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antiauk 's review for:
Cinder and Ella
by Melissa Lemon
Note: Review copy provided via NetGalley.
Although this is billed as a retelling of Cinderella, I didn't find much that was even remotely related to one of the traditional versions. This wouldn't have been a problem for me had the story been strong enough to stand on its own, unfortunately there were numerous problems that kept me from fully enjoying the work. However, I want to discuss the positive aspects of this story first.
I thought that the legend of the trees was an interesting and actually wish Lemon would have led with that and woven the legend into the story a bit more.
The character of Ella is promising in that she is presented as someone willing to question the conditions surrounding her. As her family falls apart, she is the first (and possibly the only) one to recognize that her family was no longer functioning the way it ought to, and that the best thing for her personal health was to remove herself from that environment.
Unfortunately, none of the characterizations in the book are very strong and they seem to change their minds and motivations with almost no forewarning or development. Many of the characters were defined by their One Special Trait so repeatedly that they became mere caricatures, which they sometimes miraculously developed halfway through their portion in the book (Tanner is the obvious one here). Others got labeled as being inefficient or incompetent with very little evidence to support the label (i.e. Flesher).
The plot also suffered from a bit of inconsistency and didn't really have much of a climax, rather than building a sense of tension, we are treated to vaguely relevant side quests and then reminded that, "No the real problem is to take care of the evil prince." Sadly, we don't even find out how or why the prince is evil until the last third or so of the book, instead we have to rely on the author telling us this fact, rather than presenting us with even the hint of evidence.
The book is very heavy on Telling rather than Showing, which could easily have worked for this book if the language had more closely mirrored traditional fairytales, instead it fell short of this (particularly with the dialog between Ella and Tanner or Ella and Cinder).
Finally, I can't tell if this book was written for a middle grade audience or YA. The sentence structure suggests middle grade, but some of the topics are borderline YA. I think this would be a stronger work if it was pushed over into the realm of YA and given more of an edge. Perhaps then the author will allow the reader to see how evil the Prince is, rather than just telling us that it is so.
Although this is billed as a retelling of Cinderella, I didn't find much that was even remotely related to one of the traditional versions. This wouldn't have been a problem for me had the story been strong enough to stand on its own, unfortunately there were numerous problems that kept me from fully enjoying the work. However, I want to discuss the positive aspects of this story first.
I thought that the legend of the trees was an interesting and actually wish Lemon would have led with that and woven the legend into the story a bit more.
The character of Ella is promising in that she is presented as someone willing to question the conditions surrounding her. As her family falls apart, she is the first (and possibly the only) one to recognize that her family was no longer functioning the way it ought to, and that the best thing for her personal health was to remove herself from that environment.
Unfortunately, none of the characterizations in the book are very strong and they seem to change their minds and motivations with almost no forewarning or development. Many of the characters were defined by their One Special Trait so repeatedly that they became mere caricatures, which they sometimes miraculously developed halfway through their portion in the book (Tanner is the obvious one here). Others got labeled as being inefficient or incompetent with very little evidence to support the label (i.e. Flesher).
The plot also suffered from a bit of inconsistency and didn't really have much of a climax, rather than building a sense of tension, we are treated to vaguely relevant side quests and then reminded that, "No the real problem is to take care of the evil prince." Sadly, we don't even find out how or why the prince is evil until the last third or so of the book, instead we have to rely on the author telling us this fact, rather than presenting us with even the hint of evidence.
The book is very heavy on Telling rather than Showing, which could easily have worked for this book if the language had more closely mirrored traditional fairytales, instead it fell short of this (particularly with the dialog between Ella and Tanner or Ella and Cinder).
Finally, I can't tell if this book was written for a middle grade audience or YA. The sentence structure suggests middle grade, but some of the topics are borderline YA. I think this would be a stronger work if it was pushed over into the realm of YA and given more of an edge. Perhaps then the author will allow the reader to see how evil the Prince is, rather than just telling us that it is so.