This novel starts off as what seems like a realistic fiction story. Just a mechanic in her shop. Slowly, the author begins to reveal more and more about the world around them. Subtle hints of advanced technology suggest that this book is set far into the future. We soon discover that the main character, Linh Cinder, is cyborg, meaning partly robot. In this futuristic world, cyborgs are thought of as less than human, nothing more than the androids that serve the humans. We first find out about the injustices against cyborgs from the woman in the shop next to Cinder, who refuses to serve any and all cyborgs. Soon after, a plague is introduced when the very same neighbour who refused to serve Cinder gets sick. The next day, Cinder returns to her shop and is confronted with the prince of New Beijing. He asks Cinder to fix his near ancient android, under very suspicious circumstances. The day after, Cinder brings her sister Peony to her shop. Cinder was working on a treasure she had found, a gasoline car (which in this world have been obsolete for a century). When her sister Peony touches the car, she comes away from it with bruise-like marks, the first stage of the plague. Cinder returns home to find her step-mother Adri telling her that she signed her up to be a test subject for the cure to the plague. Nobody had ever survived the testing. When she gets tested, she finds that she is immune to the plague. In the palace, the Emperor dies of the plague and the queen of the Lunar colony decides to come to Earth. She is known for being cruel and ruthless. She tries to take advantage of the prince but cannot. Cinder and the Prince slowly become more familiar until it's clear that they both have feelings for each other. Cinder tries her very best to hide from the prince that she's cyborg. She later finds out that she is also Lunar. The Lunar queen kills all Lunars that escape the moon, and she's now after Cinder. At the city's ball, they find each other and the Lunar queen tries to kill Cinder, but she resists.
I think that this book was quite good overall, and it was definitely better than the vast majority of romance novels that I've read (which is not many, but most of them have been bad experiences). The book sets itself up well and has an engaging plot, but I feel like the relationship between Cinder and the Prince was very forced. It didn't feel very realistic and I think that's where this book went wrong. It could've done so well as a purely science fiction book, but the romance dragged it down in my opinion. This book is pretty good for anyone over 12 or so. Younger than that and I feel like they wouldn't understand a lot of the references. The book was actually able to make me feel emotional at some parts, but like I said before, a lot of what was supposed to be emotional felt very fake. However, I think that the book's biggest flaw was its ending. It tried its very best to make a surprising twist ending, but it really didn't add much to the plot and I thought that it was pretty obvious to see coming. The book has a little bit of leeway with the ending because it's setting itself up for a sequel, which it does quite well, but that isn't an excuse for a poorly written and unsatisfying ending. I'd definitely recommend this book to people, but not to anyone who is looking for a science fiction book. It does that aspect of the story very well, but the romance really weighs it down.
Reviewed by Connor E., Grade 9