Review – Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron (3.5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 391 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Release Date: July 7, 2020
ASIN: B086655D82
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Bought ebook for Kindle
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
“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 . . .”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I bought this as an ebook for my Kindle.
Thoughts: This is another book that I am feeling kind of mediocre about. I enjoyed the premise of a cursed kingdom that pays homage to Cinderella. I enjoyed the underlying darkness and the discussion around how society looks the other way. I also liked the themes about being yourself and trying to forgive.
Erin is a well done character, she is fiery without being unrealistically tough and I greatly enjoyed Constance as well. I struggled some with how deceptive and unsupportive all the surrounding characters were though. Erin and Constance are really the only characters that are well filled out.
I also felt like this was one of those strange books that targets an ambiguous audience age. The writing style and plot seem simple and a bit immature. However, all the discussion about the abuse these women face and the violence throughout is a more mature. Still the book avoids any discussion of sexual abuse, which in a kingdom ruled like this one (where women are seen as property and regularly physically abused) would be prevalent but that is glossed over. It left me feeling like I was reading an edgy middle grade novel, maybe? But it seemed a poor match to the subject matter here. In keeping with this, things are tied up too easily and conveniently at the end of the story as well.
I do greatly appreciate the way this book turns your typical fairy tale on its head and really digs deep into the implications behind a lot of these fairy tales. I love that this tackles some tough topics of abuse, equality, complacency, etc. I just wish it did it in a way that felt more complete and engaging and not so…surfacey.
In the end this was an easy read and I didn’t mind reading it. There are some big twists at the end I didn’t see coming, so that was nice. However, it wasn’t a book I was excited to sit down and read and when I finished it I was kind of like “Eh, okay, moving on to something else.”
My Summary (3.5/5): Overall this is an intriguing take on the Cinderella fairy tale. I really enjoyed a lot of the ideas here. The subject matter and the writing style felt mismatched to me though. The characters and the story just weren’t that interesting to me. I don’t plan on seeking out more of Bayron’s books in the future because her writing style just didn’t mesh with me well.