
author: Jennifer Donnelly
published: 5.14.2019
publisher: Scholastic Press
genre(s): folklore, reimagining
pages: 342
source: library
format: hardcover
buy/shelve it: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | BookBub | BookHype | Goodreads
rating:

the blurb
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.
- a few notes
- my review
- the good & the bad
content warning: a couple instances of body gore at the very beginning
POV: 3rd person
keywords/phrases: magic, gender roles, fate
tropes: hero’s journey, reluctant hero, side quests, high stakes
spice: 0🔥
language: 0🤬
read this if… you enjoy high fantasy and fractured folklore.
the good
- an antagonist turned protagonist
- the feminist take on a well-known story
- the interesting perspective
- the after-story to the Cinderella tale
the bad
- no notes
Unlike most reimaginings of the tale, this one begins as the classic Cinderella ends. Tavi has removed her heel at the behest of their mother, and Isabelle has removed her toes. But this story continues after Cinderella finds her happy ending, and focuses on Isabelle, one of the ugly stepsisters.
Set in a time when women are told who and what to be in society, Isabelle and Tavi just don’t fit in the mold. Their mother has tried to force them into it, so caught in societal ideals that she can see nothing else for them, even to their, and her own, detriment. The sisters have tried to be what their mother wanted them to be, even going so far as to maim themselves for the effort. But both of them want something else for themselves. Tavi loves math and science, wants nothing more than to be a scholar. But that’s a man’s world, just like the world Isabelle dreams of. She is fascinated by warriors, by strength and courage, even as she doesn’t see those qualities within herself. So over time, the sisters have become so bitter. But then things begin to change. Their world is upended, and it is up to Isabelle to take care of her sister and her mother. She believes their lives would be very different if only she and her sister were beautiful, like Ella, that beauty would take them out of their plight. So a wish for beauty sends Isabelle on a journey like those she’s only dreamed of.
I loved the inclusion of the Fates, their part in Isabelle’s twisted path. And the aptly named Chance, a charismatic marquis determined to meddle in Fate’s map for Isabelle’s life. His determination to show her another way to be was beautiful, especially in the way he guided her.
The book shows that women are layered and complex, capable of so much. They can be more than the world tells then they can and should be. That’s an important message.
The best quote from the book…
“Go now, girl. Remake the world.”
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2025 52 Books Reading Challenge
- 2025 Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge: Author Edition
- 2025 Fairytale Reading Challenge
- 2025 Linz the Bookworm & Logophile Reading Challenge
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