This review also appears on my blog. 
 I actually gave the book 4.5 stars, but since GR doesn't have half-stars, I bumped it to 5. 
 It is 100-and-some-odd years after the end of the fourth World War, and tensions between the Lunars and the people of Earth are at an all-time high. In New Bejing, Cinder works for her stepmother, who hates her because of her prosthetics--she's 32% cyborg. But a series of events related to Prince Kai, the plague sweeping the globe, Cinder's immunity to the plague, and the Lunar queen's visitation to earth upset Cinder's life and self-identity. 
 I really enjoyed Cinder. It began predictably enough, with all the Cinderella tropes being set up, but the middle of the book was a radical departure from the fairy tale, and when the end of the book returned to the traditional structure, nothing was what I expected anymore. I did see the major reveal/twist at the end coming, but that doesn't mean it wasn't brilliantly set up and executed. 
 Meyer struck an interesting balance with her characters, managing to keep the bad ones--like the stepmother and the evil queen--shallow and two-dimensional while allowing the good ones--like Cinder and Prince Kai--to be fully realized characters. And yet the bad characters don't feel like speedbumps (like the ones in 
 Home From the Sea 
 ), but true impediments and threats to the characters' lives and happiness. Also, Cinder isn't nearly as dependent on Kai as the traditional Cinderella is on Charming, and I enjoyed seeing her story depart from the tradition to allow her to be an autonomous character with goals beyond marrying the prince. 
 The cliffhanger at the end made me argh a bit, especially since we have to wait until February for Scarlet, but at the same time, it was a satisfying ending. It ended exactly where it needed to; any more probably would have felt draggy and "get on with it!" 
 I had actually put off reading this for awhile because it seemed too . . . something . . . to be true; I feared that the premise couldn't possibly produce a good story. I'd like to go on record and apologize to Meyer for doubting her. I'm very much looking forward to the rest of this series.