Stephanie Spines

There is a lot of potential in a futuristic retelling of Cinderella set in a city called New Beijing, wherein our protagonist is no longer the soft-spoken, fair and genteel character we once knew her as, but instead, a headstrong, cyborg mechanic. Am I right?While I didn't think this book fell completely flat, it definitely did not entirely fulfill my expectations for such an imaginative retelling. The writing style was simple but enjoyable. It was a quick read and I had fun drawing paralells between the original story and this one as I went along. Meyer seemed to use the original fairy tale as a skeleton for her story and so there was a lot of space to play around with the characters and their dynamics.I also enjoyed the characters. I liked the Cinder that Meyer created. Iko was also cute and made me want my own android BFF. Peony seemed very sweet, as well. Kai seemed to be pretty charming, which figures. And Adri and Levana were just...blugh. I thougth that the Lunar's glamour power was quite interesting as well.Departing from what a lot of people seem to feel, I didn't feel completely rattled by the "cliff-hanger" at the end. In fact, I didn't even see it as much of a cliff-hanger. I was just more confused with what exactly her intention was. One area where I thoguht Cinder fell a little flat was the setting. Despite reading some of the interview of Marissa Meyer in the back of the book where she explained that she chose New Beijing because it would be a bustling setting full of culture, I noticed that there was generally no mention of anything cultural at all. Aside from some of the name choices, the story could have been set anywhere. I REALLY did not like that she dropped the name New Beijing, and didn't carry it anywhere. Major flaw for me.All-in-all, had I not been in the mood for a light, YA read, I probably would have either rated this lower or not read it at all. It did, however, serve a personal purpose for me, by providing me something a little imaginative but generally mediocre to read.