(minor spoilers)
Conceptually, this book is really cool. In its fantasy world, Cinderella and Prince Charming are important historical figures who ushered in a new age of prosperity for their kingdom. Their fairy tale is now upheld by everyone in a manner reminiscent of a religious text, with each family owning a “palace-approved” storybook that children are expected to memorize and model their lives after. Except no one seems to really care if boys grow up to be loving and gentlemanly like Charming. Girls, on the other hand, must live up to the impossible standards of Cinderella’s perfection or risk bringing shame and ruin upon their families.
As the story begins, Sophia is only days away from attending a mandatory ball, at which she and all the other unmarried teenage girls will dress up in the finest their families can afford in order to be more or less auctioned off as wives to the highest bidder. This is an event that girls are supposed to spend their whole lives dreaming of; after all, Cinderella met her true love at a ball. But Sophia knows the ball won’t lead to her happily ever after; she’s known for years that she’s only attracted to girls, in particular her best friend Erin. Upon discovering their similar problems, her new friend Luke suggests a lavender marriage. Maybe together they can even find a way to escape the kingdom and its oppression. But when disaster strikes at the ball, she’s forced to go on the run alone. Until she meets Constance, the last descendant of Cinderella’s stepsister. Together they work to uncover the truth of what really happened to Cinderella and to de-throne the tyrant King Manford.
If this all sounds like it’s leading to a pretty standard YA fantasy novel plot, that’s because it does just that. Which not necessarily a bad thing; I like a lot of YA fantasy, and obviously many other people do too. So if you enjoy these kinds of stories, you’ll probably enjoy this one. It is always nice to see good queer romance, as well as a black protagonist—sadly still pretty uncommon in a fairy tale reimagining. Overall there’s not much that I found particularly memorable, and it’s certainly not perfect. Some of the story beats feel clumsy or even unnecessary: a scene in which the main characters magically induce visions of their futures comes to mind. But it was entertaining the whole way through, and the relationship that develops between Sophia and Constance is really sweet.
Ultimately, though, I was less interested in the plot and characters than I was in Bayron’s examination of the way the stories can affect us. Perhaps I took it in a different direction than she intended, but I also interpreted it as a critique of biblical literalism and its use by patriarchal systems to keep men in power. Having spent the first twenty-five years of my life as an evangelical Christian, I know from experience how easy it is to be manipulated into submitting to such systems unquestioningly, even if they’re harmful to you and to other people. After all, when you know nothing else, how could you even know that this isn’t the best life has to offer? I suspect some readers might find the premise far-fetched or heavy-handed, and maybe I would too if I’d read it a year ago or a year from now. But for where I am right now in my life, it really resonated with me.
As much as I appreciated the book’s themes, they felt weakened by Sophia’s characterization, which I thought was really inconsistent with what was supposed to be her character arc. In the first chapters, we see her constantly bending and outright breaking the kingdom’s rules for proper feminine behavior; she does so deliberately and often. She convinces Erin to sneak away to meet with her, she criticizes the laws of the kingdom openly to her horrified friends, she talks back to rude boys and is quite willing to physically fight them. Yes, she does don a massive gown and go to the ball, but what else could she have done? Yet throughout the rest of the book, she’s framed as having just gone along with the Cinderella fairy tale and with the laws based on it. This is how she views her time in the kingdom before she escaped, and nothing about the writing suggests she’s wrong to think this about herself. But she is wrong. In those early chapters, we never see her just go along with anything. She’s always questioned and pushed back as much as she was able. When she thinks back on her younger self telling her parents she wants to marry a princess, it seems that it never occurred to her that this desire was wrong; she’s always known that the kingdom is in the wrong for trying to dictate who she should love. On the one hand, it’s always great to have a protagonist who’s confident in their identity. On the other hand, I do feel like this contradicts what the rest of the book tries to say about her growth. And it just seem unrealistic, given her upbringing, that she would never have any real struggle with accepting herself.
But maybe what I view as unrealistic is just me trying to project too much of my own experience onto the situation. And this book isn’t about me. It’s about the stories we grow up with. They have the power to shape who we become and the world we inhabit, and we need to be mindful of what stories are being told by those in power.
Cinderella is Dead is far from being a new favorite. I don’t plan to ever read it again, and I wouldn’t recommend it as a must-read. But I enjoyed it well enough for what it was, and I’ll be quite willing to pick up any other Kalynn Bayron titles I happen across at the library. She has a lot to say that’s worth saying and some truly original ideas, and I expect that her execution of those ideas will only improve with further experience.
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