Title: Stepsister
Author: Jennifer Donnelly
Narrator: Jayne Entwistle
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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In summary, this is an amazingly penned feminist retelling of the Cinderella story. In this tale, one of the “Ugly” stepsisters is the main character. Her Name’s Isabelle and the story picks up from where the OG Cinderella story ended. The sisters cut part of their feet to fit into the glass slipper, but they were found out. Cinderella came out in the nick of time and found her prince, and lived happily ever after. But what happened to the stepsisters after Ella’s happy ever After? Why did they even have to cut their toes to begin with? Why did they hate Cinderella so MUCH?
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This story takes the tale we’ve known forever and gives us a very beautiful angle to it. All the characters from the story are reimagined, with the addition of some new awesome and annoying characters. I love how this story was written.
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It explores misogyny, patriarchy, and the limitations that come with being female. Girls are expected to be one thing – prim and proper and nice and smile all the time. If you deviate from the norm, if you’re not interested in parties and balls, if you love books and science or adventure and battle, then you’re “ugly”.
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No character in this book is perfect. Everyone is inherently flawed, even darling Cinderella.
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In the vein of Kalynn Bayron’s Cinderella is Dead, which I also absolutely loved, this book explores the misogynist origins of the “ugly”, “evil”, and “wicked” tags associated with Ella’s stepsisters. We also get to see fate and chance at work and how much willpower a person can wield towards creating their own destiny. This book also reimagined the fairy godmother, and I love how she was written in this book. I love all the behind-the-scenes power tussle that happened between Fate and Chance (they’re actually characters in the book, I’m sure you’ll love them). This book borrows a bit from Greek mythology, by including the Fate sisters, the three women that weave the destinies of all mortals.
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This is one book I really recommend to everyone!
Blurb
An instant New York Times bestseller!
A Seventeen Best of the Year
Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal
A YALSA pick
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 cut off her toes to fit into Cinderella’s shoe . . . which is now filling with blood.
Isabelle tried to fit in. She cut away pieces of herself in order to become pretty. Sweet. More like Cinderella. But that only made her mean, jealous, and hollow. Now she has a chance to alter her destiny and prove what ugly stepsisters have always known: it takes more than heartache to break a girl.
Evoking the darker, original version of the Cinderella story, Stepsister shows us that ugly is in the eye of the beholder, and uses Jennifer Donnelly’s trademark wit and wisdom to send an overlooked character on a journey toward empowerment, redemption . . . and a new definition of beauty.
The Author
Jennifer Donnelly is the author of thirteen novels and a picture book for children. She grew up in New York State and studied English Literature and European History at the University of Rochester.
Jennifer’s first novel, THE TEA ROSE, is an epic historical novel set in London and New York in the late 19th century. Her second novel, A GATHERING LIGHT, set against the backdrop of an infamous murder in the Adirondacks of 1906, won the Carnegie Medal, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Borders Original Voices Award, and was named a Printz Honor book.
In 2014, Jennifer teamed up with Disney to launch the bestselling WATERFIRE saga, an epic series about six mermaids on a quest to rid the world of an ancient evil.
Jennifer lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her husband, daughter and two rescue dogs. Follow Jennifer at http://www.jenniferdonnelly.com or on Twitter: @JenWritesBooks
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