This book delivered to my expectations (which were very high!) I have read quite a few Cinderella retellings in 2020 so The Charmed Wife felt like the natural progression!

An amusing book but also such a nice female power novel. Thank you for letting me read and review this book I hope we get more like this soon!

This book is wonderful, but it's tricky to review because I think it's much better if you go into it not really knowing what to expect, so I don't want to give any of the plot away.

What I can safely say without spoiling anything, is that I loved the mice, with their intricate histories and adventures. I also loved how unpredictable the plot was (no easy feat when you're retelling fairytales!)

It's a very clever story with some brilliant characterisation, fantastic side-plots and epic histories. I will be recommending The Charmed Wife all year.

Oh, this was good.

I've always loved fairy tales, but lately, especially after reading Dworkin's Woman Hating and Gilbert and Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic, I've been taking an interest in viewing them through a feminist lens. Here, Grushin invites us to wonder what if the 'happily ever after' that closes most fairy tales wasn't really happily ever after, and she takes us down a delightfully twisty road all the while. The end result is a clever blend of the magical and the mundane, the imaginary and the everyday, and I enjoyed every minute of it!

Amidst the wonderfully weird setting, in which there are carnivorous water spirits, fairy godmothers, witches, women who live in shoes, princesses who dance and princesses put under sleeping spells, and multi-generational mouse sagas, Grushin makes some excellent observations on fairy tales that will stick with me for a long time:

"Most fairy tales are subversive. Feminist, even. No, don't snort, listen. These are the stories women told to other women, old wives' tales, spinners' yarns, right? And who are their heroes? Women again. Snow White, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood. Girls who run away from home, choose husbands, escape wolves. They have names, they have characters, they have adventures. But the men? Just nameless blanks, the lot of them, and some are downright evil."

and

"And maybe that is what all fairy tales are, at their heart: generations of unhappy women throughout history who lost their mothers to disease, fathers to violence, daughters to labour, sons to hunger, who were beaten, abandoned, exploited, orphaned, collecitvely trying to dream themselves into a life that made sense, spinning tales of man-eating ogres, crystal shoes, poisonous apples, and true love — thinly-veiled metaphors of everything gone wrong and everything hoped for on lonely winter nights."

In short, I thoroughly enjoyed this take on the Cinderella story, and I'd be happy to read more from Grushin if all of her work is as thought-provoking and strange as this one!

My thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Charmed Wife’ by Olga Grushin in exchange for an honest review.

“And they lived happily ever after . . . didn't they?”

This is a subversive feminist reimagining of Cinderella. After her fairy godmother’s assistance, a royal ball, and a discarded glass slipper, Cinderella married her prince. Thirteen-and-a-half years and two children later and life with Prince Roland is definitely no fairytale.

She leaves the palace one night to meet with a local witch, well known for her potions to assist disgruntled wives. Yet Cinderella doesn’t ask for a love spell to win back her Prince Charming. Instead, she wants him dead.

Olga Grushin’s approach is quite tongue-in-cheek, referencing a number of fairytales along the way. She even pops in some Disneyesque touches such as a flock of teapots that bustle about the palace delivering tea as required and Brie and Nibbles, the adorable house mice.

The narrative did take a few unexpected turns as Grushin got creative with time, space, and her established reality. This was somewhat disorienting though only for a short period of time as I adjusted my perception.

Overall, I found this an interesting approach to the fairytale that was respectful of its origins yet willing to be playful with its tropes and explore new interpretations. In that respect it reminded me of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Into the Woods’.

I would expect ‘The Charmed Wife’ to be a good choice for reading groups that are looking for a novel that is unusual, intelligent, well written, and offers plenty of scope for discussion.

Going into this I didnt know what to expect. But almost instantly I knew the writing just wasn't for me. I couldn't retain anything. I struggled from the beginning.
The writing felt disjointed and not enjoyable.
The mouse parts did nothing but confuse me.
I ended up DNFing at 41%.
I knew it wasn't going to get better for me.

Oh how I loved the premise of this book and that is all.
The whole story felt a bit all over the place and I'm not sure if that was intentional or the writers style.
I was confused because the perspective changed quickly and with no notice.
Plus the characters had little to no personality to endear me to them except for the mice who will always be dear to my heart.

Sadly 2 Stars

I received a free copy of this book via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was such an interesting and compelling story that had me eagerly turning the page. I loved the premise of this book and it was beautifully written. ⁣
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I loved how transported I felt and I loved playing spot the princess or fairytale! The thing I loved the most about this book was the notion that life doesn't always have a happily ever after and the unrealistic side of relationships in these fairytales. ⁣
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It's hard to talk more about this story without wanting to give it all away so you have to just trust me on this one!

Overall an interesting and unique book that has some very important messages throughout! ⁣

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Hodder & Stroughton books for providing me with a copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for granting my wish to read The Charmed Wife in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.
What can I say about this book? Well, 13 years post the Happy Ever After of Cinderella, life is anything but! Cinders is now married to Prince definitely not so Charming and to fill her cup, they have had two children (a boy and a girl,) setting the perfect 2.2 scene.
If you’ve got this far then you definitely realise that this is no HEA and there are some real twists and turns to the tale. This book brings to the fore a range of issues and plots that are definitely NOT Disney! It’s still got the Disney mice, but seriously there’s a twist and tbh it’s a pretty fun twist that isn’t scared to be NOT Disney!
As for Prince Charming, well as you can tell he really isn’t just think misogynistic, wandering, a**hole! Meanwhile Cinders is stuck in this semi-make believe world of magical tea pots, music and all the charm of a magical palace, but with no opportunity to be herself and realise what she can do…until she reaches the end of her tether and decides the time has come to murder her husband!
There is so much more to this story, it definitely turns the whole HEA trope onto its head, faces broken marriages, depression and divorce full on. I found this a great read and really enjoyed the twist and I highly recommend that if you want a break from all the HEA that social media plasters everywhere, this is the book for you!

This book slid off in a completely different direction to what I was expecting, and I loved it anyway (maybe even more?). I went in thinking it would be a subversive fairytale retelling - I got that and a lot more.

There are so many layers to this book. Stories within stories within stories. The central character is 'Cinderella', but we also have minor threads that her own storyline grazes, crosses or tangles up with in this great big tapestry of the Fairytale World. Bluebeard and Sleeping Beauty are just two that come to mind. There are so many overlapping stories that it's almost dizzying - which perfectly matches the strange, dream-like state of wandering into a forest and bumping into folktale after folktale making up this fairytale web.

The transition from the fairytale universe to modern day New York City was utterly seamless and downright sneaky! I'm still in shock at how it was done and so impressed. Especially when an important fact comes up near the end, relating to Cinderella's childhood.

I absolutely loved how self-aware and subversive this was, especially when you look back at bits of Cinderella's fairytale life from the lens of her present-day hindsight in NYC. Cinderella is a very unreliable narrator so PREPARE TO BE CONFUSED - YET ALSO MARVEL at how Grushin's almost indecently long sentences (like seriously, a LOT of commas) evoke precisely the sense of confusion, tension and simmering discomfort and anxiety felt by Cinderella herself. A woman overwhelmed by the reality of her unhappy marriage and a music box of a world.

This is more of a character-driven book with a lot of flashbacks and introspection. Speaking of flashbacks, I think at least half of the exposition is actually in the way of Cinderella recalling her past leading up to the knife's edge moment where she deliberates killing Prince Roland (her husband). Character-wise, I liked that no one felt 2D good or evil - everyone was nuanced, including the far-from-innocent Cinderella and the husband she's demonised in her head. The plot was certainly still interesting - especially when reading the side-fairytales - but if we're talking plot, it's the parallel story of Cinderella's mice that really shines. It was highly entertaining and surprisingly diverse (sapphic mice of the world, unite!), as well as being a clever way of adding extra depth and context to the world-building. It was especially effective when we started slipping into the modern world/era.

All in all, a surprising and thought-provoking (and somewhat mind-bending) read that I'd recommend for fans of fairytales and folklore! A word of caution to younger readers though, as it does occasionally get somewhat graphic in relation to sex and violence.

I have mixed feelings about this book, I liked some of it, but I struggled with other parts of it. I found that it was very confusing to begin with, as it seemed to be set in a fantasy fairy tale world, but then seemed to be set in a modern era. I had to keep going back and re-reading parts to try and understand what was happening. It didn't help either that Cinderella was an unreliable narrator. I think that this was intentional, but it did make it difficult for me to follow the plot and understand the storyline.
I liked the idea that Fairy tales are not always realistic, and what happens in the 'happy ever after'. The writing was very dark, definitely not like a fairy tale at all. The book seemed to ramble on in places, and seemed very long. I struggled in places, but I did read it all eventually. There was a twist at the end, but I didn't really enjoy the ending much.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for my ARC.

I was a little underwhelmed by this book but I think that may have been 100% my own fault. I went into this book with really high expectations because the blurb just sounded incredible. I expected a bit more fantasy and a little more of the plot to kill her husband and that was sort of missed on me. I also felt that I didn't get on to well with the writing style as I felt that it jumped around a whole lot and I always felt a little like I was missing something. As I was expecting some more fantasy in this (don't get me wrong there is lots of classic fairy tale things such as witches and fairy godmothers) I struggled with the blend of very modern and fantasy I just felt that they were very jarring and didn't blend that well together. I do think that my feelings on this book are my own expectations and someone going in knowing that it is very modern and there isn't some major plot to kill her husband - it is very marriage gone wrong instead that they might enjoy it a whole lot more.
2 out of 5 stars.

DNF at 35% and after reading the final few chapters.

What this book enticed and what this book delivered felt like two completely different paradigms. Like being told there is a pie waiting for you but when you bite into it, you realise it is a chicken pie instead of apple.

I found it hard to engage at all with the storyline of Cinderella, bored within about 20 pages as I realised this was less a story of revenge or redemption or magic and more a story where one character reflects on the past thirteen (and a half as we are repeatedly reminded) years of being cast aside and cheated on by a duller than paint drying husband.

There was also a weird subplot following Cinderella's mice which did not fit in any way with story and I felt took away from the flow of the book. If this had been the main plot, you can bet I would have carried on reading. But as it was, it felt like it just didn't fit right with everything else.

I did skip ahead to read the final few chapters as I was aware there is a plot twist and all it did was make me even more relieved to have stopped reading. If I had carried on and eventually reached this part, I would have just been so gutted.

I was hoping for magic and mayhem as an older, darker, smarter Cinderella broke from a crappy marriage to reinvent herself. Instead we had a play by play of the times her husband cheated on her, her being a naive, drug addled mess who never seemed to show any growth or maturity, and a plot twist that left me wandering just what this book was meant to be about and thinking it should have all been written as a contemporary tale rather than a fantasy that never quite hit the mark.

I can see why people would enjoy this book, and I think the side story of the mice would have been a far more compelling read if that had been the only plot line in the book, but for me, this was a major miss and left me yearning for more.

The Charmed Wife by Olga Grushin is the story of Cinderella after her supposed happy ending, which turns out to have been not so happy after all. The book ties other fairytales into one magical world, and is a beautiful and heartbreaking story with a twist that I definitely didn't see coming.

The story is intensely emotional. It's about a woman who is unhappy in her marriage, and Grushin expertly creates the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in a relationship. She uses magic and fairytale tropes to paint a moving picture of a woman in crisis, experiencing a breakdown, and the unravelling of a marriage.

The writing is stunningly beautiful. At times it felt a little too flowery, but for the most part it set the scene perfectly. There's a dreamlike quality to the whole book, which as you progress through the story, makes more and more sense. About halfway/three quarters of the way through things start to feel very trippy, with the lines between reality and fantasy blurring. The whole book is very clever, and I found the ending satisfying.

I really liked all of the scenes with the witch and the fairy godmother, and the memories of Cinderella's marriage. I struggled a bit with the interspersed stories about Cinderella's mice. I felt like I was reading two different books at the same time, and at times the mouse sections felt weirdly 'disney' in an otherwise very beautiful and adult tale. I don't read much literary fiction, though, so I'm wondering if there were metaphors and analogies there that I just missed.

If you like your fairytale retellings with a more adult twist, or are a fan of literary fiction, this book is for you.

I gave up at around 40%, I really struggled with it.

Honestly, to me it's a confusing mess with flashes of brilliance but the brilliant bits are not frequent enough to keep me interested.

I was really looking forward to reading this novel in what I thought would be a retelling of Cinderella.

Unfortunately the writing style wasn’t for me and I found the premise a little disjointed.

DNF

This has a really interesting premise, like many I loved fairytales as a child but the older I get the more sceptical I find “Happy Ever Afters”, so I was really intrigued by The Charmed Wife. There were some really gripping parts in the book, though it was confusing in parts, it’s a fairly fast read and I enjoyed the snippets about other fairytale characters. There was the old cheating trope in this book which I never enjoy, though I appreciate what the author was trying to do, it was a somewhat interesting read but not my favourite fairytale retelling.

Is this a joke? This is an actual published book?! Good god, it's one of the worst books I've ever read. I got as far as 18% and I don't even know how I managed that. This was really bad, bad storytelling, bad writing, bland characters. I was more a badly written cinderella fanfiction than an actual book.

I have always believed that the ‘traditional’ fairy-tales and stories that were spoon-fed at a very young age (for myself and older generations) were ultimately damaging for girls. To grow up expecting to be saved or looked after, is dangerous. And even if you know it’s ‘only’ a story, you are still subtly conditioned to feel less important, which, if not rooted out before adulthood, can change how you approach relationships – if a relationship doesn’t start out on an equal footing, it is usually doomed. I think this novel illustrates beautifully how toxic this fairy-tale crap can be where it manifests in real life. Thankfully, these days those types of role models are slowly being squeezed out of the picture.

The premise is that we are reunited with ‘Cindarella’ after she has been married to Prince Charming for 13 (unhappy) years. The writing is wonderful as always with Olga Grushin; she is one of my fave modern writers. It’s not a cosy read – I found the magical aspect quite dark and slightly menacing throughout, although not overtly – but it was addictive!

As you progress through the novel, you start to see the story gradually taking shape - fantasy blending with reality (this blend emphasises the sense of disorientation and unease). It was fascinating to see a modern take on the behaviour of these fairy-tale characters; there is not only Cinderella here, but snippets of many others – all shown from an alternative angle. Baba Yaga makes an interesting appearance too.

So, beware of falling into the trap of the fairy-tale expectation - don’t put ridiculous pressure on yourself to achieve ‘happily ever after’ at the expense of wasting your life.

Recommended.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review via NetGalley. This is an adult fantasy retelling of Cinderella where she has grown to hate her husband. Thirteen years after they married, she is considering killing her husband. At the beginning of the book, we don't know why she feels this way, but throughout the reader gets to piece together the story through flashbacks.

The Charmed Wife is bursting with fairytales that all intertwine in refreshing and modern ways - Cinderella struggles when she realises that happily ever afters aren't as simple as they seem. This book was honestly a lot stranger than I expected and it had a lot of twists and turns. It definitely felt like Cinderella was an unreliable narrator at times, which made it very interesting to read, as the reader finds out a lot of information through her eyes. It's a dark twist on the fairytale, and I also enjoyed the takes on the characters of the fairy godmother and the witch. A lot of other fairytales also appear, such as the twelve dancing princesses and sleeping beauty.

I loved the concept of this book, but I didn't enjoy the execution as much as I thought it would - it was quite confusing for me. It all seemed like a big jumble and I wasn't sure how everything fit together - I found myself having to reread parts. There were also some asides that I didn't really care about - at first I thought the parts about Brie and Nibbles were cool spins on the fairytale, but the sections got too long for my liking and I became uninterested after the first few. I did read it quickly because it's a short book, but the plot did drag for me. Cinderella was the only character I was really interested in so I didn't become fully invested in the story.

So I was grateful to receive a copy of this book, but unfortunately, I just didn't click with this book. I have no doubt that some people would enjoy this book, but it wasn't for me. I could see where Cinderella was coming from in her feelings, but in general, I didn't care much about the characters. However, this book was short so I got through it pretty quickly! Content warnings for discussion of murder, violence, infidelity, sexism, drug use, and mentions of fatphobia.

2.5/5 stars

I was disappointed with this as I really wanted to enjoy it - a cinderella retelling where happy ever after didn't exist? Sounded great. Instead, I got a run of the mill abusive husband cheating on his wife, and the wife wanting to leave him. If it wasn't for the fact that I knew it was a retelling, I wouldn't have really gotten that at all from it.