Book Re-Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

As part of The Lunar Chronicles Read Along (#TLCReadAlong) hosted by Brittany at The Book Addict's Guide, I re-read Cinder this past month.

Instead of posting a new review, I've pulled up and pasted in my first review, which posted here in March 2012 (ga! that feels like so long ago!).

I've updated the format but kept all my original words - with new thoughts added in.

I don't often re-read book, so this was a bit of a treat for me!

How often do you guys re-read books?
Do you find that your feelings change after a second read?

Let's see how my 2012 thoughts compare to today's!

Book #1 in the Lunar Chronicles
Genre: YA Sci-fi, futuristic, mystery
Publication: January 2012 by Feiwel and Friends
Acquisition: NetGalley / ARC from Publisher

Synopsis:
Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

(from Goodreads)

5 / 5 Stars
(yep! still a 5 star book!)

Take the story of Cinderella, add in some androids and cyborgs, a plague and oh, evil moon people trying to take over the world. Doesn't sound like it would work? Wrong! Cinder is all of these things and more and it's fantastic! (I'm still impressed by the way Meyer was able to blend all these elements together. Any one of them could have easily overwhelmed the story but that isn't the case. Still love it!)

Somewhat dystopian, somewhat hard science fiction, Cinder tells the story of Cinder, a cyborg (part human part machine) living in New Beijing. (I honestly don't know where I was getting dystopian from - unless that's what it was toted as at the time since it was THE THING in YA books. I would call it more futuristic / fantasy retelling.) 

Her life is not entirely her own as she is under the control and ownership of her stepmother who in true Cinderella fashion, pretty much hates her.
(OMG I forgot how much I HATE her stepmother Ardi!)

I really loved this retelling. It's unlike anything I've read in a long time and reminds me of the science fiction stories my father use to feed me as a kid.
(Even now, this still holds true. Cinder really is a unique story.)

Cinder's world is amazing. The cyborgs and androids (fully robotic machines) were enough to keep me engaged but this story has so much more to it. There is tension and well done, not over the top romance.
(The romance is perfect!)

There's a scary as hell plague and a mysterious legacy that may hold the key to everything. And a lot more I'm not going to talk about because you should really just read it for yourself :)
(yep! Do it!)

I pretty much loved this story from beginning to end. The first of 4 books that I'm pretty sure I will be devouring as soon as they hit the shelves! Marissa Meyer's debut is a fantastic science fiction / fairy tale retelling / dystopian explosion of awesomeness! I highly recommend this book to fans of these YA genres.
(All of this! Except the dystopian part. And! I can say, that after reading the next 2 books in the series - it's still just as good.)

So yeah, pretty much still all the same happy wonderful feelings!

It was really fun to re-read this one and I love the way Brittany formatted the read along - where we are all reading 1 book in the series a month, leading up to the release of the final book Winter. There is even time to get the companion novel, Fairest read between books 3 and 4.

I'm even going to go the extra mile and get all the mini in between short stories read - because I love this world so much so why not!

What do you guys think about read alongs? 

How about re-reads?

I was never much fond of either but I'm loving the combo :)