Publishing Date: October 27th, 2011
Page Count: 273
Source: NetGalley
Format: E-Book
Description from Goodreads.com:
After her father's disappearance, Cinder leaves home for a servant job at the castle. But it isn't long before her sister Ella is brought to the castle herself. What Ella finds there starts a quest that will change her life and the entire kingdom. Cinder and Ella is a Cinderella story like no other, and one you'll never forget.
Review:
I really wanted to like Cinder and Ella more than I did. I love fairy tales and I love retellings so I was really excited to read this, but it was kind of disappointing. I mean there were little if any similarities to the Cinderella story that we all know, but that isn't always a bad thing. I think if you are going to change the original story that everyone knows a lot that you really need to just let go of anything holding you back and write it from the heart. It needs to be intense, in your face, and totally different. Now if you want to just write a new fairy tale similar to Cinderella then you should just change the names of the characters. I think I would have liked this more if it was "A fairy tale inspired by Cinderella" rather than a retelling. It wasn't intense enough to be a whole new outlook on the story and it wasn't similar enough to just be a retelling.
Overall the story was ok. It was a nice fairy tale. If it wasn't for a few of the scenes I would say it would be middle grade, but this definitely takes a darker twist on the story so its definitely geared more toward young adults. I would say 12 and up. I liked Ella way more than Cinder. Ella was level headed, tough, and smart. Cinder was too innocent and trusting. She was easily pushed around and just accepted that as her fate. I really liked the Knight and the Kind in this story as well. The only thing that really got me was the evil that takes place in the story. It is a life ruining evil and no one is stopping it. Even in the end it just ends with a "happy ever after" even though nothing has been done about the evil in the world. I wish there would have been some reason behind it of why they didn't stop the evil before like "we were under a spell" or something. Melissa really built it up for something to happen that would make everything right and happy, but then it just fell through. That entire scene where it was built up that Ella was going to make everything better could have been taken out. I really wanted to like this story, but I just kept getting disappointed or let down.
Overall:
I didn't really like this story, it was alright but it definitely wasn't amazing. There weren't enough differences to make it its own "inspired by..." story and there weren't enough similarities to call it a retelling. It was kind of a let down. Melissa could have done a lot with this and put a whole new twist on the story, or just nicely retold it, but it almost seemed like she didn't want to go too far. Almost like she had an initial really good idea, but that was as far as she got. She didn't know how to make it thrive. I loved Ella character and the Knight, but I did not like Cinder at all. Im sure if the characters were better developed I would have liked a few more, but there were just kind of there in the end. I did not like the ending, either. It felt a little too rushed and it ended in a good note, but I don't know why. Nothing really happened to get rid of the bad. I really wanted to like Cinder and Ella, but I just couldn't.
Rating: ♥ ♥ 2/5
*The cover, book description, and book info was found on Goodreads. com. They have been linked back to their proper page. Everything else is of my own creation. I requested this novel from NetGalley*
