First off I don't really enjoy the format or the fact that every two pages counts as a chapter and it kind of jumps between being a page and a chapter in itself. The format is really distracting and it makes reading the book feel like it's supposed to have some kind of poetry or prose but it doesn't.

So spoiler free review because this book is not good but I don't really feel like getting into the spoilers this round. It takes place after Cinderella gets married and it spins three to five chapters just describing how beautiful she is how wonderful she is how fabulous and gorgeous and everything is about her looks her appearance ... I get it, she's beautiful.

Once you move past this you get to the stepsisters both of which are so hideously ugly and hated by everyone that they won't even feed them their rotting food and when they finally do offer them rotting food they say that it's too good for them. One of which has cut off most of her foot as is in the original story of cinderella. And both are regarded as hideous monsters while Cinderella is this beautiful perfect being.

A being called Chance decides to alter the fate but he doesn't because this entire book nothing is actually changed it is and it isn't is constantly the answer if you want to know what happens that becomes such a great plot change there is a change and there isn't a change. It is and it isn't.

Nothing happens in this book that is of worth it's kind of one of those books that by the end you're stuck with barely anything happened and yet a tiny thing changed and we're supposed to celebrate that tiny victory while having read through this book and slogged through the massive setbacks in the lack of change in anything besides Cinderella being the most beautiful perfect person ever.

It was not a good read for me.

2 stars. ( )

Solid 4⭐️s: Love this story and the spin on something old. Kept me captive and interested all the way through. ( )

(I am using this book for the "Book with Royalty" for Extreme Book Nerd.)

Fairy tale retellings can be either be really good or really bad. When I read about "Stepsister" coming out, I had high hopes for it. It is quite common to do Cinderella stories but she is the main character. However, "Stepsister" is about.....obviously....a stepsister and what happens to her after Cinderella has her happily ever after.

Isabella does not have much going for her. She has cut off her toes to try to fit into Cinderella's class slipper (which is super true to the original Grimms fairy tale.) Her mother hates her. Everyone thinks she is ugly. Life is tough. And there is an evil army attacking the French villages plundering everything in their wake.

Isabella longs to be pretty. But what is pretty exactly? Is it only skin deep? Or is it finding yourself and being true to yourself? Encounters with "Chance" and "Fate" (who are at war for Isabella's life and soul) set Isabella on a course that will drastically change her life forever.

Cinderella, thankfully, is not often present in this story. (And even her storyline shows she is a flawed character and not the perfect blue dress wearing Disney princess we are used to.) The other main character besides Isabella is her sister, the other step sister, Octavia. Both Isabella and Octavia want more from their lives than what society tells them, what their mother tells them. Their characters are decidedly feminist in a very non-feminist world.

I found this book extremely riveting. I couldn't put it down and read it in a span of a few days. (It also made me want to rewatch "Ever After"...even though that's more of a Cinderella story. ;)) My initial confusion with "Fate" and "Chance" gave way to appreciation for the author. She dared to put different elements into a well known story. It was ballsy. And it worked. ( )

I love this retelling of Cinderella. It is dark like the original fairy tales and we get to focus on what life was like for the stepsisters. I love that the sisters metaphorically and physically cut off pieces of themselves to fit the narrative of expectations. A great story to remind girls and young women that we can't please everyone and that we need to be able to like ourselves and be happy with what we see in the mirror, so stay true to yourselves. ( )

I had great expectations of Stepsister and it didn't let me down at all. From the very beginning, it had me hooked. I liked the idea of the tale being told of Isabelle, Ella (Cinderella's) ugly stepsister. She was horrid and cruel, we all found that out in the original fairytale but after a while the dislike of Isabelle that I had started to change. In fact, I started rooting for her and the whole moral to the story was a prominent one that may be more people should think about.

This was a fast-paced and well-written book, Jennifer Donelly has done a fantastic job here with the characters and details. It felt like I was actually in the book with them.
I am hoping that with the ending as it was, that there will be another person or people whose life map needs a little helping hand and a nudge in the right direction.
Definitely a 5 out of 5, a fantastic read. ( )