Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly

Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly is a YA Retelling of Cinderella following the POV of a stepsister!

“Isabelle should be blissfully happy – she’s about to win the handsome prince. Except Isabelle isn’t the beautiful girl who lost the glass slipper and captured the prince’s heart. She’s the ugly stepsister who’s cut off her toes to fit into Cinderella’s shoe … which is now filling with blood.

When the prince discovers Isabelle’s deception, she is turned away in shame. It’s no more than she deserves: she is a plain girl in a world that values beauty; a feisty girl in a world that wants her to be pliant.

Isabelle has tried to fit in. To live up to her mother’s expectations. To be like her stepsister. To be sweet. To be pretty. One by one, she has cut away pieces of herself in order to survive a world that doesn’t appreciate a girl like her. And that has made her mean, jealous, and hollow.

Until she gets a chance to alter her destiny and prove what ugly stepsisters have always known: it takes more than heartache to break a girl.”

Published: 14 May 2019

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Genre: YA Fantasy Retelling

Pages: 352

How I Read It: Hardcover from Library

I loved this book!

YA Retellings are some of my all-time favorite genres to explore, and this dark version of Cinderella was perfect.

In this one, we follow the POV of one of the stepsisters, who isn’t as evil as originally portrayed in most versions, but instead has been labeled ‘ugly’. She’s had to grow up in a cruel household where she’s been forever in her stepsister’s shadow.. to the point where her own mother forces her to chop off her toes to fit in the famous glass slipper.

From there, we are thrown into her world as she tries to recuperate from that embarrassing night, trying to survive.

In this eery, dark, beautifully written novel, we are thrown into a fantasy adventure to try and save her fate, her stepsister, and her own self-esteem.

I absolutely loved this story, and I can’t begin to explain just how much more this book is. It’s more than the classic retellings that you read in the YA section. It deserves every inch of the 5 out of 5 stars.

Interested in reading this book for yourself??