Okay, I have to be honest, when I first started seeing this book circulating on Instagram and various book blogs, I wasn't sure it was going to be for me. I thought the concept of re-working a classic fairy tale was fun and cool, but I never expected it to be anything gripping, and I thought I'd spend the whole book searching for the parallels with the folk tale. After reading so many amazing reviews, however, I really thought I should pick up a copy and give it a go.
I didn't really give Meyer's book a fighting chance - I'd already almost decided I wasn't going to enjoy it, and for the first few chapters I couldn't see where Meyer could possibly take this story to make a sort of sci-fi Cinderella work, but the more I read, the deeper I got invested into the story, and it was so well written and the storyline so gripping that I completely forgot it was based on the classic. Additionally, Meyer has managed to grip the perfect balance within this book, and the plot isn't so reliant on the fairy tale that it's predictable and dull - in fact I found myself pleasantly surprised by how Cinder's tale panned out.
The twists and turns layered on top of a timeless classic make this story an incredible read, and I only discovered afterwards that it's the first of a series (where have I been living, right?) so I'm super excited to buy the rest and read my way through the rest of the Lunar Chronicles - I'm just glad I didn't accidentally read out of order!