Cinderella Is Dead

Oh I aggressively love the decision to situate this within the concept of Cinderella. I'm a fan of fairy tales being twisted around and told in a new way already, but like. Very much enjoyed that. I felt echoes of The Selection series, of course, but more aggressive and justified not just by tradition, this is how it's always been, but almost by religion, if you can consider the worship of Cinderella and her story to be that. It did take a bit to get off the ground-I feel like tdd he author was trying to make it Very Clear that our girl had no other option than to leave her friend behind, by giving us like three repetitions of ‘Come away with me, to be free and gay!' ‘No, we can't, we mustn't!'

Also, gay, I do appreciate the gay.

More of a 3.5 but I'm rounding up.

CW: domestic violence, implied animal death

I was excited to read a Cinderella retelling by a Black author and even more when I got the ARC for it, but just when I planned to read the book, I fell into a horrible slump and it's taken me this long to pick it back up again. And I'm glad I did.

This book was very easy to read and extremely fast paced, because the complete plot occurs in just a matter of weeks. I breezed through it in just a few hours and it was just the kind of thing I was in the mood for at the time. However, due to these factors and also this being a standalone, I felt that we didn't get to know more about the world itself this story is set in. The deconstruction of the fairytale of Cinderella itself was quite interesting because I've never seen something like this, but other than that we don't get to see much of this world at all. The events in the story also kept happening at such a pace that there was no breathing room, and I guess I also felt things were too convenient.

I liked our main character Sophia for wanting a better life for herself outside of the constraints the world forces on her, but she was also impulsive and didn't always think before diving headfirst into whatever she wants to do. I'm still not sure how I felt about her relationship with Erin because I thought there was too much of the two girls trying to force their opinion on each other. Constance was a character who did have some very interesting backstory, and I liked getting to know about her history and how she is trying to keep her family legacy alive, but she didn't have a POV so I didn't feel like I got to know her enough.

I have never had a problem with the instalove trope, especially in YA because I don't find it unrealistic. In this story, the affections transfer from one girl to the other in such a quick time that I wasn't convinced, but I did enjoy the couple who ended up being together.

There are quite a lot of side characters but the only one who left any impression was the fairy godmother. In this whole retelling of the fairytale, I think the way her individual story was changed and her character arc developed was both thrilling and unexpected. In a fairly predictable book, I think it was the only twist that made me go wow. The main villain and most of the male characters were vile and abusive while most of the women seemed to have given up and accustomed to their oppressed fate.

As the book was marketed very accurately, this is a story about young Black women teaming up to bring down the patriarchy. And the book definitely delivers on this point. And I could see the point about how a charming leader can use his behavior/actions over the course of time to change the belief systems of an entire population, and let half of them be grateful for their oppression in exchange for security. I can totally see certain parallels to our real world and it could have worked as a cautionary tale - but I think the short length of the story prevented it from being a strong exploration of the themes of patriarchy, misogyny, domestic violence. And while I really appreciated the message of female empowerment and necessity of the dismantling of systems built by patriarchy, they were a tad superficial in execution.

In the end, this was a very unique and fresh take on the Cinderella fairytale, while also tackling important issues. It has a sweet sapphic romance and a very fast paced narrative which makes for an easy and compelling read, especially if you are not in the mood for an intense epic fantasy. I just think it would have been even better as a series, so that the characters and world could have been fleshed out - the standalone format ultimately feels like a disservice to an otherwise important story.

TW: abuse, arranged marriages, death, homophobia, misogyny, human trafficking

Thank you to Bloomsbury YA and Netgalley for providing me with an arc for review.

“Money, power, class, all those things come into play, but the founding tenet of our laws is that women, no matter their standing, are at the mercy of the fickle whims of men.”

Cinderella is Dead is a powerful take on a classic tale.

Sophia is sixteen year old who has questioned the way her world operates and how women within the kingdom do not have any of their own agency. As the story escalates Sophia learns the truth of how the rules came to be. Bayron is very direct towards the horrendous treatment towards women and all the ways that it can manifest. It was a little on the nose at times but that's honestly just a thing that happens in YA.

I really did enjoy this story. Much darker than I anticipated but that does not bother me that much. We got a story of queer teenage girls saying fuck the patriarchy. Another thing that I liked is that this isn't a story that takes place over 3 days. The feelings that they have for each other are something that blossom over time. I read this in about two days just because I couldn't wait to see how the heck this book was going to end.

First of all,

I did not like Sophia that much. For someone living under a tyrant she spoke her doubts and troubles out loud too much and didn't understand when other people didn't want to cause of their fear. I mean, Sophia girl they are just trynna survive chill?
But overall I get why Sophia is that way: this way and the way the message is written in this book it's IMPOSSIBLE to miss the message and symbolism in this book, making it a very direct book.

Overall I enjoyed this book a lot, but had a few issues wirh the pacing overall (especially nearing the end and the end chapter itself) and the growth between Sophia and Constance since for me it was a lil quick but it was a cute sapphic romance we definitely need to see more in books and I think it's a cute good read with an important message.

Be a light in the dark.

cw: discussions of domestic abuse, misogyny and homophobia

now, let me out myself as a basic b*tch before we get into this review: i absolutely adore the cinderella story, used to be obsessed with it as a kid and grew up with my own lovely illustrated german copy of the grimm fairy tales. and to this day cinderella retellings can get my attention quite easily if they bring something new to the table.

“cinderella is dead” is not a typical retelling in its structure. it is much more about the question of “what if that story was real and what if an entire country decided to live by that fairy tale's lessons”.

as you can probably tell by my 1 star rating... the book didn't really hit any marks for me. i will try to put some structure into the aspects that turned this book into the disappointment that it ended up being for me, so hold on and fasten your seatbelts


the writing

the writing itself often felt a bit too modern for the setting of the world. i am not quite certain when this is supposed to take place - and bear in mind that this is a made up world - but there are some hints in the world building that it would probably be around the 18th century in our real world? it doesn't really matter what the answer to that is, but it sure isn't 20th/21st century. i know that this is a ya novel but i think that teens are smart enough to understand non-colloquial english, too. i am being a little bit nitpicky on that aspect so let's move on.

aside from the modern style i also feel like the pacing was quite off. sometimes scenes went on for too long and sometimes scenes that should have been really important were over in a flash. what adds to this is that most of the time the atmosphere of the scene wasn't brought across properly. i could somewhat tell what the vibe was but i just wanted more of that. the same goes for how emotions were written in this book. most of the time emotions that the characters, especially our protagonist, were feeling, weren't given enough time to breathe. this is where more words would have been great. writing something along the line of “she felt fear” made the scenes fall flat to me because in my mind i just went “yup she sure did”.


the language

let me start by saying that i almost lost it when it was revealed that the kingdom is called “mersailles”. i was like huh did the author mean to write marseille (big city in france)? or maybe versailles (that's where the french king had his castle)? but no, here we have it, the kingdom of fantasy france is called mersailles. i do not like the name. it's subjective of course, but man this immediately took me out of the story and its fantasy world because i felt like the delivery man just brought me the wish version of france.
the problem isn't just the name of the kingdom, it is the language itself. the fairy tale cinderella is also known as cendrillon, which is basically the french version of the fairy tale, and afaik it is the more well known version thanks to disney & co. so it makes sense that our fantasy world is maybe at least inspired by france. and the name “mersailles” sure sounds like that too. well, why do some characters have french names and why do others have english names? honestly, this confused me a lot. the setting became a linguistic hodgepodge. obviously it is still a fantasy world but i can't help comparing it to our real life countries and languages because that is what the setting is using too. but why is there a character called luke when the author could have just gone for the french version luc?why is one brother called édouard and the other morris instead of the french version maurice? little details like linguistics are something that can make a fictional world feel much more real very easily, especially if you use languages that the readers can recognize, because they associate something specific with it already. and listen, if you want to use english sounding names in your french sounding fantasy kingdom? then use that as an interesting excuse for some background world building, language tells a story. i don't expect every author to be on tolkien levels of linguistics, but at least putting some thought into it can have such a big payoff in the end.


the world building

this is the first big aspect that made this book not work for me at all. the world building here is. not great. and it doesn't make sense.

so, this kingdom basically uses the cinderella fairy tale as its own version of the bible. everyone has to have a pristine copy of the story in their house and the girls have to read it aloud every evening. they have to learn the story by heart like some weird bible verses or whatever. girls have to try to live after cinderella's example and then they might get their own fairy godmother who grants them a wish to help them find a suitor at the ball!! okay obviously this isn't supposed to be something good, it is something that our protagonist is working against actively because it's fucked up propaganda and a tool used by the king to control the people but let's just look at this part separately for a second. why are people doing this? just because the king told them to? cinderella apparently lived 200 years ago - WHICH ISN'T A LONG TIME TBH - and suddenly everyone worships her and her story? that sure is wild. and extremely unrealistic. even if the old king told them to do that 200 years ago... that is such a specific thing to worship, especially when it's just a random woman who managed to get married to the king two. hundred. years. ago. it's as if the king of france suddenly told his people to worship the betrothal story of him and his queen. and 200 years later people were still doing that. in reality, people might be like “okay sure i guess?” and maybe some might believe in the fairy godmother part but also why would they - it is not like magic is deeply established in this world. it doesn't help that the king seems to be enforcing this rule in a very tyrannical way here. i think this part of the world building really discredits the people of fantasy france and makes them all seem a bit.. let's say gullible.

everything about this fantasy france kingdom mersailles just feels like it can be broken down to “evil king oppresses his people, especially girls and women, no one is having a good time”. i really, really wish there were more to it. i had so many questions while reading it. why can't the girls just run away to another kingdom? what are the borders here? how big is this kingdom even? how big is the capital? how does anything work in this kingdom? i don't even know anymore, all i know is “evil king makes people do things”.

i think the cinderella idea itself with the balls and whatnot has a lot of potential. but translating it directly into the world building like this just seems sort of ridiculous and unbelievable. i just feel like this could have been done in a more intriguing and clever way.


the misogyny

i can't NOT talk about this. i understand what the author was trying to do here. mersailles and its laws are misogynistic. women are constantly oppressed and treated badly. one might be able to draw some parallels to how the world is for women in our modern times but also back when being a woman meant not having many rights that men had. so, in theory, this isn't too unrealistic.

but then i dive deeper into the text and think about it for one more second.

the way that this story and world were written reminds me of a very superficial idea of what feminism is about. the stereotypical way that feminist are often portrayed by less well meaning form of media aka “all men are bad and should die”. this book, in its core, unfortunately carries that message. with very few exceptions every single man in this story is a piece of shit. they are either mean, creepy or just flat out abusive. and please do not accuse me of trying to go “not all men” right now, but what i am missing is some realism. all of this is very over the top in the book. as soon as a man popped up i just knew he was either going to say something extremely inappropriately sexual that objectifies women or he was going to be very horrible to his wife. yes, all of that unfortunately happens in real life too. but this is not what makes misogyny the problem that it still is today. i am missing the subtle forms of oppression, mindsets that have developed over centuries that women are for some reason “inferior” to men. being disgusting, creepy and abusive is not where misogyny starts or ends. it felt like a bad caricature.

simply put: i am missing so many nuances on this very difficult and important topic. instead the whole story feels like someone dipped their toes into feminist theories and now thinks that the big takeaway of that is “okay, men are bad, i have learned enough”.

let's talk about the female characters. the two main characters give me girl boss vibes, and you know what, good for them. but what i want to focus on is almost every other female character that we come across. most of them are extremely passive, they just accept that life sucks apparently and that men treat them like shit. oh you beat me half to death every day? guess that's just how it is! guess i should have lived more like cinderella! why. just why. this book wants to show us some kind of feminist stance but then it writes the female characters like this? only our special snowflake protagonist and her love interest are allowed to be smart and strong enough to not believe the propaganda or to not just give up and accept life as it is. yes there are a few minor characters like that too later on but they do not really matter. what matters it the overall impression that one gets from the story: women just let this shit happen to them and think that someone who tries to defy that is simply taking unnecessary risks and should just follow society's rules. amazing. outstanding. i will not travel back in time and show this to the women who always protested against any kind of injustice that they experienced. i don't get it. this also ties into the world building aspect but, like, why would they just accept it as normal that their husbands might treat them like shit and beat them up daily without anyone interfering? and why does every other man just accept this too? wish there were more moments of women rebelling. because that is how it has always been in real life.

once again, i was missing some nuances.

the resolution doesn't make any sense. the way that this story was written made it seem like one singular person aka the king was responsible for introducing the oppression of women into this world. we don't really know how it was before that but from some tidbits i guessed that women were at least allowed to work in the same positions as men, maybe they were even equal in everything, who knows. and then prince charming comes along and is slowly making the laws more restrictive for women under the guise of trying to protect the people. this is NOT how misogyny works. or oppression in general. it is not just cause by one random dude and everyone else just nods and goes along with his new ideas. societies don't work like that. especially considering how fucking awful it gets for the women in this kingdom. this is pretty much pushing the blame onto one person even though it is never just one person. i wish it were that easy.speaking of easy, i wish we could abolish sexism as easily as this book did it. obviously i am exaggerating right now but when we break it down it's like this: evil sexist king is killed, new reigning person is a girl, yay she abolishes every law that oppresses women, problem solved! and the book does mention that it of course isn't as easy as that and that many people will still think like this but it doesn't change the fact that it seems like the problem was suddenly solved very easily.

all in all, i feel like the topic of the oppression of women was treated on one hand in a very exaggerated way and on the other hand in a very superficial way. you don't really gain anything from it, especially since the blame was, in the end, pushed onto one man instead of society itself


the antagonist

it seems fitting that i continue with this aspect now. the antagonist. oh man, this book gave me “cartoonishly evil villain” as the final boss with a sprinkle of sexism on top of that. let's just say that i did not like it.

everything that we learn about the king and then later on the witch/his mother doesn't make him a compelling villain at all. and that's what he is. a typical evil dude who just wants to be evil and have power. this man lacks motivation. yes he wants power and wants to live forever but who is this man?? we barely learn anything about him except that he is EVIL and DISGUSTING and SEXIST. also greedy for power. but why? no one is just born like that. tell us more about him!! in theory i liked the idea of this eternal king who keeps coming back under new disguises and i loved the necromancy angle but i wish the author would have done so much more with that. and then the big reveal that the fairy godmother aka the witch is his mother. i went through the five stages of grief in like 0.1 seconds. once again, in theory i like that idea. i LOVE the idea that she was the one who brought him back and who is now tied to him. but that reveal happened way too late and in such a weird and comical way. it didn't help that the witch dies immediately afterwards. I HAD SO MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT ALL OF THAT. what was that woman even doing? why did she have to bring her son back from the dead? and what was her big plan in the end?i was hoping to learn about their motivations but i guess i didn't get my wish after all, worst fairy godmother, 1/10 would never book her again for any of my gigs.


the romance

another aspect that i was let down by a lot: the romance. dare i say it, but this book suffers from the “insta love” problem. now let me explain this for a sec: i'm not talking about teens feeling intense crushes and thinking “omg they are the one for me” even though they don't know the person yet. i am talking about a character going “wow i am so drawn to her, idk why, and i need to stay with her no matter what, we will save the world together, yes we have only known each other for two days what about it?” i did not care for the romance here. it was very rushed and honestly it almost felt like it was just a rebound for the protagonist who was still in love with another girl two days ago. i could see the author trying to bring across that inner conflict, but it didn't really land.

this romance had potential to be something cute and powerful, if it had not been this rushed. of course it was fine that our protagonist was immediately attracted to her love interest, i think that is something that most people who experience sexual and/or romantic attraction have felt at least once. but it is everything that follows that initial attraction. this story takes place in the span of like 2 weeks. why are these girlies ride or die for each other after two days. it didn't help that a lot of the time of those two weeks happens off screen, which means that we don't really see them grow closer. why should i be rooting for these two, i barely know them as individuals and i certainly don't know them as a potential couple yet!!

the queer rep

we have at least four known queer characters in this book. i appreciate that.

but there's more

1) the treatment of the one gay man that appears in the story. luke doesn't appear a lot in the story itself because he is mostly locked up in some dungeon in the castle for daring to be in an altercation with some bully who forced himself onto sophia. the glimpses that we see of him include some tropes that we see a lot in media. the angsty backstory where his boyfriend and him were outed against their will and something terrible happened to his boyfriend. gay suffering as we have seen it many times before. why is it always like this. and then he gets beaten up by a guy who was essentially his school bully? luke is not having a good time, but he at least survived? yeah the bar is barely above the ground right now.2) erin and sophia's relationship. my problem lies within the crux of their “breakup”: sophia wants to basically come out and run away with erin at the beginning of the story, erin is scared and doesn't want to do that, she just wants to stick to what society tells them to do. if we ignore all of the fantasy elements it should be a very familiar trope when it comes to queer couples: partner A who wants to come out, partner B who does not want to do that yet (and usually has a very legitimate reason for that). it is a very tired trope. most of the time it is also written in a way where the one who doesn't want to come out yet is the “problem” which is just unfair. let's look at sophia and erin here. sophia was being pushy about coming out and running away. erin on the other hand was very scared because the consequences of running away would be very awful and pretty much tells sophia to move on. she wants to find some guy who will marry her at their first ball. it all climaxes at the end of the story when erin has gotten married to a horrible man who hits her and sophia tries to save her one last time. erin is suddenly ice cold and blames sophia for leaving her alone. she still doesn't want to leave and gets mad at sophia for wanting to save her. sophia gives up at that point and returns to constance.my problem is that this story blames erin for not coming out, even though her fears were absolutely valid: they live in a homophobic world and being outed might get them killed. running away isn't a great option either, they don't know where they can go, etc. i get why erin is scared. she is now stuck in an awful, abusive marriage. and she has become an asshole herself now all of a sudden. and her first love chooses the free, more interesting girl instead. all of this in the span of two weeks, by the way. it is incredibly mean towards any queer person who hasn't been able to come out (yet). i was just imagining some random queer teenage girl with parents who wouldn't be okay with her sexuality reading this book and feeling absolutely awful about herself. i don't think we need this. especially if you look at how sophia literally chooses the girl who she can be openly gay with. i know that this is a very difficult topic in real life but i wish this would be treated better in media. because if it is treated like this? you are essentially blaming someone for not coming out.

As the title suggests, this book is based on the well known fairytale: Cinderella. We all know her, we know her story about the fairy who gave her a dress, glass shoes, a beautiful carriage to go to the palace and attend the ball. But what if that is not the true story, what if the books have been lying to us all along?

That's what this book is about. Sophia, the main character whos is Black and queer, is not happy in the world she lives in. It's a men's world, where girls and women don't have a say, they can't own a business or make their own money, they are abused and mistreated, they are considered weak and unimportant. But Sophia is tired of this and she really does want to change the world, starting with Lille, her home town. So this book is all about her smashing the patriarchy.

I liked the story and the whole idea of the book was really interesting, seeing this fairytale twisted into something bigger! Although, the only character that I really liked was Sophia. Constance, the girl she meets in Cinderella's tomb was so annoying and I couldn't stand her at first. I ended up not hating her, but I still didn't like her by the end of the book, for some reason. Erin, the girl Sophia was in love with, was just meh. I also felt like Sophia's feelings towards Constance were kinda rushed, I didn't feel the chemistry between them and I didn't feel like they would be a good match.
I feel like something is missing from this book, but I don't know what, it just didn't feel like a “wow” book to me.

[MY RATING] 6/10

- overall the premise was interesting but i was most disappointed in the romance... i wanted the romance to have more depth but the main character forgot her first love interest so quickly (whats the point of having a first love interest if its not developed and when the 2nd love interest is clearly someone that matches better)
- i dont remember much bc i read this a long time ago and wanted to write a review but never got the chance till now AHAHAHAHA
- i wish the side characters were more developed as well!!

I really enjoyed the unique storyline, I thought it was an interesting take on a Cinderella retelling! I just felt like the story was really rushed, and I think it would have been better if it was longer. I also wished there was some more world building, and character development, but overall it was a great read! It reminded me a lot of Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan! I would recommend giving it a shot, if you're looking for a quick fantasy or retelling, or if you enjoyed Girls of Paper and Fire!

The premise is cool and of course I'm here for queer WOC getting their fairy tale romances. For me, the execution was a bit clunky and the dialogue was a bit heavy-handed? It will probably resonate more with younger teens who maybe haven't read as many feminist takes on fairy tales before. This book will definitely have its audience that it's important for, but I wouldn't highly recommend it to adults. (Which: is fine, it's a YA book and it's FOR teens.)

Okay this was great. The world building was soooo intruiging, taking the story of Cinderella and completely twisting it to make an incredible story and I love it. I also really love the art on the cover (the cover I have is not the cover shown on GoodReads) because its so detailed and beautiful and I love how the colours flow and you can see all the detail and texture, without it being too detailed!

So...why is it not 5 stars? Well, that's because of the ending. It just feels a bit...empty? Like, they kill the king and some guys are still sexist to them and they realise the fight isn't over which I like, I like an ending that isn't 100% happy and perfect, but it just felt like I needed more. More closure. Of course there's Luke and his boyfriend Louis who I would've loved to see, but never came up again but I can understand Luke's past lover being sent to the castle being used as an example for the story. But...what about Erin? She was advertised all over the blurb, and the first page literally starts with Sophia talking about how much she loves her. And then she's barely in the book and Sophia falls in love with someone else? What? Sophia's last interaction with her is going to visit her secretly at her new house with her husband which ends in an argument where Sophia admits that the dominating patriarchy of the society they live in has made her cruel and infected the way she thinks. And that's it! No apologies and reunions at the end, even though Sophia and her new girlfriend Constance (awesome name by the way) will surely free her from her marriage? It just feels strange to me, like the author hit a deadline and had to just finish the book as fast as possible.

Apart from the loose ends, I did really enjoy this book and it's reimagining of a traditional fairytale into something much darker and interesting.

Interesting concept, and I liked the author's writing style. Some characters were mentioned briefly then abandoned which was a shame (Erin and Luke) and I didn't feel too much towards the m in characters really, but generally enjoyed the idea of Cinderella laws and her reworking of a fairytale. I will read The Poison Heart at some point!

Pretty Meh on this book other than that Liv's fate really upset and disturbed me. That whole scene at the ball with her really upset me. Idk after that I kindof coasted through the book. It also felt weird that, after the end, Erin isn't really revisited, we're just left to assume what happens to her after the postscript.

I'm not going to mark this as DNF because I might want to get back to this sometime. What happened was thus:

I read the preview and could not get it out of my head. I was so excited to get to sit down and read this book. I kind of half read the part I'd already read and three weeks later, my library borrow is expiring and I've only read 12 pages.

Why?

Besides I've not been reading much lately, the short sentence, punchy writing style works super well right at the beginning where there's an action scene. Later on though, when things start calming down, the short sentence structure starts getting on my nerves. (Yes, it can be used to heighten tension, but when that structure is used constantly, all the time, I get put out with it. This book reminds me too much of some fanfic I tried reading years ago that I tried giving that advice to the author and...well, she did what she wanted, just like this book, but I lost interest because, just like this book, I wasn't given anything to grab a hold of.)

That being said, I love the idea of this book too much to completely DNF it and move on. Myabe later.