She Was a Cyborg, and She Would Never Go to a Ball

~Cinder~
The Lunar Chronicles
Book 1
By Marissa Meyer
Amazon ~ Powell's

Even in the future, the story begins with
Once Upon a Time...

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. . . .

Sixteen-year-old Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother. 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. Because there is something unusual about Cinder, something that others would kill for.

While technically I read this as part of the Chez Apocalypse book club, I can also 'blame' my purchase of it on Emi of Oktopus Ink for her review of the third book, Cress. But that's more than enough name-drops and links for one intro, what about the book itself? Well, with a cover like that, you can bet seeing this on shelves definitely piqued my interest. Add in the mash-up element of Cyborgs and Cinderella, and I was more than ready to be whisked away into a weird and wonderful SciFi Fairytale.

All Eleanor Could Think About Was Seeing Park

~Eleanor & Park~
By Rainbow Rowell
Amazon ~ Powell's

Two misfits.
One extraordinary love.

Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.

Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

Another 'contemporary' YA romance set in the mid-1980's, another book that took me forever to review. As I said with my last contemporary romance, I feel very out of my element here. This book in particular left me rather raw, making my thoughts even more jumbled than usual. Add in a straightforward plotline full of spoiler-bait, and I'm left will fairly little to say.

But here goes nothing.