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popthebutterfly 's review for:
Cinderella Is Dead
by Kalynn Bayron
Disclaimer: I bought this book! Support your authors especially at your favorite black owned bookstores!
Book: Cinderella is Dead
Author: Kalynn Bayron
Book Series: Standalone
Rating: 5/5
Diversity: Black, lesbian main character, lesbian/bi side characters, and gay side character.
Recommended For...: fantasy, retellings, dystopian
Publication Date: July 7, 2020
Genre: YA Fantasy Retelling
Recommended Age: 15+ (slight sexual content, illusions to rape TW, domestic violence TW, romance, and creepy male behavior)
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Pages: 400
Synopsis: It’s 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl’s display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again.
Sixteen-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. At the ball, Sophia makes the desperate decision to flee, and finds herself hiding in Cinderella’s mausoleum. There, she meets Constance, the last known descendant of Cinderella and her step sisters. Together they vow to bring down the king once and for all–and in the process, they learn that there’s more to Cinderella’s story than they ever knew . . .
This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they’ve been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.
Review: Oh my goodness this book is so good! The book is a retelling on the Cinderella story, but with a lot of twists along the way. The main character is not Cinderella but is, what I theorize, what she doesn’t historically represent. She’s the girl who doesn’t wait for the fairy godmother, but charges after her instead. The one who, by her own admission, wants to be the one to rescue the princess instead and wants to be with a princess instead of a prince. Anyways, the book has great character development and world building. The book touches on white washing history through the Cinderella tale and it alludes to a lot of things that Black people generally have to face in their life, from being treated like second class citizens to the girls being taken from them under the guise of a “better life” to the hair straightening scene where Sophia is told that straighter hair is pettier than her curls. And while I might be reading too much into some of these, I think this book does a lot of good even at the most basic plot line of this book: it shows young girls, especially Black girls and kids who are LGBT+, that they can save the princess and that they can be the hero of the story even in the context of the most famous of fairytales which are historically white washed and void of any LGBT themes. I also want to see this author write more books like these.
That being said, the only issue I had with this book is that the pacing was a bit wonky and some of the travel scenes were a bit inconsistent, but it very much paled in comparison to how amazing this book is.
Verdict: Highly recommend!
Book: Cinderella is Dead
Author: Kalynn Bayron
Book Series: Standalone
Rating: 5/5
Diversity: Black, lesbian main character, lesbian/bi side characters, and gay side character.
Recommended For...: fantasy, retellings, dystopian
Publication Date: July 7, 2020
Genre: YA Fantasy Retelling
Recommended Age: 15+ (slight sexual content, illusions to rape TW, domestic violence TW, romance, and creepy male behavior)
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Pages: 400
Synopsis: It’s 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl’s display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again.
Sixteen-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. At the ball, Sophia makes the desperate decision to flee, and finds herself hiding in Cinderella’s mausoleum. There, she meets Constance, the last known descendant of Cinderella and her step sisters. Together they vow to bring down the king once and for all–and in the process, they learn that there’s more to Cinderella’s story than they ever knew . . .
This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they’ve been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.
Review: Oh my goodness this book is so good! The book is a retelling on the Cinderella story, but with a lot of twists along the way. The main character is not Cinderella but is, what I theorize, what she doesn’t historically represent. She’s the girl who doesn’t wait for the fairy godmother, but charges after her instead. The one who, by her own admission, wants to be the one to rescue the princess instead and wants to be with a princess instead of a prince. Anyways, the book has great character development and world building. The book touches on white washing history through the Cinderella tale and it alludes to a lot of things that Black people generally have to face in their life, from being treated like second class citizens to the girls being taken from them under the guise of a “better life” to the hair straightening scene where Sophia is told that straighter hair is pettier than her curls. And while I might be reading too much into some of these, I think this book does a lot of good even at the most basic plot line of this book: it shows young girls, especially Black girls and kids who are LGBT+, that they can save the princess and that they can be the hero of the story even in the context of the most famous of fairytales which are historically white washed and void of any LGBT themes. I also want to see this author write more books like these.
That being said, the only issue I had with this book is that the pacing was a bit wonky and some of the travel scenes were a bit inconsistent, but it very much paled in comparison to how amazing this book is.
Verdict: Highly recommend!