Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron is a dystopian story based upon the fairy tale of Cinderella. We all know the cookie cutter tale of Cinderella – evil stepmother, fairy godmother, fancy ball… lah di dah. This book, however, is set 200 years after Charming and Cinderella got married and entails the fallout of society left in its wake. Men are the ones in charge and the women depend on the men for everything, even money. The antagonist, King Manford, is a descendant of Prince Charming, and every year he arranges the Annual Ball that all the teenage girls of the city are forced to attend. Here they are selected by the men of the kingdom to become their wives, which is decided on factors such as chosen on how attractive they are.
The protagonist is Sophia Grimmins, a teen who is against the idea of being chosen by a man and longs to run away. Sophia is in love with her best friend, Erin, and tries to convince her to run away together. She ends up going into hiding from the Kings guards who are sent out to capture her, and along the way she meets Constance, a descendent of one of the ‘evil stepsisters’ – who are actually revolutionaries plotting to overthrow the king - and together they vow to bring him down and free all the woman and girls from his tyrannical rule.
The book moves at a fast pace with lots of unusual and exciting parts. Both girls exhibit bravery but stick to their principles, putting themselves into dangerous situations in the hope they can change things for the better, from crossdressing to full on necromancy. The relationship between Sophia and Constance is initially distant but through the course of the book, we are shown that they become attracted to each other.
I enjoyed this book a lot - it pulls onto the story of Cinderella and has a strong feminist theme and also discusses same sex relationships. If I had one criticism, it would probably be the lack of a sequel, but that’s just me. There aren’t many male characters that play a large role, (honourable mention to Luke, a supporting character that helps keep Sophia and Erin’s relationship a secret), but in other respects the cast is very diverse. However, it certainly raises many issues for discussion, and I am sure that it is, if not will be, popular with teenagers and young adults alike, as well as members of the LGBTQIA+ community due to the representation.
And I’m not the only one – my friend Trusha agreed: ‘it was amazing, however I feel like the execution of how they revealed the plot of the fairy godmother being evil was done very quickly and randomly, I feel like they should’ve given it more time and added a few more pages than just wrapping it up at the end […] but it was good, I can’t lie’.
