When I read the story summary of Cinder, by Marissa Meyer, the premise was so out-of-this-world, I just had to read it. The best I can do to describe it is to say it’s a dystopian teen romance that involves robots and aliens and the plague, and oh by the way, it’s a re-telling of Cinderella.

What I Liked – Marissa Meyer has a comfortable style of writing that kept me turning the pages. Her characters were all distinct, fully formed and easy to love or hate which ever the case may be. The main character, Cinder, is complex and extremely well written. She’s one half Cinderella; sweet and innocent, and her other half is more like Katniss Everdeen; smart and plays by her own rules. I also loved the shere innocence of Meyer’s story. Even with the science fiction elements mixed in, there was never any attempt to gross-out her readers, or push any moral boundaries. The story had no need of such over the top elements. It was all escapism fun.

What I Didn’t Like as Much – My only problem with Cinder was that the story was too simple. I kept waiting for some exciting dramatic arc to happen that would get the story moving. Don’t get me wrong. The plot of Cinder is very interesting and moves along at a fine pace, but it didn’t go far enough for me. Cinder carefully built tension towards a few inevitable conflicts that seemed ready to explode at any moment. But, as I drew near the final pages, I realized the real action was being saved for the next installment in the Lunar Chronicles series, much to my dismay. But then, who can blame an author for giving you a reason to buy her next book.

In Summary – I do recommend Cinder. It’s lots of fun and a great beginning to one of the most imaginative fantasy series of our time. I recommend it for teens, anywhere from age 11 to 18.

For more information on the works of Marissa Meyer, here is a link to her website.