I received this free eARC novel from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

This has been on my TBR pile for so long, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. I really enjoyed the storyline and seeing the characters change throughout the story was a great character development. The plot was great and kept my attention. I'm glad I got the chance to read this and will be on the lookout for more in the future!

I requested this title back before my blogging break. I have ended up with a number of titles that are overwhelming to catch up on now I am back from my blogging break. I am regretfully not going to be reading and reviewing this title, but now I am back from my blogging break, I am looking forward to reading and reviewing some of your future titles. Thank you so much for the opportunity and apologies.

Thanks for providing a review copy, I was not able to read this one. So I will not be leaving a review on social media at this time.

I had so much fun with this book! I haven't read too many retellings but I was quite curious about this Cinderella story. Unfortunately, I was quickly distracted by other new shiny books and this one was lost in my virtual stacks. I came across the audiobook and decided it was time that I give this book a try and I am so glad that I did. I flew through this audiobook and really enjoyed my time with it.

Kat lives with her sister and mother but she is transported to the world of Cinderella when she accidentally rips an old book. Instead of Cinderella, Kat fills the role of Katriona who is one of the step-sisters. It was a lot of fun watching her try to navigate this new world. She had so much to learn with the differences in manners, language, and fashion just to start. Kat decides that in order to get back to her world she needs to help the prince fall for Cinderella so she starts working towards this goal.

I loved Kat. I loved the way that she couldn't help but try to make the world a better place even if she didn't plan to stay for very long. Prince Edward was also quite wonderful. He couldn't help but be drawn to Kat's fresh perspective. They were really just wonderful together. I couldn't help but cheer this pair towards their happily ever after.

The audiobook was narrated by Luci Christian and I thought that she did a great job with it. I really liked all of the voices that she used and thought that her reading helped to make the story even more enjoyable. She had a very pleasant voice that I was able to listen to for hours at a time. I wouldn't hesitate to listen to more of her work.

I would recommend this book to fans of fairy tale retellings. I thought that this was a really well-done story that offered a new look at an old tale. I do have to admit that I wasn't thrilled by how the story ended but that would be my only complaint.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Aya Ling via NetGalley and purchased a copy of the audiobook.

I'm a bit torn with this one. I like the concept and I think the characters were very well done. Kat is thrown into a storybook world after an old book crumbles in her hands. She cannot return home until the happily ever after is attained. So Kat works tirelessly within her new social constraints to make Cinderella's happily ever after come true.

A couple issues I have is (1) Kat goes out of her way to try and find the fairy Godmother and get Cinderella's happily ever after. However, logically, if she just follows through with the storyline, the happily ever after should happen on its own. So why does Kat get it in her head that she has to force it? She's in a book in which all she has to do is follow the plot. And wouldn't a good person in a situation where she has to be cruel to return home be a very compelling plot line as well? How far can she go? Is there a truth behind standing up versus following along with the roles social constraints assigns to you? So I felt there were other more fascinating ways to explore this plot.

(2) Why does Kat never question if her family is missing her? She never asks how her being in the fairytale world affects her family back home. I'm not sure why she never asked that. Something to acknowledge the fact she's spending months in story land? Why doesn't that ever bother Kat? The time she's away from home? She just kind of 'goes with it.'

(3) The pop culture references got to be too much! The massive amount of references to Google almost made me wonder if they were a paid sponsor. It just felt out of place.

(4) The ending has been the most torn. (view spoiler)

Overall, interesting and well-written. I was compelled to keep reading. I had some gripes every now and then, but I liked the characters and the pacing of the plot.

This book was just so utterly...charming. I loved it. I was completely hooked by it. And all despite being chock full of tropes and having very little new to offer. ...I can't for the life of me figure out why it worked.

Kat is your typical, ordinary, everyday high school girl who exists in high school limbo between popular and friendless and has every kind of trouble talking to cute boys. The book even opens with her stuttering and stumbling when confronted with a hot exchange student. Totally typical for a YA. And...I...just....loved it? I know, I don't get it either, but the voice and the writing style was enough to make me go "Yup, I believe this, please tell me more!"

The hottie has no part to play in this book by the way, he's forgotten a few chapters later as Kat accidentally breaks an enchanted book (how did she get the book? WHO KNOWS.) and gets sucked into a England-ish, Regency-ish version of Cinderella. Cast in the role of the 'ugly' stepsister. A story where Cinderella is meek, the stepsisters are actually pretty beautiful, and the Evil Stepmother has basically the same plan as Angelica Huston in Ever After.

And again, it...just...works? There's nothing about this I haven't already seen, but Kat's reactions to everything are earnest and adorable. The plot throws in an invisible goblin to explain everything in a plot-dump and....yeah, I'm cool with it? Frankly, having the plot explained lets us get into the fun parts faster and I don't even care that it's a whole chapter of exposition. And it is a fun plot. In order to get back to her own world, Kat has to see the story through to its happy ending, but no one seems to want to play along. There's no ball on the horizon, Elle doesn't seem to particularly want to be rescued, and there's no fairy godmother in sight.

To make things worse (or better), Kat's attempts to bring Elle and the prince together just manage to make Edward interested in Kat instead! Oh no! It's so trite. It's so convoluted. And...it's fucking adorable. I can't help it. I love these two. Edward is sweet and charming and Kat is flustered and flabbergasted and probably the best saving grace about it is that she admits she's normal by her own time's standards and only special relative to this time. (To which Edward says "probably true, but I like you anyway" and aslkjfjkashdfkjlashdflkjhasdfkjlhasd)
Kat winds up embroiled in a worker's rights movement (it makes sense in context) and the whole thing is thoroughly simplified and compressed and...I don't care. It's a YA, written in a pretty young voice, and it's a B-plot. As a "teen's early introduction to Changing the System Takes Time" it's pretty good.

I just loved it. It was things I'd already seen, but done in a way that exactly suited me.

With a few caveats. (Yeah, you knew that was coming.) The fatfobia is rife throughout this book. There's an overarching theme of "beauty is the ultimate feature" which I can kind of overlook, because Kat's attempting to operate on fairy-tale logic and no one else in the book really goes along with her. But then she also equates "thin" to "pretty" regularly. And not just any thin, but "model-thin," which...nope. There's problematic lines throughout, likely more than I even noticed, but I picked out at least Islamophobia and transphobia.

That, and, the target age group. Throughout the book I thought that it was aimed at mid-to-younger teens, like 15 ish. I guessed that just based on the voice and the complexity of what was going on, because the character herself is 17. I was happy to see something a little younger; so many YA these days is just NA searching for a label. But then the second book has her at 24 and she almost has sex in the first chapter and I'm going....holy rusted whiplash, Batman. What's the target age group?

IDK, maybe the target is 32, because I'm halfway through the sequel already.

*I never got around to reading and reviewing this book. I may do so in the future*