Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
"Set against the backdrop of 17th century Holland, "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" tells the story of Iris, an unlikely heroine who finds herself swept from the lowly streets of Haarlem to a strange world of wealth, artifice and ambition. Iris's path quickly becomes intertwined with that of Clara, the mysterious and unnaturally beautiful girl destined to become her sister. While Clara retreats to the cinders of the family hearth, Iris seeks out the shadowy secrets of her new household--and the treacherous truth of her former life."
The
story of Cinderella has always been my favorite fairytale, but after
reading "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" I will never view
Cinderella's story the same way again.
This book is not your typical retelling of the cinder girl's story. It's not your generic fall-in-love-and-marry-the-prince-happily-ever-after. In here, we're not even sure if the prince and Clara, a.k.a. as Cinderella, really fell in love with each other.
In this story, it's not all about the girl thrown to slavery, it's about her family and another family, composed of a mother, who would do anything to survive and move up society's ladder, and her two daughters, one as dull as a lamp on the brink of being extinguished and the other as bright as a star on a clear night.
This is a tale that's not about pumpkins turning into carriages and mice turning into escorts nor about a glass slipper left behind. It's about our preoccupation with physical beauty and human weaknesses.
