Stepsister

Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly (2019)

I heard of this book quite recently, just before publication, and immediately requested it through my library system. I don't read many fairy tale retellings but I'm very intrigued by them and Jennifer Donnelly is a fantastic author. She wrote The Tea Rose, The Winter Rose, and The Wild Rose, and the teen novel A Northern Light, which I loved before I had this blog or Goodreads. So when I heard she was releasing a book about one of Cinderella's ugly stepsisters, WELL.

So, Isabelle cut off her toes so her foot would fit in the glass slipper, and she almost got away with it. But it's just as well that she didn't because she's not interested in the prince. She's interested in things like sword-fighting and a boy named Felix who she lost long ago. She has disappointed her mother because she's not pretty enough or feminine enough or demure enough. Now her stepsister Ella has left to marry the prince, and Isabelle and her sister Octavia are left at home with their mother.

The whole town has turned against them now that they know how the family treated Ella. Both stepsisters and their mother are harassed and ostracized, and ultimately they lose their house and must depend on a stranger who is pressured into taking them in. The conditions are inhumane, but the girls do their best to take care of themselves and their mother, whose health is failing. This all could have made them more bitter, but they recognize that they brought a lot of this on themselves with their unfair treatment of Ella.

Isabelle feels like things would go much better for her if she were pretty. Pretty girls are always given the benefit of the doubt, seen as having more value than girls who aren't pretty, and liked by everyone. One day Isabelle encounters a fairy queen who promises to grant her wish to be pretty, but Isabelle has to first find the missing pieces of her heart. Meanwhile, there are others who are trying to control her path. Fate has drawn a map of her life, which will soon end in bloodshed. Chance has stolen the map and is trying to alter the path. Both Fate and Chance have now come to the village of St. Michel to try and alter her life, but perhaps Isabelle will wrest control and determine her own destiny.

I loved this take on what happened after the events of Cinderella, and the new dimensions of Ella's stepsisters. There was adventure, magic, and love. Isabella and Octavia dealt with their former mistreatment of Ella and I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that the three girls came together for a reckoning. Isabelle grew so much as a human being during the course of this story, which was incredibly empowering. I loved her trajectory! Even Octavia, who wasn't the focus of the story, came through as a real person here, one who is completely uninterested in romance (with the prince or anyone else) but is devoted to math and science. Neither of these girls fit in with what was expected of young ladies, nor were they taken seriously by anyone around them, but ultimately they grew into confident young women, sure of themselves and demanding to be respected. It was incredibly satisfying!