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3.34 AVERAGE
3.34 AVERAGE
I loved the concept of this book, it I didn’t particularly like the execution of it. I get like it dragged on in parts for things that didn’t end up mattering in the end. It also was fairly confusing to keep track of the timeline & how everything was working. Also, the main character was extremely unlikeable and fell flat for me.
I can't even describe how good this book was. Just...read it. Trust me.
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The starting was promising. But then it gets ... weird and confusing. It seems like the write wants to put too many characters with their own backstories in one book... there some parts that I dont think it is necessary i.e. Brie and Nimbles story... if the writer had just focus on Cinderella...(sigh) ...
I don’t know why this has such a low score on Goodreads. It was a beautiful story. I listened to the audiobook version. Maybe it was the audiobook narrator’s voice so full of pain and emotion or the gorgeous writing, but I couldn’t stop listening. I guess I can see why some people wouldn’t like the book’s narrator, being unreliable and having many flaws, not really overcoming them until the very end and even then still having things to work on. That’s what I loved though. She was so real. This isn’t escapism and the content may hit too close to home for a lot of people. I loved this story though. It is so unique and heartbreaking and hopeful. It doesn’t make excuses, but slowly reveals the dirty world layer by layer until the reader finally realizes what is going on and I was very impressed by how well the author pulls this off. I make no apologies for loving this book.
dark
slow-paced
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
If you like to read books that make you say to yourself, "The enchanted mouse subplot really has a lot to say about intersectional feminism," do I have a book for you.
As it happens, I do like to read books that make me say such things, and so this book just exactly hit the spot for me. I was utterly absorbed by it. It's about Cinderella, but this Cinderella is middle-aged, reflecting on decades of marriage to a prince less charming than she had imagined him, and wondering if she's wasted her life. She waxes poetic about her love for her children:
As it happens, I do like to read books that make me say such things, and so this book just exactly hit the spot for me. I was utterly absorbed by it. It's about Cinderella, but this Cinderella is middle-aged, reflecting on decades of marriage to a prince less charming than she had imagined him, and wondering if she's wasted her life. She waxes poetic about her love for her children:
it is instant and complete, a full and sure surrender, like falling into deep, deep waters that close over you. At times the waters are warm and tranquil, familiar like an all-enveloping blanket, a one-eyed teddy bear, a worn-out bedtime story, the milky smell behind a baby's tiny seashell of an ear, and they carry you through your days in somnolent, animal peace; and at other times, they turn roiling and fierce, taking your breath away with fears and worries, tossing you about on sleepless night--yet this love is always there, always whole, needing no light to feed it.
But of her feelings for her husband she says this: "It is more like the sun that burns bright in your eyes, is it not--and when the sun is gone and you close your eyes, defeated, its afterimage is blackness."
And so Cinderella sets off to deal with the blackness. I won't spoil the plot, except to say that it doesn't go where you think it might in the first pages. Olga Grushin is using a familiar fairy tale -- and in the pages that follow, riffs on other familiar fairy tale -- to look at marriage and motherhood and mid-life crises and the book is more rewarding and reflective than you might at first suspect. And yes, I did find that the enchanted mice -- Brie and Nibbles -- provided an oddly rich and wildly entertaining subplot.
This is a book with a light touch and if you can't enjoy books with talking mice and magic spells then it probably isn't going to be your cuppa. But it provided me with more food for thought than I expected. I'm docking it a quarter-star because I don't think the ending quite landed but other than that I have no complaints.
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Charmed Wife is written as an epilogue to the classic Cinderella story—what happens after Cinderella marries her prince and lives happily ever after? In Grushin’s telling of it, Cinderella and her prince drift further and further apart, until Cinderella is compelled to seek out a witch and ask for the prince to be killed so that she can be freed of her misery. But that’s just the beginning of the story. To find true happiness, Cinderella must look deep inside herself and understand what she’s really been looking for all these years.
I heard about The Charmed Wife through a Dominic Noble YouTube video, where he and his friend debate whether The Charmed Wife is a sad story or a hopeful one. In my opinion, it’s both. Cinderella certainly goes through some heart-wrenching events and gets kicked down multiple times throughout the book. Yet she keeps going on, and I’d say the ending leans more hopeful than sad.
This book did a great job of re-telling the Cinderella story with truly original touches. The mice that Cinderella befriends have an entire sub-plot, unbeknownst to her. Many other fairy tales are woven into Cinderella’s story, each with their own unique twists. And Grushin deftly weaves together flashbacks with the present day, which keeps the plot at a rapid pace.
Grushin also uses language beautifully. Her words are fitting for a fairy tale, and I couldn’t get enough of them.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Drug abuse, Infidelity
This book was provided to me by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Is this a joke? This is an actual published book?! Good god, it's one of the worst books I've ever read. I got as far as 18% and I don't even know how I managed that. This was really bad, bad storytelling, bad writing, bland characters. I was more a badly written cinderella fanfiction than an actual book.
Is this a joke? This is an actual published book?! Good god, it's one of the worst books I've ever read. I got as far as 18% and I don't even know how I managed that. This was really bad, bad storytelling, bad writing, bland characters. I was more a badly written cinderella fanfiction than an actual book.