Yet another twisty, light retelling of Cinderella, this time with a plus-size protagonist, Cindy, who unexpectedly becomes a contestant – along with her two beloved (not evil) step-sisters – in a reality dating show created by her stepmother, Erica. Cindy is a recent graduate of fashion school who finally confronted her feelings about her father’s death during her senior year of high school nearly four years later while a senior in college. This emotional reckoning causes her to have designer’s block and she barely graduates. Then, lacking any job prospects because of her poor performance and lacking any creative inspiration, she returns to her stepmother’s house in California, her two stepsisters and three half-sibling triplets. A lot of the story was predictable, but it was nevertheless an appreciated light and enjoyable rom-com, and a fresh take on a much-retold tale. ( )

4 stars on the merits
3 stars for my personal experience reading it

So this is the first in a series of books that are loosely based on Disney Movie/Princess. This is a retelling of the Cinderella story and if you are familiar at all with the Disney movie you’ll recognize a lot of the links to it within this.

The modern twist is that our Cinderella is plus sized and stepdaughter to the executive producer of a mega-popular Bachelor type TV show. Cindy unexpectedly becomes a contestant on the show and is shocked to learn that she had a flirtation with “The Suitor” on the plane on the flight to LA before filming began.

The good news is the stepmother and sisters are not evil! The bad news is that I recently read a book about a plus sized Bachelorette contestant so the plot that should have felt new to me felt rehashed — but that’s not this book’s fault.

It’s a perfectly nice wholesome romance with a few modern flourishes. As a fan of both the old animated movies and romance novels I liked this but didn’t fully love it - but that’s because of me not the book.

I’m sure I’ll read the next in the series because it’s about Belle and it’s written by Jasmine Guillory.


( )

This was better than I was expecting, cute fun retelling with a twist ( )

Cute! I love a good fairy tale retelling and this retelling of Cinderella didn't disappoint. I appreciated the spin of having kind and caring stepmother and step sisters.

I really loved that this book was very body positive and made the main character plus sized and loving her body! Cindy had a great personality, was fun and witty, and was very relatable. I loved that Henry's character never once made a comment about Cindy's size and even got irritated when others did.

Pepper scale rating ( )

So in a world where TMZ, Page 6, and even fans just scouring social media uncover everything, it was tough to believe that the influencer daughters and stepdaughter of a well-known executive producer could appear on her reality dating series as bachelorettes without everyone immediately digging into their backgrounds and calling them out for their perceived advantage/fraud.

It was also odd how little the executive producer stepmom is in this book. As someone who supposedly works all the time, you’d think she’d be on set and mentioned more than once or twice during filming, yet she barely appears. Yes, there would be producers/assistants who handle contestants but the stepmom wouldn’t keep such a distance from her own show, and for the sake of the story I wish she’d been there, I wish I’d seen her interract with her daughters and stepdaughter more, particularly since two of them were breaking set rules. It was like the only reason this woman was exec-producer was so that there would be an easy way for Cindy to out of nowhere land a spot on a reality dating show, when it could have added much needed conflict to actually see the stepmom in her boss role navigating the fact that she’s also mom to three participants.

Then there were the many snap judgments of Cindy, she has them for pretty much everyone she encounters in this story, she says and thinks more than her fair share of unflattering thoughts, including momentarily deeming the bachelor something of a slacker nepo-baby based on gossip sites she read in the past even though none of her own encounters with him in the present justified the thought. I don’t mind snap judgments, the occasional nasty thought about someone or petty jealousy, that kind of thing, it’s human, we’re all guilty of it from time to time, what I begrudged here is that Cindy rarely acknowledges that sometimes she’s awful, too. For instance, at one point she’s triumphant, proud she cut in on someone else’s time with the bachelor yet when someone cuts in on Cindy’s time with him, it’s a betrayal. I struggle with people/characters who have one set of rules for everyone else and another set of rules for themselves. Cindy is frequently portrayed as a saint here even though at times her behavior isn’t all that different from the villain. I don’t at all mind a heroine flawed enough to have some villain in her, but I don’t love an unwillingness to admit to it.

This is a Cinderella retelling, but this Cinderella’s circumstances are vastly different from the one without a penny to her name and step-family who use her as a servant. The Cindy in this book has lost her parents, her step-family however, is nothing but supportive emotionally as well as financially, they truly love her. There also isn’t much need for glass slippers when in your early twenties you already have a high end shoe collection to rival Carrie Bradshaw, and while this book notes many times that it’s difficult to find fashionable clothes in larger sizes, even that isn’t an actual problem for Cindy who can whip up something cute from nothing despite supposedly suffering from designer’s block. Cindy also somehow graduated from Parsons despite admittedly blowing her entire senior year, that’s some good fortune that wouldn’t shine down on most underperforming students, same with the stepmom’s offer to use her connections to give Cindy a leg up in the fashion world on top of how Cindy is handed one relatively cushy employment opportunity after the next. All that and the bachelor’s more than smitten with Cindy nearly from the start of this book. While society is probably overdue for seeing more plus-size/fat heroines who have it all, the issue with a fictional character having it all almost from the start of a book is that there’s little left for her to overcome and that doesn’t make for a particularly interesting plot/character arc.

There really wasn’t enough plot or character development here for me. The secondary and peripherary characters also seemed undercooked, while featuring a wide variety of characters they mostly seemed like types rather than fleshed out people. That was a problem with the romance, the familial relationships and most of the friendships, too, everything just felt too surface level. I guess some would argue that this is a romantic comedy set in the world of reality show dating, you shouldn’t expect more than surface level, but I don’t think the subject matter or genre should preclude something from having depth, especially when I know this author is capable of delivering it. Unfortunately what I loved about Dumplin and Ramona Blue, the fully-realized characters and emotions, the natural flow of the writing and the plot, and the life-like feel, those things haven’t been quite as evident in this author’s most recent work, leading me to DNF some and struggle through others as I did with this one.

All of this is just my opinion of course, clearly the many high ratings on this one suggest many readers loved their experience with this book so if it sounds like something that would appeal to you, don’t let my thoughts stop you from giving it a try, what didn’t work so well for me may be a new favorite for you. ( )