Books : Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Rating: - Beautiful re-telling
This review relates to the paperback edition.

During an enforced 3-hour stopover at Los Angeles airport I found this and couldn't resist the cover or the blurb. I haven't read/seen any of his books, so had nothing with which to compare this, and I loved it. It runs alongside Cinderella in a non-parallel line which every now and again curves in to touch the fairy story and remind us of the original, but at the same time keeps very much to its own path. The setting of 17th-century Holland is evocative and atmospheric, including the use of art and the tulip-trade, the machinations of the desperate Margarethe are terrible and at the same time understandable, and Iris is - well, she's lovely. There are comments in some reviews that there is no magic in this book and strictly speaking that's true, but there is definitely more than a hint of something other-worldly and dangerous that lurks in the background and pervades the atmosphere of this book.

The illustrations are lovely - I hope they have been kept in the hardback edition.