Stepsister

Summary: 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’s cut off her toes to fit into Cinderella’s shoe ... which is now filling with blood.

When the prince discovers Isabelle’s deception, she is turned away in shame. It’s no more than she deserves: she is a plain girl in a world that values beauty; a feisty girl in a world that wants her to be pliant.

Isabelle has tried to fit in. To live up to her mother’s expectations. To be like her stepsister. To be sweet. To be pretty. One by one, she has cut away pieces of herself in order to survive a world that doesn’t appreciate a girl like her. And that has made her mean, jealous, and hollow.

Until she gets a chance to alter her destiny and prove what ugly stepsisters have always known: it takes more than heartache to break a girl.

Review:

My rating: 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“There is magic in this sad, hard world. A magic stronger than fate, stronger than chance. And it is seen in the unlikeliest of places....It lives inside every human being ready to redeem us. To transform us. To save us. If we can only find the courage to listen to it.

It is the magic of the human heart.”

This by far the best fairy-tale retelling that I have ever read. I used to love fairytales. I loved reading them, watching them, hearing them, even pretending to be in them. But many fairytales could use some retelling. Maybe it's time to get rid of helpless princesses, knights in shining armor, ugly stepsisters, and everything in between. If anyone was fit to rewrite these fairytales that almost every child grew up hearing, it's Jennifer Donnelly. And here's why I loved this book to bits, and am now unable to forget it.

✨The concept of Fate and Chance has been present in literature for centuries, but this novel presented a whole new take on it. Jennifer Donnelly wrote into it all these tiny details that made the concept much more intricate. So basically, there's these maps and these three ladies who make them using these special inks, luck, risk. determination, and so many others, all with different colors and textures. And then there are the maps themselves. They show all the major events of your life, with each inch representing a year of your life. Only, these events aren't set in stone...they can be rewritten.

✨Isabelle!! She's the perfect heroine for this story, who as she tries to find the pieces of her heart, helps change the course of her town's history along the way. She's brave, fierce, and loyal, but if the thing I liked the most was that she had FLAWS. One of my biggest pet peeves is when the main character is completely and totally perfect. She's nice, beautiful, brave, super-intelligent, an amazing leader, and she can do everything she tries to on the first try??

Isabelle isn't like that. She's a real person, with flesh and blood, and strengths and flaws.

✨ The poetic descriptions in this book are absolutely beautiful! The descriptions were vivid and written well, without seeming too boring or slow, which can be challenging to do.

These are only three of the main things I like about this and there are so many more, but if you want to know them, you should see for yourself! I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fairy-tale retellings and girl power!