens. Only one problem… this is a series book!  So to find out what happens, there are more volumes to read.  Quite an idea for a plot, just wish there weren’t more books added to learn the ending.