A review by mushmysteriesandmore
Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

adventurous challenging inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 A retelling of Cinderella, featuring a queer romance, feminist movement at its finest and a whole new slant on the Cinderella fairytale. The familiar characters of Cinderella, Prince Charming and the Fairy Godmother in particular are not what we are familiar with. What if Cinderella didn’t love the Prince like we thought? What if the Prince wasn’t as Charming as we were led to believe? And what if the Fairy Godmother wasn’t the answer to every girl’s problem but the cause?

I loved the two leads in this book. Sophia does not want to be chosen by a man at the mandatory royal ball, she doesn’t want to be beholden to a man, like every other woman in her town. This town is completely backward in its treatment of women, they should be seen and not heard, all women have a curfew of 8 pm and at the age of sixteen they are legally bound to attend the royal ball in the hope of being chosen by a man to be their wife, otherwise, their lives are forfeit into servitude or worse.

This book was brilliant, I was completely hooked from start to finish. I loved the new take on the old fairy tale and how our heroine Sophia refused to accept the laws passed down for centuries. Her fledgling romance with Constance, a descendant of one of the ‘evil’ stepsisters is wonderfully innocent but passionate.

The plot will have you swinging this way and that as you try to figure out what is happening. There are a few weird and dark moments (necromancy for one) but all in all, this book was one of my favourites so far this year. 

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