Welcome Back Booklovers! It's Christmas break and I'm trying to finish a few books from my shelf before the year ends. Cinderella is Dead is a much buzzed about YA fantasy this year and a lovely subscriber gifted it to me for my birthday.
I really wanted to love this story because the cover is so pretty but I just couldn't get into this world so it made reading very difficult. Lille is a place where the Cinderella story is worshipped and a cornerstone of society 200 years after her death. Girls at 16 are subjected to attend a ball where a man will choose to make her his wife. The men do not have the same restrictions and can range in age from old to young choosing to attend the ball whatever year they please.
But I never really got that most people believed strongly in this story outside of the monarchy. And the women are oppressed by only our lead Sophia wants to do anything about it. Every other woman just takes abuse from their husbands and other men with a "Them's the breaks!' attitude and slunk along miserably. Sophia is dreading the day of the ball and wants to run away with her friend Erin who she's in a forbidden romance with. And that's all we really get to know about her throughout the book.
I didn't need to over the top depiction of the society with every man but a few being misogynistic, homophobic trash. I really dislike when YA tells a tale of feminism in such a simplistic way. It's obvious to root for the heroine when they live in such a horrible world. Of course she wants to fight to have basic rights! It was giving me very much white feminism I wanted to know how Lille actually works especially in comparison to the places outside of it. Why exactly did they latch on to Cinderella's story and why hasn't their been a successful rebellion that included men? Was this supposed to be a dystopian world?
When this book was being marketed, Sophia's identity as a Black girl was described as being integral however her appearance was only briefly mentioned. And they played no part in how she was treated. If I didn't get this book with a cover I wouldn't be able to tell you what she looked like. There were mentions of different characters being brown. Constance read as white to me and she was described as fawn colored which is a description I've never heard used for skin tone and Google was telling me it was a beige shade.
And where were the high stakes during this book? They seemed to coast along with little happening for chapters at a time. Where were the obstacles?
The magic surrounding the King and Fairy Godmother was interesting and I would've been interested in hearing and seeing more. And even then there was a huge plot hole because each King starting from Cinderella's Charming was supposed to have lived 100 years before quietly dying and being replaced with an heir. The current king is supposed to be the fourth yet only 200 years are supposed to have passed according to the beginning of this book.
I was expecting cute sapphic romance in this book too but that also fell flat. Sophia to me didn't really have chemistry with anyone. And the relationship with Constance was instalove. She was just so in love with Erin.
Also this is billed as a retelling but it didn't really retell the story of Cinderella from a new perspective. This was a sequel years after the story. And there were times where they said this part of the story as you know it was a lie but it also wasn't too far from the truth because history is rewritten by the winners. This could've been an interesting book but the execution of it was lackluster.
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