Thank you to @netgalley for this free egalley! PUB DAY: 8/3 I have loved Julie Murphy's Dumplin' series and was so happy to get this egalley. I absolutely loved Cindy! She was such a sweet character, and I loved the way she loved her family. This was a great retelling, and I appreciated that the step-family was good to her. Henry had my head spilling for a minute wondering if he was going to be true. I look forward to more in this series.

Such a cute story! And with an amazing message to women readers.

If the Shoe Fits stars Cindy, a design school graduate that moves back to live with her step mom in LA to take care of her step siblings. Her mom turns up to be a big executive producer for a Bachelor-style reality show, and Cindy and her 2 step sisters are chosen last minute to be contestants. Cindy feels kind of nervous because she's plus sized and won't know how people will perceive her, but she wants to try. Turns out, Prince Charming is the same guy she meets at the airport in a meet cute and the story goes on about how they fall in love and the challenges along the way.

There was so much I loved about this story. First is obviously Cindy being a plus sized main character, which is excellent for the romance genre. More plus sized mains please! Secondly, while I liked Cinderella as a story, this story I appreciated more because they made the step mom and sisters both likeable, and even the mother making an effort to help Cindy love herself and grieve the loss of her father.

If you are a big fan of fairytale retellings, you'll love this. I read it in a day and definitely enjoyed the lighthearted romance.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic copy to read as well as the audio to listen to.

This is a very cute love story with lots of wonderful elements. As a (very loose) retelling of Cinderella, it features a stepmother and two stepsisters. I loved the family - the stepmother was not evil and the stepsisters were actually pretty great and adorable to Cindy, the main character. A few things I really appreciate in the book - diverse characters and relationships, female characters that are confident and good at their jobs, characters that can actually speak to each other in the way you would expect real people to. The book gives a behind the scenes look at online reality dating shows and is very similar as One To Watch by Kate Syaman-London (which I also loved). This is definitely work picking up and jumping into - either in print or over audio, as the narrator did a pretty good job.

I don't know if I'm not in a retelling mood or what, but this just wasn't for me. The writing style seemed childish for what I thought was an adult level book and I just wanted more from the beginning of this story that dragged on in a very expected way.
DNF @ 37%

I was charmed by this one from "Once Upon a Time." Our story follows Cindy, a shoe designer in a creative rut, and let me tell you that her profession speaks directly to my shoe-hoarding soul. This twist on Cinderella involves complex family dynamics, including the weight of Cindy's grief for both of her parents, but the stepmother and stepsisters certainly aren't evil. That was a new approach that I took to immediately. There's also a trio of preschool half-siblings (Gus, Mary, and Jack 😉) out to wreak havoc with childlike wonder and general shrieking, hugging, etc. Our Cinderella is fat and fabulous, and she's headed for reality TV à la The Bachelor, seeking the exposure to get her first shoe line off the ground. In terms of romance we have a meet cute gone wrong (or right?) when Cindy's charming airplane seat neighbor turns out to be the Suitor on the show-- Henry's the guy who's about to date Cindy and twenty other women on TV.

Ohmygod this book was so sweet. First, of my several attempts to read a book that brings the joys of reality TV to the page, this is the first to completely nail it. I loved the drama, the behind-the-scenes, and the human elements swept up in TV manipulation. In terms of a retelling, Cindy is a kind and caring Cinderella. I loved that her conflict came from her internal struggle with grief and the external machinations of TV producers, not going toe-to-toe with an evil stepfamily. I also think the way the story champions fat women is heart-warming and badass, especially for calling out inequity in fashion and the passive-aggressive cruelty of women. I hope romance as a genre continues to give opportunities for these voices to be heard and these characters to shine. It shouldn't even be something that requires discussion, but we need more and better representation like this one. Finally, I loved that the romance was adorable and not trying to do it all. It's not about wedding bells or 2.5 kids at the end, just two people taking a chance on each other and choosing joy together. Heart eyes all around.

This fabulous reimagining of a Disney classic kicks off a new series, and I CANNOT WAIT to see where it heads next. This was a perfect read to close out my summer. You can find it on shelves 8/3. Thanks to Disney and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy.

Thank you Netgalley and Disney Hyperion for the eARC in return for an honest review.

Cindy and Henry have a met cute on a plane and then meet again on Before Midnight, a dating show like The Bachelor. Henry and Cindy are not there for love. They have other reasons to use this wildly popular show as a platform. But will love win in the end?
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A nice modern spin on Cinderella. You'll recognize some of the characters from the classic story. The representation of lgbtqa+ is so refreshing to see. I love that Cindy is plus size and relatable to not only me but many others. She describes clothing as art that you can wear. I really liked that.💜

If The Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy is a modern and creative re-telling of Disney’s Cinderella.

Ms. Murphy’s new cast has been re-imagined with many nods to the classic.

Classic: Cinderella, an orphan who is living with her wicked stepmother and sisters. New: Cindy Woods, an orphan, returning to her step-mother’s house in Los Angeles after graduating from Parsons School of Design with an emphasis on footwear design. Cindy had a rough last year of school due to depression. Without a job prospect, she has agreed to be the nanny to her triplet half-siblings. She is a plus-size woman trying to figure out her next steps.

Classic: Lady Tremaine, the wicked stepmother. New: Erica Tremaine, Cindy’s step-mother and the producer of the incredibly popular dating reality show Before Midnight (think The Bachelor). Erica is not wicked and tries to support Cindy the best that she can.

Classic: Anastasia and Drizella, the ugly step-sisters New: Anna and Drew Tremaine, Cindy’s two older and very attractive step-sisters who are social media influencers. They have always been kind to Cindy, even though she only lived with them for three years in high school. In a last-minute need to fill vacant spots, the two sisters agree to be contestants on Before Midnight.

Classic: The Fairy Godmother. New: I can think of several characters that acted as Fairy Godmothers to Cindy. My favorite is Beck, the assistant producer of Before Midnight. She convinces Cindy that being a contestant on Before Midnight is a way to promote her talents as a shoe designer.

Classic: Prince Charming New: Henry MacKenzie, the charming “Suitor” on this season of Before Midnight. He works for his mother’s company in New York.

Classic: The Mice: Gus (Octavius), Jaq (Jaques), Mary, and Perla. New: The triplet half-siblings of Erica Tremaine and Cindy’s father, Simon Woods, are Gus, Jack, and Mary. Petra was the surrogate who carried the triplets.

Classic: The King, Prince Charming’s father, who wants the Prince to get married. New: Lucy Mackenzie, Henry’s mother, and a famous fashion designer. Unfortunately, her company LuMac is having financial problems. She thinks that it will be a great boom to her business to have Henry on Before Midnight.

Classic: Lucifer, the cat who is a bully. New: Addison, the mean girl contestant on Before Midnight.

Classic: The Ball, where Cinderella must leave before midnight. New: The Ball is a popular event where the girls meet the suitor on Before Midnight.

Classic: The Glass Slippers, one of which Cinderella loses. New: The Jimmy Choo stilettos encrusted with Swarovski crystals clustered together at the toe that Cindy gets to wear during her one-on-date with Henry on the show.

I am not a big fan of romance novels, but I am trying more of them. I am also not a fan of the television show The Bachelor. Imagine my surprise when I really enjoyed this story. I was entertained by the witty dialogue and interesting characters. I even found myself rooting for Cindy to be chosen by Henry. As a plus-sized person myself, I love the way Julie Murphy advocates for fashionable clothing to be made for larger women.

4-plus stars. If The Shoe Fits is the first of a series called “Meant To Be”. This fun novel will be published on August 3, 2021. Thank you to NetGalley and Disney Hyperion Avenue for my advanced reader copy.

I’m very conflicted about my thoughts on this book because there are several things that I loved about it and that I thought Murphy did really well. Cindy is a spectacular fat positive character and her weight doesn’t define her. There are several scenes where the fashion and entertainment industries are called out for their lack of size inclusivity and that was refreshing to read. I was expecting the book to remain true to the Cinderella story and make Cindy’s family life a source of contention but I was pleasantly surprised that her blended family was delightful and her step-sisters were some of her best friends. In fact, I enjoyed all the allusions to Cinderella and thought making Cindy a shoe designer, in particular, was very clever. Making the main story center around a Bachelor-style reality show worked well here but it was impossible not to compare it to Kate Stayman-London’s “One To Watch” that came out last year (although I think Stayman-London was more successful in portraying the behind the scenes world of a reality show). If this book was about Cindy and her post-college adventures I would have liked it more. But when you’re writing a modern take on a fairytale romance, I expect some romance and chemistry and this was where the book was lacking. Henry, the love interest, was boring and one-dimensional and I felt we never learned anything about him other than he’s attractive and he’s taking over his mother’s business. Their meet-cute at the beginning of the book was lacking any connection and I had a hard time believing that was enough to make them like each other. And the romantic aspects were barely there, with only a few kisses and a fade to black scene that left me wondering what I was supposed to assume happened. Unfortunately, the romance plot took a back seat to the dating show and Cindy’s career search and I wanted more.

While this book was cute and I liked the Cinderella element, I ultimately wanted more from the romance and was disappointed in the “Prince Charming.” However, Disney fans may enjoy this one and I like the idea of retelling classic fairytales with a modern twist so I have hopes for this series.

If the Shoe Fits is a Cinderella-like story about Cindy and Henry who initially meet on a flight out of New York and are reunited on a reality tv show similar to The Bachelor. Cindy is plus sized and longs to make a living in fashion with her passion being shoe design. Henry is trying to get the family fashion business back on its feet by bringing attention to it during his time on the show.

Cinderella is truly one of my favorite fairy tales which made me excited to read this. This rendition is a little different in that the step-mother and step-sisters are actually very nice and supportive of Cindy. The "mean girl" in the story is one of the other female contestants. I wasn't quite as sold on the reality tv storyline. I have read several romance books with the same type of story and have yet to read one that I loved. This one did keep me reading and I liked the chemistry between Cindy and Henry. There were quite a few characters to keep straight. Some had interesting stories that were just touched on and I wished they would have been developed a little more as part of the story.

My sincere thanks to Disney-Hyperion, Julie Murphy, and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book and give my unbiased opinion of it.

This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Well this was freaking adorable! Total Cinderella vibes but like if everyone didn’t suck and torture Cinderella. We follow a shoe designer named Cindy who is moving back home to LA to help out her family after her dads death. On the flight, she meets this Prince Charming dude who she can’t stop thinking about. When she gets to LA, she convinces her step mom who is the producer of a Bachelor type show, to let her join the show, not for love, but for exposure for her show designs. Low and behold, the suitor on the show turns out to be none other than Henry, aka Prince Charming from the plane. This was so cute, I loved the premise mixed with the Cinderella retelling. And it was so amazing to see the “princess” choose herself over the guy, I mean I’m glad they ended up together in the end, I was totally rooting for them, but she chose what was best for her. I absolutely enjoyed this book and all the characters and I loved the relationship between Cindy and her sisters.

I love Julie’s spin on a love story. Of course this is one we’ve heard before but even though the story is the same, it felt fresh. The Cinderella/Bachelor feel was entertaining and sweet. I enjoyed “seeing” a character that represented me in a love story. Julie does this so well and because of that I will always have grabby hands for. Julie Murphy story.

was lucky enough to get this book as an ARC and instantly fell in love with Cindy, the main character of this book. This book is a very loose version of Cinderella mixed with the bachelor. It reminded me a lot of One To Watch, filled with great messages and characters that are so relatable and real.

Cindy has finished up her last year of design school and finds herself in a rut. She returns back to her stepmothers house to be a nanny for her youngest siblings when the opportunity to be on her stepmothers reality bachelor like show with her sisters presents herself. I loved the fact that Cindy was not your typical girl that goes on those shows and the relationship she had with her stepfamily.

I highly recommend this book and can’t wait for the sequel. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read this advanced copy.

Cindy is an aspiring shoe designer who's trying to figure out her next steps. When a spot opens up on her stepmother's reality show, she sees her chance to get the name out in the fashion world and represent for plus size women.

I really enjoyed this story! It was fast-paced and funny without being cheesy. The reality show setting was fun to read about and reminded me of the early days of reality TV. Cindy's relationships with her friends and family members were realistic, and her sometimes-complicated feelings towards her step-family came across as very relatable.

The romance seemed a bit rushed, but both Cindy and Henry were great characters. I would've liked to see a little more of their connection.

If the Shoe Fits, by Julie Murphy is absolutely fine. Ostensibly a retelling of Cinderella, it fails to play with any of the themes or tropes that make that particular story interesting, instead simply slapping on the trappings and calling it a day.

The love story is passable, although Cindy’s relationships with her friends and family members are all more interesting than the romance. Murphy has included a fair amount of diversity in terms of both gender expression and sexual orientation of side characters, although the main cast are primarily straight and cis, and nearly everyone with any real part to play is white. While having a fat main character in a romance shouldn’t be revolutionary, it is still unusual, and always nice to see on the page.

Nothing to write home about, not much to complain about, If the Shoe Fits is a perfectly forgettable, relatively enjoyable novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Disney-Hyperion for the ARC!

Content warning for parent death.

This book was a lot of fun! It’s is a VERY loose adaptation of Cinderella, and I think that’s how it should be in 2021. That said, I am getting a little tired of all these “we met on a dating reality show” books. And this one has some super lenient producers, which, as a rule follower, I wasn’t a super big fan of (it ruins the verisimilitude). I was pleased with the ending though. Cindy gets her dream AND the guy. Not what you expect from reality dating shows.

Julie Murphy is such a talented author, I’ve enjoy everything I’ve read by her. This book premise certainly had the potential to come off as too cutesy but it wasn’t at all, it had just the right amount of sweetness combined with the strong female lead to make it another excellent read.

Cinderella meets One to Watch in this new spin on the fairytale.

Cindy is fresh out of design school with no job prospects on the horizon when she is asked to be a contestant on her stepmother’s reality TV show. Maybe this can at least get her in front of an audience that could see her unique fashion style, particularly her love of shoes.

This is the third Cinderella retelling I’ve read this month and they are all so different. This one was so fun and I loved the twists on the original, including the relationship Cindy had with her stepsisters and stepmother.

Thank you to Hyperion and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

How much did I love this book? Let’s put it this way, I started it just before 6 pm one evening, and then, other than stopping to eat and answer a phone call, I basically did nothing but read this book ‘til I finished it at 3:45 in the morning later that night. I was absolutely hooked. I had been so excited to not only read Julie Murphy’s adult debut but also a plus-sized Cinderella retelling but also so nervous, but let’s just say this book more than met and, in fact, surpassed my expectations.
Summary: Cindy Woods has just graduated from fashion school and, struggling with feeling uninspired and still grieving her parents, agrees to move back home to help her stepmom. When an emergency causes contestants to back out of the reality dating show her stepmom produces, Cindy volunteers to step in with her stepsisters, hoping, if nothing else for some exposure for her fashion career. What she doesn’t expect is for the Suitor to be Henry- someone she’d already met and had considerable chemistry with. Balancing becoming a body positivity icon with sorting out what’s real and what’s engineered for the show, Cindy finds herself falling for Henry. Cindy didn’t come on Before midnight for love but could she find it and maybe some inspiration along the way?
Most of the time fairytale retellings feel very much unoriginal and you just have to go with it and move on because that’s what you get. Since Cinderella is one of the easiest fairytales to do a modern retelling of, it has probably been redone the most so the various adaptations all blend together and are harder to tell apart. This was not the case here. In fact, I would often forget that this was Cinderella until there would be a big wink to it and I’d go OH! And I’d get to enjoy the wink or clever callout to tradition while Julie spent the rest of the time taking everything that drives me crazy about Cinderella retellings and either turned them on their head or threw them out the window. I think the number one thing that keeps me from enjoying Cinderella stories most of the time is the relationship with the stepfamily. Sometimes we’ll have a nice step-sister but most of the time the stepmother and stepsisters are monsters and needlessly cruel for no good reason. Occasionally, if we don’t have one nice stepsister, we’ll have a dumb one to balance out the mean one but even they are still mean for the sake of meanness. I think that was the thing that drew me in the most at the start of this book, the fact that Julie said, ‘you know what, we don’t need to do that this time and chose to reexamine our Cinderella’s relationship with her stepfamily. Rather than blind cruelty and mistreatment, there is real love and fondness and I thought that was so refreshing and welcome and such a smart choice. Especially given that Cindy had already lost her parents, it meant a lot to me that she wasn’t being mistreated by her stepfamily. That was really special.
Julie is my favorite contemporary author and every time I read one of her books she more than earns that title again. Each time I start a new one I get nervous because I have so much love for her previous books and I get this weird worry that I won’t love this next one as much as the last few but every time Julie puts those fears to rest in the first five minutes of reading. Her writing is funny and down-to-earth and witty and so human. I don’t just love her for how she writes fat people but I will always be grateful to her for it. There are several sections in this book that speak directly to my heart in a way that no other author has. She writes fat girls with love and care and experience in a way that isn’t token or fat for fat’s sake but in a way that’s real in a way only fat people know. It means so much to be able to read my experiences in such a wonderful story. To read someone like me getting to be happy without having to lose her fatness. I never knew how much I needed a fat fairytale before I read this book. And, despite the fact that, yes there are people who are fatphobic in the book, they are made into centerpieces and those moments aren’t the big pivotal ones the book revolves around but instead sticky little obstacles to overcome. That was kind and clever of Julie and very smart.
I have never watched the Bachelor or any other kind of reality dating show but with these characters and the way Julie wrote it, I loved the whole thing. She played with the drama and the fairytale so well and I loved her twists. It’s very easy for these kinds of things to feel artificial but with the walkie-talkie and other choice moments, she perfectly grounded the romance and allowed me to fall in love with Henry and Cindy falling in love with each other.
With a bold and lovely cast of memorable characters, a romance worth swooning for, and the leading lady of my dreams, If the Shoe Fits is the whole package. It was just an absolute winner of a book and a new favorite of mine and another crown in a collection of wonderful books by Julie. Go buy this incredible modern take on Cinderella, it is amazing and I couldn’t love it more!

Cindy has just graduated from college in New York with a shoe design degree, and is headed home to LA to be a nanny for her youngest siblings while she's scoping out job prospects. Her stepmother is the executive producer of Before Midnight, a Bachelor-type dating show. When 3 contestant spots open up and need filled immediately, Cindy's two older, very fit stepsisters agree immediately, but Cindy is more than hesitant. Sure, she would get recognition that would help rake in job offers, but she'd also be the only plus-sized woman in the history of the show. After some encouragement from her sisters, she decides to go for it, and to her surprise, becomes a fan-favorite. Even more surprisingly, she feels a connection with "Prince Charming". What could go wrong?

As soon as I saw that this was by Julie Murphy, I knew I had to get my hands on it. She is phenomenal, and I have never been disappointed by anything she writes. I LOVED THIS BOOK! I'm a sucker for fairytale retellings, and this one took Cinderella and made it better! There was so much positivity all through this book that I just felt happier when I was reading it. I can't wait for the next installment!

I received this ARC courtesy of Netgalley, in return for my honest opinions

I've read a couple of books by Julie Murphy, Dumplin' and Puddin', and when I read the synopsis of this one, I knew I wanted to read it. Thank you @disneybooks for sending me a copy of If the Shoe Fits. I have seen some comparisons to a recent BOTM pick, One to Watch, which I haven't read but have heard good things about. I loved Cindy and Henry. Cindy was funny, resourceful, genuine, and kind. Henry was swoon-worthy, and I loved how gentle and sweet he was. This story is advertised as a plus-sized Cinderella retelling, and it was nice to see Julie Murphy trying her hand at a novel geared towards adults. Julie Murphy handles the topics in this story with the sensitivity and wit that only Julie Murphy can do. Admittedly, I'm not really a fan of the Bachelor and other TV shows of the like, but I did enjoy that aspect of this book as well. It was entertaining and I read it in a matter of two hours. It'll be out on August 3, so definitely add it to your radar if you haven't yet!