Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister Annotated Bibliography (part 2)

Maguire, Gregory. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. New York: HarperCollins World, 2000. Print. (146  pages)

            Gregory Maguire beautifully illustrated the classic fairytale of Cinderella into a very surprising novel with many twists and turns. He did an excellent job of portraying the characters as people with many emotions and developing the story past the traditional fairytale. All of the characters are very well rounded and the reader gets a sense that they know the characters in the book.

            The last part of this book went by very fast for me. It wasn’t that the story was underdeveloped or that it was short; it was because the story was so captivating that I had a hard time putting the book down. The first part of the book went by like a normal story. It seemed like a completely independent novel that was interesting, but didn’t relate very much to “Cinderella”. In the last part of the book, you could tell that this novel was an extension of the classic tale, but it seemed a bit different. I couldn’t put it down because I wanted to know if it followed the same storyline or not. It seemed the same and I could recognize key events, but there were hidden motives expressed and certain twists that enthralled me.

            This book was also written skillfully. Even though there were some odd vocabulary words in it, it flowed very nicely. I even enjoyed the bits of old English in it. It added to the reading experience and helped the book come alive. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone because it was a very entertaining experience. I would encourage readers to plow through the slow beginning and not give up until they have reached the middle because it really is a wonderful book.