ABOUT THE BOOK:
It’s 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl’s display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again.
Sixteen-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. At the ball, Sophia makes the desperate decision to flee, and finds herself hiding in Cinderella’s mausoleum. There, she meets Constance, the last known descendant of Cinderella and her stepsisters. Together they vow to bring down the king once and for all–and in the process, they learn that there’s more to Cinderella’s story than they ever knew . . .
This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they’ve been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.
REVIEW BY DANIA: I loved this book but there were a few parts about it which I would have liked to change.
I loved the way that Sophia carried herself with confidence and wanted to defy the laws/ rules in every way possible. But what put me off at first was that Sophia was clearly so in love with Erin but Erin refused to acknowledge them.
Erin just left Sophia, a person who would do anything for their loved ones. Erin just refused to rebel when Sophia was putting her life on the line for that. Erin refused to live a life with Sophia. I do admit that that life would have been a little hard to live, but, isn’t it all worth it if you are living with the person you love. What saddened me was that towards the end of the book, when Sophia tried to take Erin away, Erin called her selfish and so many hurtful things while Sophia had been focusing on making sure that Erin was safe the entire time. That was just so sad.
But I found solace in the fact that Sophia and Constance became a non-problematic/ toxic couple who actually loved each other. I loved how comfortable they were around each other (which was something you couldn’t see with Sophia and Erin). It was also amazing how two baddies became a couple, now they are the power couple of the decade.
The world-building could have been better because needed more reasons as to why the society was so patriarchal.
But I loved how twisted the story of Cinderella was. I also liked that in every chapter, the true Cinderella story was unravelled. It was amazing how the entire ‘true’ Cinderella story wasn’t let out all at once and was let out slowly. This really kept the suspense intact.
In conclusion, this book was amazing and I would recommend it to anybody who wants a retelling of Cinderella with queer and badass characters.
OTHER INFORMATION: None
TRIGGER WARNINGS:
1. Animal death
2. Arranged marriages
3. Corpse description
4. Death
5. Domestic abuse
6. Homophobia
7. Kidnapping
8. Misogyny
9. Murder
10. Physical assault
11. Selling people
12. Sexual assault (nonconsensual kissing)
