i am confused what this book is supposed to be... or what it wants to really achieve? I struggled to stay interested in the story about Cinderella’s flashbacks to earlier times, what is going on right n0w and the whole thing meandered a lot. I personally found it hard to follow.

DNF - many thanks to the author and publisher for the opportunity to read, unfortunately I did not get on with the novel but know it would be loved by many!

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

This book was so much fun to read!!!! An alternate look at the "happily ever after" at the end of Cinderella's story. Her definition of "happily" has yet to be met and she's going to do something about it.....and boy does she ever! Great story line, a great twist to the fairytale characters we all know, and a great ending. What more could you ask?

This was very bizarre…I’m still not sure entirely what happened here! The actual story is clever and is a disturbing reimagining of the typical Cinderella tale. It turns the typical ‘Happily Ever After’ story on its head and asks what happens when the storybook is closed, when the credits have rolled? Turn out, nothing good. I liked this twisted tale, but it could have been a little tighter plot wise.
I found the mouse interludes completely irrelevant to the point where I skipped them by the 5th - they were fun to start but what purpose did they have really?! Why?!

I gave this one a shot and opted to DNF it - it's not quite my cup of tea. Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a copy for review!

I will not be giving feedback on this book as I couldn’t really get into it but I think others may enjoy it.

i was really excited to read this book, but it archieved and now i cant download it im now planning on buying the book.

I've read quite a few retellings of Cinderella over the last couple of years.

This one was better than most of the others and the story that runs alongside was fun.

Enjoyed the prose. The narrative was engaging, the voice strong and really carried the whole thing ahead. However, the woe-is-me slant of the heroine got tedious at times and this made for a less than engaging read the further I went
*review copy obtained from the publisher via Netgalley - all opinions are honestly my own*

This has to be one of the strangest books I have ever read. Part of me wasn't sure how to rate this book as on the one hand I didn't always understand what I was actually reading. However towards the end most things started making sense to an overwhelmingly spectacular level and things came together in ways I could never have imagined.

The charm in this book is definitely the final chunk of it. Everything I thought I knew got turned on its head by the mother of all twists! I have never known confusion like before. I do think this would also be one heck of a book to reread. If you want to be confused and then have your mind blown, this is the perfect book for you.

I absolutely adored the concept of this when I first heard about it and it didn't disappoint. I'm a major sucker for fairy tale retellings/using fairy tale characters in real-world situations. It's just something that gets me every time. It was really well written and I was engaged throughout. I really enjoyed it.

Maybe I'm just burned out on fairytale reimaginings but I wasn't able to connect with this book. I just didn't care about what happened to any of the characters and I didn't find the story engaging for that reason I wasn't able to connect with it. Probably just a me thing.

Review not posted anywhere else.

My feelings on this interesting take on Cinderella are rather mixed, but I can’t criticise the inventiveness of the author. Even in the 21st Century, when people think of fairy tales, Disney is still the thing that comes to mind, rather than the darker, more bloodthirsty original stories. Even with new feminist heroines like Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty) and Elsa from Frozan (The Snow Queen) our fairy tales have become sanitised and acceptable. I loved the premise, that thirteen years after her happily ever after, Cinderella, now the Queen, has had enough. Where once she wanted the Prince, now she just wants to kill him!
She meets a witch at a crossroads in order to get the deal done, but when the Fairy Godmother turns up to talk Cinders out of it, she’s pulled in two different directions, I enjoyed the humorous parts such as Brie and Nibbles the mice and I wouldn’t say no to a never ending teapot. The Prince has given up being charming, and comes across as a cad, so far it sounds about normal in the world of celebrity marriage, but then comes a third section that turns everything on its head. I could understand it but I wasn’t sure it worked fully. To be positive it’s this third section that wakes Cinderella up to what’s really going on in the story. This is humorous, irreverent and has a heroine who is anything but meek and mild..

Sadly, a DNF for me. This was not the fairytale book I had expected from the blurb, and I felt the characters weren't well written, there was a lot of stereotyping in the pages.

This story seemed to jump around a lot into various timelines that left me confused at times. It wasn't a bad book, but nor was it an enjoyable read. I nearly DNF'ed at 60% but powered through anyway. It just fell a bit flat

Sadly, a DNF for me. I got about halfway through and realised I didn't care about the main character or the spell she was trying to cast, or why she was trying to cast it. I was disappointed because so many people I know had loved this book but it just wasn't for me.

This book isn’t at all what I had expected from the ‘fairy tale retelling’ description.

Yes, the main character is Cinderella and she has two little talking mouse friends, and married Prince Charming. But this is no simple retelling, nor even a ‘twisted’ one. Instead it is a thorough and – at times – dark exploration of womanhood, marriage and motherhood in their different aspects and experiences.

The story begins in the middle, as the disillusioned princess must decide whether to go through with cursing her prince to death and is then told mainly in cauldron-vision flashbacks to explain to us (and to her – her memory of events often differs from what is revealed) how she reached her current point. With the guidance of a wicked (or is she?) witch and a good (or is she?) fairy godmother, Cinderella chooses her path eventually. Then we continue to follow her as she faces the consequences of her actions.

The emphasis is on unreliable narration, false memories, dreams and delusions, and the expectations inherent in fairytale logic are constantly warring with the intrusions of ‘reality’ as we know it. By the end, it is left ambiguous as to whether this is a fantasy that magically merges into the ‘real world’, or whether these were the fantastic imaginings of an unwell, unhappy woman seeking to escape the reality of her own choices by reimagining the very world around her.

There is a sub-plot featuring the dynasties, development and philosophical ponderings of generations of mouse companions, with some scathing side commentary about how they are used and neglected by their oblivious human ‘friend’. I mostly enjoyed these excursions into a lighter, more humorous satirical realm as a break from the despair and anger of a princess who is discovering that adult, married, maternal life is not the fairytale she had thought it would be.

Not a quick, easy read or the usual kind of fairytale retold, this book is a more of a literary exploration of the female experience, with no simple answers or happy-ever-afters.

I really enjoyed The Charmed Wife by Olga Grushin. This is an interesting take on fairy tales - Cinderella is very much not taken with the reality of her life after years of being married to the prince and is looking for a way out. This is a story full of unlikeable characters, of people you don't necessarily want to feel for, but ultimately do empathise with. And that speaks to Grushin's skill with words. But the pacing is off in this one. It feels choppy in places, and drags in the middle at times. It also has much more of a literary fiction feel than what I usually read, which might explain some of the struggles I experienced with the pacing. It does discuss what goes into making a marriage successful - from both sides, which I thought was really smart - and quite satirically portrays fairy godmothers as morally ambiguous characters. And my favourite parts were probably the little mice and their dynasty of self-replacing descendants! This is one to check out if you are into fairy tales, meta-analysis and intellectually challenging books.

This was a Did not Finish for me - I tried several times, but in the end I was just not invested enough in the characters to continue. It was slow and meandering and not for me.