This has been one of my most anticipated books of the year ever since I first heard about it and man, did it not disappoint. I enjoyed this retelling, especially how original it all was.

It takes place 200 years after the events of the Cinderella story. The king of the land forces the young women to all attend a ball, where they are meant to be chosen by the men of the kingdom. If they are not chosen during the ball they get two more chances. And if they are not chosen by the end of two more balls they disappear from the kingdom, most likely to be never seen again. The story follows sixteen-year-old Sophia, who wants to marry her childhood best friend Erin. At the ball, she flees and then meets a descendant of one of Cinderella's stepsisters, Constance. They decide to try and take down the king.

I'm a lover of a good fairy tale retelling and this one checked all of my boxes. This was such an inventive take on the Cinderella fairy tale that twists it in such interesting ways. We have seen the story done so many times before, so it was great to see it done in such a different way. I also enjoyed the romance but wanted a bit more from it. Overall, this was a read that I enjoyed a lot.

*I received an ARC from the publisher for my honest review. Thank you so much*

Can we first just take one whole minute to admire the incredible cover art by Manzi Jackson? It is so incredibly stunning, and personally I would have read this book based on that cover alone! But the synopsis is pretty awesome too, and definitely the main reason why Cinderella is Dead deserves your attention.

It's been 200 years since Cinderella's death. It's also been 200 years of the town of Lille being run by a strict and dehumanizing patriarchal hand. 16-year-old Sophia Grimmins (I see what you did there Kalynn Bayron!), is getting ready to attend the annual ball held by the King, where the town's young women are matched with suitors in true "Happily Ever After" fashion, just like Cinderella. Except there's nothing happy about the ball for Sophia, who is in love with her best friend Erin, and is hell-bent on escaping a fate that seems set in stone. And while she's at it, why not take the whole thing down!?

I. WANT. TO. SHOUT. FROM. MOUNTAINS about how this book pierced my heart. I was transported from the very first page; Bayron crafted a fairytale world that felt so intricately real and so purposefully disheartening. It wasn't just another angsty teen trope where the character is melodramatically angry about her life and her future, this narrative delved into the very real, and very prevalent issue of male dominance. My heart hung heavy the entire time, but was picked up by moments of genuine and heartfelt emotion; each character was written with such care and detail. And OMG THAT SAPPHIC REP, it made my whole being sing, I swear. Sophia is easily one of my new favorite characters, and I cannot WAIT to read whatever Bayron puts out next!

A++ for diversity and representation, so important in YA. But the language was too cliched for me. I couldn't get past the first few pages. There was also issues with the e-galley, which made the file really hard to read.

I'm sure this is great for the age group its meant for, so many people seem to love it, but its just not my type of YA. I much prefer YA that reads like adult fiction, where it doesn't matter if the main character is 17, 27, 37, or any other age.

I've loved fairy tale retellings for years -- especially the twisted ones. This book gets points for its clever premise, but let itself down in the execution. The characters lacked nuance, the plot was overly simplistic, and the world-building was all tell and not enough show. That said -- I repeat, what a premise! If Bayron does another book in this vein, I will give her another try.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy for my review.

This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they've been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.”
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This book was advertised as a queer black girl taking down the patriarchy. And that’s exactly 👏🏽 what 👏🏽 it 👏🏽was.👏🏽
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This story takes place 200 years after Cinderella has died. Girls grow up reading and knowing Cinderella’s story my heart. Every year, they are forced by the king to attend the ball where they are “claimed” as wives (🤮) by men of the town. Because apparently that worked so well for Cinderella. But Sophia wants more for herself & would much rather marry her best friend Erin.
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Unfortunately, this book missed the mark for me. This is young adult but felt like it was on the VERY young side of that spectrum. The plot was predictable, the romantic interest was insta-love, and the relationships and story lines felt underdeveloped.
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BUT, the underlying meaning behind Cinderella is Dead is fantastic. It’s a nudge to women to raise your voice and tear down the walls built to keep you confined. Be a light in the dark and don’t let anyone stop you.
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I don’t want to rate this because I don’t think I’m the intended audience, but I truly think your young reader at home will enjoy this important tale and finish it feeling empowered!
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What if the storybooks and Disney got it all wrong? What if Cinderella was secretly a bad ass who didn’t just swoon over Prince Charming, but was rather a woman under a spell who taught against her Charming captor?!? In this great retelling if the Cinderella story nothing and no one is how you know them. There is no way to “bipppity boppity boo” out of the situation the town finds themselves in thanks to a tyrant king. Sophia knows things should be different, that women should have rights and voices, and she is willing to fight to make that happen. With a new friend 😉 by her side she is determined to overthrow the tyrannical patriarchy that is smothering her town and all the women in it. A great retelling and an uplifting read!!

This book was such a great read! Cinderella may be dead, but that doesn't mean the fairy tale is over. In Sophia's world, everyone is forced to learn the story of Cinderella. Girls are told to strive towards being her. Cinderella was the blueprint after all right? She had a horrible life, went to a ball, and met a man who made all her dreams come true. Having a husband is what changed Cinderella's life, so of course it will change every other woman's as well. Unfortunately, that means that women have no control in this world. All of their decisions are made by their husbands or their fathers or the King.

Sophia wants no part of this. She'd rather marry her best friend Erin, but of course it's not allowed. In fact it's seen as unnatural. Instead, Sophia must ready herself to be chosen at the upcoming ball held in honor of the night that Cinderella met Prince Charming. Going to the ball means sealing her fate and instead of following along, Sophia escapes and comes across someone she never expected: a descendant of Cinderella's evil stepsisters. Except it turns out, the stepsisters weren't so evil and Cinderella wasn't so happy. Now, with the King searching for her high and low, Sophia must work with Constance to not only spark a rebellion, but to put an end to the King's tyranny.

What was great about this story was the fact that it was so applicable to the real world. Let's be honest. We're not too far removed from a time where women didn't have any rights. It was fascinating to watch women return to that time and put in that place by a fairy tale that is so well loved. But what if the story we were told really wasn't the true story? Would Cinderella really want so many atrocities committed in her name? That's the question that Sophia is constantly asking as the fairy tale is shoved down her throat. The men we meet in this story are reminiscent of men we all know in the real world and trust me, they suck.

The other element of this story I enjoyed was the mystery behind King Manford and the throne. For 200 years, kings have followed in the footsteps of Prince Charming, who, it turns out, wasn't so charming after all. Combine that with the mystery surrounding the fairy godmother and Cinderella's stepsisters who were villainized for not bowing down and well.....can you see why I was so intrigued??

The sapphic romance in was great, but this definitely isn't a romance driven fantasy despite the plot. For anyone worried that the romance element takes away from the story, trust me it doesn't. I think there's the right amount of balance between romance and fantasy here.

All in all, this was a great read once I got into it and even though the men here were absolutely trash, trust me when I say, they come up on the losing side in the end.

This review can also be found on my blog: https://bookswhitme.wordpress.com/2020/06/24/arc-review-cinderella-is-dead-by-kalynn-bayron-release-date-july-7-2020/

I love the cover (and the UK cover, even more), and I really wanted to love this book...unfortunately I didn't. It's probably about a 2.5 star book for me, though I suppose I'll round up to 3 since that's not an option. I saw this book praised as a book that uses a fantasy world to critique misogyny and homophobia...and it does. BUT, it didn't do much more than that, for me. The pacing was slower than I like, the world-building wasn't the most rich or in-depth, and the characters were on the shallow side.

The two things I struggled with the most were:
1) It felt like everything (plot, character development, world building, etc.) took a back seat to the story as a platform to bash the aforementioned misogyny and homophobia. I'm all for novels that leave you thinking about issues in the real world, but I want to be so sucked into the story along the way that I get lost in it and can't stop turning the pages.

2) The romance was a love-at-first-sight trope, while also having an almost love triangle drama, and it wasn't for me. I mean, Sophia, who we've just been told is completely in love with Erin, is running for her life, and stops to lust after a total stranger who could be about to try to kill her, for all she knows. I know some people love this trope, but it made me cringe. And it continued for a long time, and never felt believable for me.

I'm sure this book will be a highly enjoyable read for those who just want to read about queer black girls teaming up to overthrow the patriarchy, especially if they enjoy love-at-fist-sight romance. If you've read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

{Thank you so much NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA Children's Books for a free eARC to review. }

(I'll share my review soon, along with a styled photo of the cover, on my IG)

I unfortunately just couldn't get into this one, even though I really, really wanted to. Insta-love is just not my thing at all, and that's what I got here. I can see others really enjoying this one, but it wasn't for me.

CINDERELLA IS DEAD is very nearly a masterpiece. I absolutely *love* reimagining of fairy tales, mostly because fairy tales have such a complex history and it's nice to see how people reclaim them as forms of revolution. A story about queer Black girls overthrowing the patriarchy set within the backdrop of Cinderella's kingdom? Ummm, yes, please. And, for the most part, CINDERELLA IS DEAD and Kalynn Bayron's work did not disappoint.

Plot summaries are everywhere, so I don't think I need to go into a whole lot. A queer 16-year-old girl named Sophia struggles to accept the kingdom's rules that every girl must be presented to a potential suitor, so she's prepared to fight back, not just to resist this oppressive patriarchal custom but also to preserve her chances of being able to spend her life with her childhood best friend-cum-love interest. And revolt they do. The journey is beautiful, empowering, heartbreaking, enraging, and full of truths that YA audiences desperately need to be immersed in.

The world building was almost perfectly there, although I do wish we'd be immersed in the world all the time, rather than the descriptive world-building Bayron sometimes relied on. This was not enough to derail the book, though, and I know that subsequent works will just get more and more refined. I think the reader gets a very vivid sense of Sophia's world and what she's fighting against, and I continue to have images in my head of what I imagine that world looks like.

It's important to remember that this is YA book, and it is a SUBSTANTIVE YA book at that. The prose isn't flowery or overly complex, but I actually think that's quite important. The subject matter is able to come to the forefront if younger readers aren't struggling to decipher the meaning of phrases and conversations. It seems like a useful tool that Bayron employed to keep the prose relatively straightforward so that the reality of Sophia's world can be digested, understood, and thought deeply about. The fact of the matter is that the world in which Sophia is growing up is, unfortunately, not vastly different from the world today's youth are growing up in, and it's imperative that young readers are exposed to stories featuring these realities so they can understand, through literature and through diverse perspectives, what we are up against, the work we need to do, and why they, as youth, are so incredibly valuable.

I am excited to purchase this for my collection and to gift it to YA readers in my life. This is a powerful testament to the power of youth. It is a testament to Bayron's skill as a storyteller and her ability to imagine new worlds and reimagine classic texts. Youth matter. Youth with all identities matter. No one will question that after reading CINDERELLA IS DEAD, and the people who most need and deserve to see themselves represented, amplified, and celebrated in literature will feel empowered by Bayron's newest release.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this advance copy. My review is entirely unbiased.

Cinderella is Dead tells the story of Sophia, a 16 year old girl living in the same world as Cinderella, but 200 years later. Their society is built around the story of Cinderella, which is used to subjugate women and girls. In this patriarchal and misogynistic society, girls must attend the annual Ball, where they may be chosen by a man to be his wife. If not, an uncertain fate awaits. As a gay teen, Sophia doesn't want the life that set out for her. When it looks like she may be forced into this unwanted life, she runs away, with a goal of changing her world for the better.

This was a really good read! I found it to be an easy and gripping read; I read the book over just a few longer reading sessions. Sophia (and this book as a whole) has a revolutionary spirit that feels timely, both personally and within our current moment/movement. Sophia does not see any way to better her world other than starting over. This book sends a positive message towards readers and, through Sophia's story, encourages them to believe that radical change is possible, to keep the hope alive.

There were a few things that I didn't love about this book, however. In the book, there is a side romance, and while it isn't quite instalove, it doesn't feel necessary, and considering the timeline of the book, feels like she's moving on too quickly. that being said, I know it's there to contrast from another relationship, and in that way it does make sense. Another thing that was a little jarring to me in this book was how the society was presented. Knowing that it is patriarchal, misogynistic, and authoritarian is just assumed or hinted at, but explicitly stated. TW: domestic abuse, mainly. Early in the book, there is a joke between two guardsmen about murdering one's wife and making it look like an accident so that he could take a younger, prettier girl. There is another scene where Sophia comes upon domestic abuse, which is clearly prevalent in the society. These things didn't bring the book down in rating for me, but there were just a little surprising to read in such terms.

Overall, this is a book I'd recommend. The way that the Cinderella story is twisted and used to create this new world challenges the reader to think not only about the stories we know and love, but also the ways in which the government dictates our lives. Sophia's story is a hopeful one, and this is an exciting fantasy/fractured fairy tale read!

"And you're not lost?"

I think for a moment. "Maybe I am. But the difference is that I want to be found. I'm not happy pretending everything is fine when I know it's not."

//

Cinderella is Dead is a fast-paced, powerful tale about fighting against injustice no matter the cost. Featuring a Black lesbian protagonist who can't help but rebel against the patriarchal, homophobic world inspired by Cinderella's fairy tales, this is a great YA fairy tale retelling that asks the reader to think deeply about complicity, oppression, and the cost of resistance.


(this book has content warnings for: domestic violence)

This book had a wholly original take on the Cinderella fairy tale but despite it's cleverness, it fell extremely flat. Most plot points and their relation to the original fairy tale were great which made it even harder to read the dull and lifeless writing that connected them. My favorite thing about this novel and the only reason it was rounded up to a solid 3 stars was the concept. I cannot fault Bayron's imagination. She took the age old Cinderella fairy tale, one that has been adapted millions of times, and turned it into a completely new adventure. Our setting is Lille where 200 years ago, Cinderella attended the Prince's ball and had her dreams come true.... or did they? Sophia is one of hundreds of girls in the kingdom who are forced to attend an annual ball where girls are "chosen" by the men of the nation. They are required to know the Cinderella tale by heart and their family's must spend their savings on dresses and accoutrements. If the girls fail to be chosen, they could be forfeited which means never being seen again. Sophia hates her kingdom and it's customs, yearning instead to run away with her best friend and love Erin, but is thwarted by the strict rules set in place. After a narrow escape, Sophia teams up with Constance, who's connection to the Cinderella tale sings a different tune than age old scripture. The duo must figure out the mystery behind the King and take him down to save the kingdom.

Despite being 100% up my alley (even summarizing the plot made me yearn for what could have been), this book failed to make me care about any of the characters. I wanted to revert to back to my fangirl ways and get hit in the feels and ship people to death but never felt any real connections to the characters, despite their potential. Bayron's writing was overly descriptive and juvenile which read like it was geared towards middle grade or children's despite it's obvious teen/YA draw. I felt myself comparing the novel to Chris Colfer's Land of Stories books. While Colfer's writing is also a bit juvenile, they lean into the hokey-ness of the fairy tale world and it becomes light, middle grade fare. Bayron is telling a story that is meant for older readers so the writing feels overly simplistic and corny in comparison.

All in all, this book has me curious to read more of Bayron's work. I love to see writer's evolve with each new work and with the sheer brilliance of this concept, I hope for great things in the future! This is still worth the read if any of the plot intrigues you. Bayron's new take is a fun, eye-opening way to revisit Cinderella, especially amid the Trump presidency and the current political climate.

What an absolutely ESSENTIAL read for anyone who loves fairy tales. Holy shit, this was excellent and exactly what I needed right now. Dynamic and authentic, if not a bit elementary in the prose. Thank you for the ARC!

Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

Title had me hooked right away. When I realized how this very opposite to the Disney story I grew up with, I kept reading. I am so glad I did. Taking place 200 years after Cinderella died offers an up-dated version to the classic tale and so much more. Girl power all the way!
This needs to be made into a movie! It is such a vivid delight!

If you hear a story enough, will it become your truth? I grew up watching princess movies, thinking to find true love, I just needed to sing and have some animal friends. My prince would show up because it was true love. This book breaks the mold that so many of us believed we had to fit. And I just had to know what was going to happen!

Definitely worth the hype! The story was excellent, well paced, and I loved all of the characters!! A really quick and fantastic read. I loved it!

ARC provided by the publisher through NetGalley.
Cinderella is Dead has an excellent pitch, and I went in ready to LOVE it. Queer Black girls destroy the patriarchy. That one line absolutely sold me, and if it sold you too, then I would not discourage you from grabbing a copy and seeing if you love it the way I wanted to. Alas, I did not enjoy the book very much.
Cinderella is Dead is set in the world of Cinderella, but she has been dead for 200 years. Her story is mandated to be read by every woman in the Kingdom, and they all must attend a ball at the age of 16 to find a husband. Our main character is Sophia, a 16-year-old Black girl who would much rather find a princess than a prince and live happily ever after with her. Again, I love everything about the pitch.

Worldbuilding
This part of the book really fell flat for me, I wanted to find the world interesting, but we get so little nuance of the world it is really hard to be emersed in. I found it very one-note and kept being pulled out of the story because I was questioning, "how can this actually work?" over and over.
I found it utterly bizarre that basically all women mindlessly follow the story of Cinderella with no deep thought about it, and the story is only shown to matter at all to two men. Most men apparently could not care less about the Cinderella story in this world. The incongruence of this is poorly fleshed out, and I did not enjoy it.
I wanted the world to be so much deeper; I wanted to hear more about the resistance effort, which is pitched as tiny and unable to effect change but is somehow suddenly large and well equipt enough to complete the coup once the evil King has died? The book ends with Constance (who is apparently the rightful heir though this is not touched on at all earlier in the book), setting up a whole new government in a way that is not at all earned. That could have been so powerful if we had seen her and a group of rebels debating how the world should work, or if she had talked to Sophia about her plans for a better future. And how amazing would this book have been if there had been an underground group of women trying to alleviate the suffering of their fellow citizens? It would have been kickass. Instead, we get literally 85% of the book with only three women showing interest in overthrowing their own oppression, then suddenly, in the end, they magically make the world better, and everyone is happy? I just really didn't click with this part of the book.

Plot
This could entirely be because this book is written for an audience much younger than I am, but I found this book so predictable. The King is Prince Charming doing necromancy; the Fairy Godmother is his mother, Sophia just happens to find a diary that has been hidden for 200 years that apparently gives her legitimacy with the rest of the Kingdom and tells her the secret to defeating the King. I was unsurprised by these twists and didn't find the timing of the reveals compelling. The romance suffers hard for instalove and from what my brain conceptualized as the Rosaline/Juliet problem. Sophia is in love with Erin (who I think was done so dirty by the plot, but I will address this later) then meets Constance is almost immediately is enraptured by her. Which is fine, Constance is much nicer to Sophia; it is just so rushed and didn't work for me.
The ending was incredibly unbelievable for me. I did not feel that it had been earned at all. Sophia kills the King, a mob of 40 angry men comes at her, and they are deterred by Constance with a dagger. How is a mob of 40 people going to be stopped by one person? Seems wild. All the issues are magically fixed, and we just hear about all the societal change that happened. Society does a complete 180, and it is entirely off the page. It reminded me a lot of the ending of Again, But Better, which I also super did not like.

Characters
My biggest issue with the characters in this book is that they are almost all very one-note. Sophia has a character arc and is a totally fine narrator, but basically, every other character fell flat for me. The only issue I had with Sophia was that she massively suffers from being incredibly unique. She is the only woman or girl throughout most of the book who thinks their oppression is bad; she is not like everyone else who is just fine living in this terrible world; no one understands. I am very over this trope; it must work for some people because it continues to be written. It is not until 87% of the way through the book that we learn of other loan actors trying to escape the King.
Most of the men in the book are cartoonishly evil. There are a total of four men who are not evil in this book, I get the villains being predominantly male, but they all feel cartoonishly evil in a way that just doesn't make me believe the world. The King is so flat that I kind of just didn't care what he was up to, he's just doing the evil thing because he is evil. I knew he was going to die; I felt absolutely no tension, so I wasn't interested in his story.
The part that I found most off-putting was the way women in abusive relationships were written. They all read like caricatures of battered women, no agency, no desire of a different life; they are just miserable plot tools. I cannot imagine reading this book as someone who had been in an abusive relationship and not feeling baffled at the portrayal of these women. They are entirely helpless, and none of them are shown to do anything to affect their own lives.

The writing
I actually don't have much to say about the writing! It is totally solid; my only complaint is that I don't think Bayron wrote tension very well. I wasn't a huge fan of the writing style, but it isn't bad. It is just a lot of telling and not a lot of showing.

I clearly did not really enjoy reading this book, but I hope that if you read it as well, you had a better experience of it. I completely want every book I read to be my new favorite and am disappointed that I did not enjoy this book. Just because it was not for me does not mean it will not work for you.


Cinderella is Dead is published on July 7th, 2020.

I raced through this Cinderella retelling! In Sophia's fairytale world, ever since Cinderella died, the King(s) have ruled the state of Lille with force and coercion. Women have little to no rights or agency and their only goal in life is to be chosen to be wed to an eligible man during the annual ball. Not only does Sophia reject the way women and men are matched in Lille, she doesn't want a husband because she is gay, a social taboo. Sophia was an easy protagonist to root for - spunky, fearless, clever, outspoken, and ready to tear down the patriarchal system. I will definitely be adding this to my Middle/High School library, and recommend to collections where fantasy or fractured fairytales are popular.

There were a lot of things to love about this book. I absolutely loved the twist on the original Cinderella story and the fact that every single aspect of the well known fairy tale was dissected and torn apart. I loved the fact that this fairy tale was not what it appeared to be, which is the case with most fairytales, I am sure. I thought Sophia was a fantastic character. She was headstrong and stubborn and completely determined to be able to make her own choices about who to marry and who to love. She is in love with her best friend, Erin, and would rather spend her life with her than be forced into marriage with some man she hardly knows and who will most likely treat her like she is a piece of his property.

So there were a few issues I had with the story, which is why I am giving it three stars instead of four. One issue I had was the insta-love that Sophia felt towards Constance. At the beginning of the story. Sophia is SO in love with Erin, but then it seems as though those feelings are completely forgotten when she meets Constance. I do understand Sophia's reasons for why she felt that Erin wasn't good for her, but it felt like her relationship with Constance happened way too quickly and it felt forced to me. I also felt that the world building was a little lacking. I didn't fully understand why Prince Charming did the things he did and why he created the laws that he did. His motives didn't make sense at all and he just wasn't a well developed villain. The whole patriarchy society also started to become a little too much. It felt weird that there wasn't a single decent man in the entire kingdom. Why would the King's rules make it so that EVERY man in the kingdom felt the need to treat women like crap? That part also felt a little forced to me.

I did think the book was pretty good and worth a read. I just wish certain things had been done better.