Rating: 3/5 stars

Category: YA, fantasy, romance, adventure

Source: Audible

Trigger: None

Hello Readers, welcome back to my blog.

SUMMARY

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 step sisters. 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

Sophia is a headstrong girl who doesn’t want to conform to the norm, no matter the danger that puts her in. It has been 200 years since the death of Cinderella and her fairytale life now influences everything in Sophia’s town except it is not favourable to women. Young girls have to attend the ball at the Palace where men from the town pick their wives and if a girl doesn’t get picked on her third ball, she is considered a spinster and sent to work. Except some girls are never seen again when they are forfeited. Sophia wants nothing more than to be with her best friend but in a town where girls have to attend balls to get chosen as wives, there is no room for stepping out of line or having feelings that will get her imprisoned or killed. Sophia’s parents are determined to keep her safe even if they know she will never be happy with a man, so they spare no expense to send Sophia to the ball.

Sophia goes to the ball and all is just as she expected, disastrous. The King and his goons disgrace her friend Viv, who turns up dead the next day. Sophia escapes the ball through a bathroom window and runs to Cinderella’s mausoleum which shouldn’t exist, where she meets Constance. Constance tells Sophia the truth about Cinderella’s story and how it has been used to suppress and subdue women in their Kingdom. Sophia and Constance decide to break the mould and free their Kingdom but rebellion comes at a price, are they prepared to pay it?

I liked the flow of the book, it doesn’t feel too fast or slow and things are revealed on time. The women are the main protagonists and the men are the villains. As usual, fighting for equal rights is bloody and only the victorious get to tell their story to shape history. I gave 3 out of 5 stars purely out of personal feelings. It took a while for me to get into the flow of the story and to connect in any way with the characters. In the end, I still didn’t feel any affinity with any of the characters. It was an overall good story but I didn’t feel moved to love it or hate it. Anyone who loves female liberation stories with an LGBT twist will love this story.

If you like this review and are interested in reading or listening to this book, you can purchase this book using the links below:

Waterstones (UK) – https://tidd.ly/3prSyR7

Book depository (Free worldwide shipping) – https://tidd.ly/3FvdFrh

Audible (audio books) –  https://tidd.ly/3EtH3gz

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James 2:4-17 – What good is it, dear brothers and sister, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well” – but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.