A retelling of Cinderella, should be fun right?

I was so excited about this book, it looked adorable, fun, and magical. Plus, I am a big lover of Cinderella retellings. I always love seeing people grab the original story and make something new out of it. But then I started reading it and it just wasn’t it.

This book and I just didn’t work. There was just something off about it. A few things that have contributed: The ending which just felt like there was meant to be more, but then cut off. The writing style that felt weird, I am not sure how to explain this one, but sometimes a writing style just doesn’t work for me. That it took so long for a reveal that I already saw coming miles away? That Cinders was not really an interesting character? That she was actually kind of boring and bland. Sparks who was an annoying talking dog? Then again, I am already not a fan of the talking animals trope, it works if the story is about a world with only animals, but if it is a human + talking animal it generally doesn’t work for me. I guess all of these and more. It took me way longer than normal to read a book of this size and I have even put it down a number of times to do something else, eventually I just pushed myself to read it on in the hopes it would become better.

As I said I did like that this was a retelling of Cinderella. But I also really loved seeing all the other fairy tale characters pop up or be mentioned. Like Belle and the Beast, Hansel and Gretel, and more. Yep, Cinderella (or Cinders as everyone calls her) is not the only fairy tale character in this world. The witch from Hansel and Gretel even lives in the forests near her home! So fun!

I also loved the illustrations, they were so fun. Pippa Curnick has an adorable and fun style. I definitely want to see what else she has done.

So yeah, all in all, not a book I enjoyed that much. 🙁