Totally worth thr read

Light-hearted and fun YA Romance. The characters are likable and surprisingly believable. Definitely worth a read.

Also, Amazon is the devil for requiring four more words than I wrote above so I am adding this sentence. ( )

I would've preferred to read Ella and Trent's story. I kept hoping for glimpses but instead I got Mattie and Jake. It wasn't bad, I just didn't love it. It was easy enough to get through and it was humorous but it had two main problems - the characters. As in Mattie and Jake. I didn't like them. I think a lot of people will enjoy the pop culture references and Mattie's quirky humour - which were good - and perhaps a lot of other people will like Mattie and Jake. But it wasn't for me. 2.5 stars, rounded to 3 because I loved Ella. Further thoughts/rant on characters below.

Mattie kind of sucked. I hated her to start with (the first chapters made me want to kill her) and while she got better I was never really loving her. She had some funny lines but she was mainly just annoying. She was mean and bitter and petty. Ella didn't deserve any of her nasty thoughts. And yes, I get that it's a Cinderella retelling - but you can't make a mean character oh woe is me without some serious rewriting. Mattie was a bitch. It was hard to like her. And harder to be sympathetic towards her. Which is fine. Write that story. But don't bag on Ella because she's generous and nice and kind and then say you hate her because she exists and expect me to feel like Mattie's been hard done by. She hasn't. Any problems she has are of her own making. But sure, she got nicer. Less prickly or whatever but I just didn't find it enough for me to care for her.

And I didn't like Jake either. He was a jerk. Sure, he's got parental issues and whatnot but it never really redeemed him from being the jerk he started as. The romance between them started out bad and got fluffy but I just didn't care. ( )

Cute enjoyable story

So yes, we all knew it was going to be a happily ever after sort of deal..but guess what?? I’m fine with that! I love a happily ever after! There’s too much bad stuff in real life, so enjoy this light, fluffy book! It may have been a little predictable but it was fun and happy. ( )

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. I had grabbed it as my Kindle lending library pick for the month because I love fairy tale retellings. I had recently finished one of the author's contemporary romances and was interested to see what else she'd written.

This story turns Cinderella on its head. Mattie Lowe's dad took in her stepsister Ella when Ella's mom died, even though he wasn't her biological dad. Ella is stereotypically gorgeous, generous, kind, studious, hard-working, and dating the guy Mattie's been in love with since grade school. Yes, the book is fairly predictable and follows the typical YA romance plot, but it was super fun getting there. I also loved how Wilson took elements of the traditional Cinderella story and made it her own for this book. It was also nice to see the other side's POV, and Wilson did that both in having Mattie be the narrator, and to having Mattie see Ella's own insecurities toward the end of the book.

It was also incredibly nice to see a strong and positive depiction of a female friendship between Ella and Mattie. Usually in YA, the guy gets between the two girls, and in Cinderella stories, the relationship is always antagonistic.

It's much less of a Cinderella-retelling than I had assumed, but that's okay. A really fun, sweet YA read. ( )

A very cute book that left me with warm fuzzy feelings, and made me wish (for the first time since high school) I were the heroine of my favorite teen romance movies. ( )