Cinder and Ella

This post first published August 9, 2011.

Author: Melissa Lemon
Published: November 8, 2011
Publisher: Bonneville Books
208 pages (galley)
 
I adore fairy tale retellings, especially Cinderella, because it’s definitely my most favourite fairy tale of all time. When I saw this available on NetGalley, I knew I wanted to read it!

In Cinder and Ella, there is actually a family of six — a mother, a father, and four daughters. The father disappeared long ago, lured away by a dark prince. The mother spends all her time working and doesn’t really bother to take care of her kids. Two of the daughters, Katrina and Beatrice, are absolute brats and the other two, Cinder and Ella are more responsible (Cinder being the more kind one). I thought it was really unique that the character of Cinderella was split into two characters, I never saw that before.

The story is really cute and sweet. Cinder goes to work at the kingdom castle and Ella runs away from home to work as a servant for someone else. When Cinder returns home for the weekend, she sees Ella has run away and her worry causes one of the castle knights, Sir Tanner, to decide to embark on a quest to find Ella. This quest, however, is watched over carefully by the dark prince, who Cinder begins to fall in love with. Tanner can’t figure out why the prince wants Ella so badly, so he becomes quite wary.

I am not really sure why this book is categorized as a Young Adult novel. I think this is definitely more of a children’s or middle-grade book. The story is really short and simple, the characters are one-dimensional (not that that’s a bad thing in a children’s book) and the writing is simplistic as well. It really reads like a Brothers Grimms fairy tale. If I had picked this book up expecting a YA novel, I think I would have been disappointed.

But as a children’s novel, it’s perfect. It definitely feels like an original take on an old fairy tale, and I loved how at the end there were a list of discussion questions, such as “When members of a family are struggling, what effect can that have on the other members of the family?” (Also based on the questions, this is another reason why I feel it’s more of a children’s book than a YA book). The only thing I was not as crazy about with the story was how it ended. It was one of those kinds of endings that make you go, “Well, why didn’t he just do that from the very beginning?!”

But other than that, I enjoyed this Cinderella retelling. It was a fast-paced story and made for a quick, fun read.

My Rating: 3/5