Book Review – Cinderella is dead

Title:Cinderella is dead
Author: Kalynn Bayron
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Genre: Fantasy | YA | LGBT
Length: 400 pages
Published:  July 7th 2020
Goodreads link

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 . . .

Review:

I think all the hype I had for this book made me a little disappointed. I am a sucker for retelling and I saw all variations of Cinderella movies at least one hundred times. I was so ready for this book like you can’t even imagine.

The story is there, the author makes such a great job at creating that fairytale feeling. I am not a fan of overly descriptive books, I really don’t need to know exactly one many lines the tapestry has so I was pleased with the world-building in this one. While is not overly complex, you don’t have the feeling that the characters exist in the void with nothing around them.

The characters, on the other hand, felt a little bit plain, I mean nobody is pure evil. I would have loved the see more depth mostly the villain, I always felt that to have a good villain you have to make me feel for them a little bit, show me they save stray puppies, or really love their family.

And oh the insta-love, I plan on making a list with tropes I have and insta-love is going to be nr. 1, while I can forgive it a little bit because one insta-love is such a common thing in fairytales and second Sophia has a few moments when she remembers Erin and there is one scene that eased this sin in my eyes.

The representation tho!! Amazing, this book is so beautifully sapphic I was over the moon and I find very interesting the twist put in the original fairytale. While speaking of twists, oh damn the plot twist in this book is sooo good.

So while I had a few issues with this book I actually enjoyed and I am super excited to see what Kalynn Bayron will write next.

3/5 stars

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