SO this is the first entry for my PUNISHMENT WEEK. I was brainstorming as to what I should blog about... since i didn't want to bore you guys by ranting about not ever having anything to write about. And since i just finished one more book off my list, (i'm aiming for 50 this year...) i thought i might review it....
So here it is...
Book Review: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire. This was a little hard to get into, mainly because of the writing style... Not bad, just different to what i was used to. Getting past trivial matters though, it was a beautiful reprisal of the well known Cinderella story. Set in the seventeenth century and told mainly through the eyes of younger sister Iris, the story follows the trials and misfortunes that the evil stepmother and ugly stepsisters face after the loss of the father, englishman Jack Fisher. The family travels to Holland to make a fresh start. They soon find a home with a local painting master and his apprentice. One of his clients, a Tulip trader, invites the family in to help with housekeeping, and they meet his wife Henrika and beautiful daughter Clara, a little younger than Iris. After the tragic death of Henrika and a dive in the value and demand of tulips, the families find themselves selling valuables for food, and the two families merge with the marriage of Cornelius Van de Meer and Margarethe Fisher.
I won't detail the whole story, but it reveals some of the well known plot points in the beloved fairytale as fictitious fabrications and wipes clean the slate of the two ugly sisters, who while visually unblessed were still intelligent and kind. In the popular version of the tail, the sisters are criminalised along with their mother. This retelling shows Margarethe the Evil Stepmother to be the only evil-doer of the three. Once I had adjusted to the writing style, the prose proved to provide a beautiful, stylish retelling, from the author of "Wicked"the novel, now a popular Broadway Musical.
I give it 4 stars
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