Courtney Armstrong
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I loved this fresh take on a fairy tale retelling! There are so many out there, but this is the first one I have seen that weaves in the original fairy tale into the history of the story. They reference reading the book so many times - each home has a copy! It was amazing. There was also a shoutout to another fairy tale - I'm hoping we get a book on that one too! The characters were amazing and diverse. This was a true dystopian time, but there was so much hope in the book! Definite must-read if you love retellings or dystopian tales!
Andrea Stoeckel
(Read as part of the NYPL Banned Books Club) "Do not be silent. Raise your voice. Be a light in the dark" Sophia lives in the land of Cinderella and her Prince Charming. But there's nothing "Charming" about this retelling. Sophia and the other girls in her city are required to attend a yearly ball at the castle, where they are "chosen". But what do you do when you'd rather marry your best girlfriend over some male fool? Sophia meets Constance, the last remaining living person from Cinderella's family, and between Constance's working to ends the reign of the one who everyone thought was so "charming" 200 years before, and Sophia's visions, they work together with a witch to try to overthrow the monster that has terrorized the women forever. And I am NOT going to spoil this book except to say you have to read it. It is an empowering book in an age that is trying to disempower women and those who are "different". Thank you NYPL for making this available and here's to many more
Lenore Kosinski
4 stars — Yet another book that I was wary of when I started…just wasn’t immediately sucked in, you know? Kept wondering where it was going to go. But somewhere along the way I did get sucked in, and I desperately wanted to know details of the mystery. I think this is probably a 3.75 star book for me, but since that’s even more impossible to indicate than half stars, I’m just going to be generous. It was great to have an ownvoices aspect to this story, but I will say that Sophia being black really didn’t play into the narrative at all (it’s just nice having a black heroine). But the LGBT aspect played a HUGE role. I appreciated the role it played, and only occasionally did it feel like the allusions to present day were a bit heavy handed…otherwise it was pretty smooth and eye opening. I was worried a bit about the romance in this one, particularly given Erin. But I thought that was all handled very well, and it was really cute watching Sophia and Constance develop feelings, and navigate a new potential relationship. Their romance didn’t play a major role, but their orientation definitely did. As far as the retelling aspect, this is obviously not exactly a retelling so much as a “what happens after”, and “maybe we didn’t have all the facts” type of story. But I’m still classifying it as a retelling, because the story plays a MAJOR role in the plot. There were certain aspects of the story that, as a READER, were so obvious it was actually painful when none of the characters saw it. Why can’t they just be reading this book and seeing all the clues the way I am? I’m a bit impatient that way, so that was…occasionally frustrating. But there were plenty of other aspects of the mystery that I *totally* did NOT guess, and kept me on my toes! I kind of loved a few of the explanations in this one, it really made me think and want to keep reading. There are some heavy themes involving domestic violence, the toxic elements of inequality among the genders, and all that falls out of that. I appreciated the way it presented how good people can feel hopeless and thus allow a bad situation to continue. All in all, I was entertained and kept on my toes. And the side romance didn’t hurt at all. I feel like I’ve been generous in my reading lately (and how I’m rating this), so I bet a couple months ago Lenore would have rated this one more 3.5, but still a fun ride.
4 people found this review helpful