An adaption of the Princess related fairy tale Cinderella, alas I doubt Charles Perrault would be too pleased with the first 30. In fairness to Jennifer, she does add a little background to the ugly sisters, indicating that the environment has moulded them into their bullying behaviours in respect to their step sister. But I don’t think she pulls off the plot, there are weaknesses that can’t be ignored, leaving some unbelievable characters that spoil it for me.
The writing takes you through the story quickly, making reasonable use of language, in many ways this is enjoyable. There is an excellent portion where the ugly sisters are cutting off lumps of their feet to fit into the glass slipper, their controlling mother effectively making them cripple their selves, her drive for high wealth and social standing has no limits, very macabre. But the way that the prince and his advisor are fooled by the mother’s subterfuge not once but twice is highly unbelievable.
The other part that niggles at me, is the way the book is stuck in the past, with the concept the beautiful nice one and the ugly evil ones. Why not make them ugly sisters and step sisters similar in their attractiveness to the opposite sex, then we could focus on how beauty is a reflection of personality, which is not perceived uniformly, there is no one size fits all, I am assuming that this book is for adults. We could even have the ugly sisters becoming as beautiful as Cinderella, however they are not off to a good start with their smashed up feet. Cinderella being described as an object to be desired by all men based on external physical beauty is very disappointing. Jennifer could have turned the tables on this one sided fairy tale and introduced a truly positive feminist spin on things.
So what is my ideal Cinderella novel? Model Cinderella on Catherine the Great, taking control and introducing reform to improve the nation, whilst the thick Prince takes a back seat. Conflict could come from with the Prince turning to alcohol and abuse, Cinderella realising that love at first sight hasn’t worked out too well. Then either taking things into her own hands to protect herself and her position in the realm, or working with her husband to bring him out of his depression. And the ugly sisters? Always the support act, they could behave badly at first, but as Jennifer has done, introduce the reasoning and indicate the human capacity for change, perhaps with one of them finishing the story as the true beauty of the novel. The latter is how I hope this book pans out.
I do like the idea of focussing on the ugly sister, bringing some beauty to her personality, but I don’t like the way this has been done. This is an easy reader, so I’m disappointed that the first 30 pages haven’t worked for me, there has not been enough complexity to the characters, but this may change through the rest of the book.
The writing takes you through the story quickly, making reasonable use of language, in many ways this is enjoyable. There is an excellent portion where the ugly sisters are cutting off lumps of their feet to fit into the glass slipper, their controlling mother effectively making them cripple their selves, her drive for high wealth and social standing has no limits, very macabre. But the way that the prince and his advisor are fooled by the mother’s subterfuge not once but twice is highly unbelievable.
The other part that niggles at me, is the way the book is stuck in the past, with the concept the beautiful nice one and the ugly evil ones. Why not make them ugly sisters and step sisters similar in their attractiveness to the opposite sex, then we could focus on how beauty is a reflection of personality, which is not perceived uniformly, there is no one size fits all, I am assuming that this book is for adults. We could even have the ugly sisters becoming as beautiful as Cinderella, however they are not off to a good start with their smashed up feet. Cinderella being described as an object to be desired by all men based on external physical beauty is very disappointing. Jennifer could have turned the tables on this one sided fairy tale and introduced a truly positive feminist spin on things.
So what is my ideal Cinderella novel? Model Cinderella on Catherine the Great, taking control and introducing reform to improve the nation, whilst the thick Prince takes a back seat. Conflict could come from with the Prince turning to alcohol and abuse, Cinderella realising that love at first sight hasn’t worked out too well. Then either taking things into her own hands to protect herself and her position in the realm, or working with her husband to bring him out of his depression. And the ugly sisters? Always the support act, they could behave badly at first, but as Jennifer has done, introduce the reasoning and indicate the human capacity for change, perhaps with one of them finishing the story as the true beauty of the novel. The latter is how I hope this book pans out.
I do like the idea of focussing on the ugly sister, bringing some beauty to her personality, but I don’t like the way this has been done. This is an easy reader, so I’m disappointed that the first 30 pages haven’t worked for me, there has not been enough complexity to the characters, but this may change through the rest of the book.