Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly (review)

Donnelly (author of Revolution, BCCB 11/10 and These Shallow Graves, BCCB 11/15) takes the Grimms’ version of “Cinderella” as the starting point for this feminist tale. After the bloody debacle of the glass slipper and Ella’s marriage to the prince, Isabelle—the elder of the two ugly stepsisters—is overcome with remorse at her own cruelty and complicity, and she begs the Fairy Queen for help. The Fairy Queen orders Isabelle to find three missing pieces of her own heart, and as Isabelle tries to discover her missing pieces and keep her delusional mother and brilliant but impractical sister from starvation, a ruthless invading army threatens the entire country. As if that weren’t enough for one girl with missing toes to cope with, the personified figures of Fate and Chance take an interest. Their attempts to influence Isabelle’s personal quest frame the sequence of events, while at the story’s heart is a bitter, broken heroine who finds that in order to save her country, she must first save herself. The concoction of knife-sharp fairy-tale metaphors and buoyant whimsy will appeal to older fans of Valente’s Fairyland series (The Girl Who Navigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, BCCB 6/11, etc.), and if Donnelly’s version of feminist self-empowerment feels familiar, it is still effective. This is another needed voice exposing cultural myths that suffocate girls in the name of likability and pit them against one another in the name of beauty.