Read from December 21st to 23rd
Young Adult Fantasy
352 pages
Synopsis:
Isabelle should be blissfully happy – she’s about to win the handsome prince. Except Isabelle isn’t the beautiful girl who lost the glass slipper and captured the prince’s heart. She’s the ugly stepsister who’s cut off her toes to fit into Cinderella’s shoe ... which is now filling with blood.
When the prince discovers Isabelle’s deception, she is turned away in shame. It’s no more than she deserves: she is a plain girl in a world that values beauty; a feisty girl in a world that wants her to be pliant.
Isabelle has tried to fit in. To live up to her mother’s expectations. To be like her stepsister. To be sweet. To be pretty. One by one, she has cut away pieces of herself in order to survive a world that doesn’t appreciate a girl like her. And that has made her mean, jealous, and hollow.
Until she gets a chance to alter her destiny and prove what ugly stepsisters have always known: it takes more than heartache to break a girl.
This was an interesting retelling if Cinderella told from the perspective of one of the ugly stepsisters—Isabelle. Isabelle has been manipulated by her mother basically her whole entire life. Her mother's one goal is to solidify her daughters into marriages with men of esteem so she can live in luxury.
The beginning of the story holds true to what we know of the original Cinderella, but then it takes a turn when Fate and Chance start toying with Isabelle’s life map. Fate is known for drawing maps for all individuals using inks of her own creation that are unalterable. Chance steals Isabelle's map with the determination that he can alter Isabelle's map and change the end of her story. The Fate and Chance portion of the story was an interesting take and held deeper meaning than just characters in a plot. What in our life do we attribute to fate or to chance; or as a psychologist, we would ask whether this person has an internal or external locus of control.
The weirdest thing about this book was that over use of chapters. I feel like 129 chapters is far too many in such a small book. You would have had to read the book to understand the strange placement of these chapters as well. Almost as though it was in the middle of a plot development instead of finishing the thought. It just seemed odd to me. I was just not here for that.
Considering the book took me quite a while to actually start enjoying, I don’t feel like I can rate this any higher than 3 stars. Although, I did quite enjoy the ending! Just not enough to change my overall opinion nor rating of the book.
