This was my first ever fairytale retelling so I didn’t really know what to expect, I mean so people love them some people hate them. Cinder was what you probably would expect Cinderella to be if she wasn’t so sugar coated, she was sassy and funny and unlike all the other girls in New Beijing she is not falling for the handsome prince type neither is she one to take life for granted. Of course you have the evil stepmother named Adri and her two stepsisters Pearl and Peony, Adri was absolutely horrible A+ to Marissa for achieving that and Pearl was also just as horrid, however I think secretly both characters could be nice and Pearl defiantly seemed like the type just to follow her mothers orders. Peony however was lovely and I’m guessing if Garan was alive which as you can guess is Cinder’s stepfather, Peony would probably be so much more like him. She always so understood and it’s such a shame you didn’t get to see much of her. Now on to another big character Prince Kai, the person every girl has a crush on I loved him he was always himself when it came to Cinder but any other girl and he would probably run a mile, he was sweet and throughout the whole of it you just wanted him to at least come clean about what he felt. One thing I loved about him was that he wasn’t okay with the whole royal thing, and sometimes it seemed as though he just wanted to escape and be a normal teenage boy.So there was a lot more to this story than I thought there would be, bearing in mind I had never read a retelling so I thought there would only be a few changes but there was a lot so I would suggest not reading this if you prefer to stick to the old rather than trying the new. But I liked this about Cinder it added a new twist to things and there was always some reference to Cinderella. I know it’s probably early to mention the one thing I really didn’t like but I might as well get it out of the way, so I had a problem with the ending or at the time I did anyway in my head I was thinking (OMG! It can’t end like that nooo!!!) It’s also the sense of not understanding how the series is going to come together. Now that I think of it however this is going to be a series made up of four books, featuring Snow White, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and of course Cinderella. I’ve come to the conclusion that we will experience maybe the same plot but at different places (does that even make sense?). Oh that’s another thing that bothered me, at one point the answer of one of the huge twists was just screaming at me. Unfortunately people in books don’t actually exist and even if you did scream at a book you would look like a weirdo, now I don’t know if this was intentional but after a while I became bored and the twist was only revealed right at the end. I loved the setting however as even though it was set in Beijing, Marissa got to start all over again as there was a Fourth World War that left Beijing in rubble that then was turned into New Beijing. It was also what everyone expects the stereotypical future to be like with robots, cyborgs, hover cars and nearly every piece of nonexistent technology you can think of.Overall once I got into this book there was no stopping myself, it was a heart racing page turner and now I can’t help but wait anxiously for Marissa’s next book. Even if the thought of a fairytale retelling repulses you I would definitely give it a go, because this series is going to be like nothing you have ever read it is totally unique and definitely one for the 2012 TBR Pile!.
