I had seen Cinder on people’s Goodreads shelves and had heard a little bit about it, but every time I read the summary/blurb, I kind of felt meh about the whole thing.  Then I had a friend whose opinion I trust say how much she loved it and I thought I’d give it a try.  What could it hurt?

NOTHING!!!  It turned out to be amazing.  I loved the story of Cinder and Kai.  And Wolf and Scarlet.  And Cress.  And Winter.  And basically everyone.

Here’s the Amazon summary for Cinder:

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

So here’s a basic rundown:  Cinder follows the basic storyline of Cinderella with a lot of literary license taken.  Scarlet continues the story of Cinder but introduces Scarlet.  Her story is based on Little Red Riding Hood.  Then comes Cress, who plays the part of Rapunzel.  And finally Winter, the story of Snow White.  All these characters are interwoven throughout the stories, so although Cinder’s main introduction is in Cinder, her character is important all the way through to the end.

In between Cress and Winter, Meyer wrote Fairest, which is the story of the evil queen, Levana.  It gives a lot of good background information and maybe a bit of a redemptive aspect to the character.

Within the past week, Meyer released an additional book in the collection, Stars Above, which is a collection of short stories about some of the characters.

I truly did enjoy this series and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy and fairy tales.  It was very clean and would even be appropriate for younger audiences.  The love stories are great and believable and the characters are complicated and yet sympathetic.