Cinder

Cinder is a 16 year-old cyborg living in New Beijing. She's considered kind of a second-rate citizen by her step-mother and pretty much any human living in the city, but she does have one redeeming quality in their eyes, she has a very mechanical mind and can fix almost anything. Hovers, robots, malfunctioning parts of cyborgs, including her own. One day, while she's at her shop in the market, a man comes in with a broken robot for her to fix, it takes just a minute, but she recognizes the man as the Prince Kai. She's just over the shock of the prince coming to ask for her help with his robot, when the market becomes a crazed place, the baker woman has caught the dreaded plague. Now no one wants to be anywhere near her shop and all of the people, including Cinder, who were are supposed to go into quarantine to make sure that they don't have the deadly disease. Cinder can't take time for that, and sneaks out the back way to the apartment she shares with her step-mother and two step-sisters, Peony and Pearl. Peony is Cinder's favorite person in the world, so when she to go with Cinder to the junk yard to find hover parts, of course Cinder lets her. The problem arises when Peony contracts the deadly plague. Cinder calls the medical droids to come get her, but her step-mother is furious because she feels that Cinder has brought the disease home from the market, and donates Cinder to cyborg draft. None of the cyborgs ever survive the testing looking for a cure for the plague, does Cinder even have a chance. I really enjoyed reading this book! The plot was a fun retelling of the Cinderella story, but I really loved the way that Cinder grows in this book. She starts off not really feeling worth much because she's cyborg, and in the end discovers who she truly is. I can't wait for the second book in this series!