Cinder

by Marissa Meyer

387 pages

Cinder is a teenage girl who just happens to be a cyborg. Unfortunately, cyborgs are frowned upon in the commonwealth, so she is not treated fairly and shunned. But that's not all,  her step mother, Adri, is constantly nagging her about things to fix, "chores" to be done, Adri doesn't work, so Cinder is her only income because she owns a booth where she is a mechanic. The most renowned mechanic in new Bejing. Her step sister, pearl, is almost as bad as Adri. luckily, peony, the younger step sister, is cinders only human friend. Until the prince Kai rolls around. One day cinder is working at the booth and here comes his royal Highness, Prince Kai dressed in a white sweatshirt to not draw attention to himself. He wants her to fix a royal android that seems to have some very important information on it. He doesn't notice that she is a cyborg. back home, Adri tells cinder that if she finnishes her chores, she can go to the royal ball. so cinder needs to go find a magbelt to fix the hover car and peony goes with her. they find a magbelt and an ancient car with wheels. but then peony gets lutmosis, the plauge that has killed thousands. there is no known cure. when adri finds out, she donates cinder to the lutmosis recerch. no one ever survives the lutmosis reacerch. strangly enough, cinder survives unscathed. and the doctor working there is wilkling to pay her 5000 credits per day that she comes in. The doctor discovers that she is a lunar. which even she didn't know. and he tells her she is not alone. he is lunar too. but she can't tell anyone because lunars aren't allowed on earth. Lunars are people who evolved when they built a colony on the moon and they can change your emmotions and controll your body. cinder can't though. the lutmosis reserch is in the palace, so she keeps bumping into kai and they eventually become really good friends (catch my drift). He tells her about how queen levena of luna is coming on a "diplomatic mission" to find a peace treaty that works for the commonwealth and luna. of cource it is a meriiage treaty. that day the emperor dies of lutmosis and prince, no emperor kai is devastated. He asks cinder to go to the ball with him, but she denies because she is planning to run away in the car she found that night. queen levena arrives, and has a cure for lutmosis and claims she didn't mean to come thae day after the emperor died and you can tell she is the antagonist. (you might want to stop here if you want to read the book, spoilers) Cinder fixes the android and finds out that levena was (shocker) spying on Kai! cinder manages to talk to a lunar girl who warns her that Levena is going to kill Kai! but it is the day of the ball and he is going to announce that he is going to accept the treaty. Cinder is forced to abandon her plan to escape from Adri that night and warn Kai. when she arrives she is wearing a filthy dress and her hair is soaked and she tells Kai, but he doesn't care, he says his death will at least protect the people for a wile longer. as if things couldn't get worse, Levena recognizes cinder as lunar and demands that she be turned over to luna to face "justice by death". Kai is distraught and torn between what he loves, and what he swore an oath to protect.