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.
Jan’s Review
This is the perfect kind of retelling of a classic fairy tale story, why because it rooted in the original Grimm fairy tale. The first part of the story is right at the part where the prince is coming to find the mysterious lady from the ball who will fit the glass slipper. True to the original we have the two ugly stepsisters disfiguring their feet to fit into the glass slipper and Ella locked away. Of course, the story goes that Ella gets the prince and the two ugly stepsister and evil stepmom are left to their own devices.
This is where our retelling comes into play this story focuses on Isabella and Tavi, I like that this story hits the nail on the head on all kind of girl personality’s that the world deems as ugly. There, of course, is a lesson to be learned buried in this story and it centers around the ugliness that is buried inside Isabella who makes a bargain with a fairy to become pretty.
This story interweaves fate and chance into the story and makes you really examine how you see yourself. Fate tests you with negative feelings of self-doubt and Chance gives you opportunities to think again and try again. Their a few humorous parts involving cheese and how a disgusting experiment will save the day in a very smelly way. If your feeling like your less then what you are or that the world has condemned you as not pretty pick this book up your sure to see yourself in another light when you are done.
