Ella Enchanted (Ella Enchanted #1) by Gail Carson Levine

In this novel based on the story of Cinderella, Ella struggles against the childhood curse that forces her to obey any order given to her.

I loved this book as a child and re-read it so many times my copy fell apart.

Comfort reread. This is one of the very, very rare books with a movie adaptation that I actually like both the book and the movie, despite heavy changes made to the movie. The book is a slower pace, which makes for a great comfort read, and it's got so many sweet little moments.

This seems to be one of those Young Adult books that doesn't really work once you are no longer young. A major pet peeve: the use of exotic languages was overdone; instead of writing things in Gnomic or Elvish and then translating, it would have been a much easier read if it was just “XXXXXXX” Slannen said in Elvish. I had to do some heavy skimming to make it through the book, and even with that it felt like a waste of time.

I totally didn't realize what this was based on until the last 30 or so pages. I think that made it more enjoyable. I really liked this book. Ella has a healthy dose of what the Finnish call sisu!