End of Ever After

I liked this one. Which would be great, except that I wanted to love it. I enjoy a good fairy tale retelling (Beauty by Robin McKinley is by far my favorite). I like when the author gives a typical, heard it a million times story a new spin, especially if that means that the main characters are given some agency or you get a previously unknown point of view. Now granted, Cinderella is not my favorite tale. And really, as far as retellings go, Cinderella has been tugged and stretched and melted down and reformed too many times to count. But this one sounded like maybe Ella had a backbone (like in the movie Ever After, which I love). And she did. Sort of. Mostly. Though not at the beginning and not when her grandmere wandered into the story and certainly not when she was all naivete and forgiving of things she shouldn't have been. Skepticism is not a bad thing, dear Ella. When she did finally shed those rose-colored glasses (the ones over her lavender eyes...purple eyes seem to be thing with this author. I'm not a fan), gathered her fancy tulle and silk and stood up for herself and the people, then I liked her. I admit I cheered when she turned the tables on her would be Prince (not-so) Charming.

My biggest problem and the main reason for only 3 stars was the author's extreme over use of foreshadowing. It's fine if you want to hint that things aren't going to get better before they get worse or that your heroine is going to realize that hindsight is 20/20 a couple of times in your story. It's a whole other issue when you're doing all that every couple of pages. Nothing in the story surprised me because I was well informed that SOMETHING BAD was going to happen. After a while, I just wanted the author get on with the story already.