Ever the late-adopter, I have finally joined the rest of the world and read the first book in Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder. And I loved it. Loved. It. I smashed through it in two short sittings, and was ordering the second book from the library with a hundred pages to go because I knew I was going to need to go back-to-back. (I may or may not have got the third book as well…)

I didn’t know too much about this going in except that it’s constantly featuring in people’s Top Ten Tuesday lists, which is good enough for me. I’m actually glad I didn’t know too much because I’m not sure how keen I would have been if I had.

The main character is Cinder, as in Cinderella. Yep, it’s very loosely based on the story of Cinderella – there is a badly treated girl, a couple of step-sisters, an evil step-mother and a handsome prince. But unlike her almost-namesake, Cinder is half cyborg, which is where I would have tapped out had I known, because cyborgs and robots really aren’t my thing. Lucky for me, my prejudices never had a chance to get in between me and this great book.

I’m not going to say too much about the story, because, well, I’m fairly sure there is no value in being the millionth person on the internet to outline the plot. All I’ll say is that it is a well-written, compelling story, that has some minor silliness in a few plotlines, but also some fantastic ideas and some really great scenes. The shining light of the book is definitely Cinder. I loved her. She’s strong, she’s likeable but best of all, she’s believable. Nothing hooks me like a strong female lead character.

This is the first series in a while that I’ve started reading and have been desperate to read the second book straight away, so I’m going to roll with that and hope the next book is just as good.