Retellings are tricky--there's the risk of simply presenting the same story over again, or making it completely dull and unoriginal. And in the beginning, this is what I expected. Cinder and her evil stepmother, a dashing prince, etc. But it doesn't take too long to learn this isn't simply a retelling. It's something new. There's a plague. And moon people. 
 Cinder is a great character. She's no one special, really--a greasy mechanic forced to give her wages to her stepmother. And a cyborg to boot, a second-class citizen that most don't even recognize as human. So when the prince takes notice of her? Ooh boy, are things going to change. 
 This was an ideal book to start my summer with. It's not exactly "easy beach read," but it manages to be both entertaining and exciting. I grit my teeth every time Cinder encountered her stepmother, wanting to beat the woman over the head. I, too, had butterflies when Prince Kai smiled, the most humble royal in all YA. These are not cookie-cutter, problem-free characters. There's inner and outer conflict; they're people, and that's what wins this story. 
 And the little bits grabbed from the original Cinderella tale are clever. The book begins with Cinder replacing her cyborg foot, because the one old no longer fit. That foot, of course, will be important later.