false 18943 17 Gregory Maguire's chilling, wonderful retelling of Cinderella is a study in contrasts. Love and hate, beauty and ugliness, cruelty and charity--each idea is stripped of its ethical trappings, smashed up against its opposite number, and laid bare for our examination. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister begins in 17th-century Holland, where the two Fisher sisters and their mother have fled to escape a hostile England. Maguire's characters are at once more human and more fanciful than their fairy-tale originals. Plain but smart Iris and her sister, Ruth, a hulking simpleton, are dazed and terrified as their mother, Margarethe, urges them into the strange Dutch streets. Within days, purposeful Margarethe has secured the family a place in the home of an aspiring painter, where for a short time, they find happiness. But this is Cinderella, after all, and tragedy is inevitable. When a wealthy tulip speculator commissions the painter to capture his blindingly lovely daughter, Clara, on canvas, Margarethe jumps at the chance to better their lot. "Give me room to cast my eel spear, and let follow what may," she crows, and the Fisher family abandons the artist for the upper-crust Van den Meers. When Van den Meer's wife dies during childbirth, the stage is set for Margarethe to take over the household and for Clara to adopt the role of "Cinderling" in order to survive. What follows is a changeling adventure, and of course a ball, a handsome prince, a lost slipper, and what might even be a fairy godmother. In a single magic night, the exquisite and the ugly swirl around in a heated mix: Everything about this moment hovers, trembles, all their sweet, unreasonable hopes on view before anything has had the chance to go wrong. A stepsister spins on black and white tiles, in glass slippers and a gold gown, and two stepsisters watch with unrelieved admiration. The light pours in, strengthening in its golden hue as the sun sinks and the evening approaches. Clara is as otherworldly as the Donkeywoman, the Girl-Boy. Extreme beauty is an affliction... But beyond these familiar elements, Maguire's second novel becomes something else altogether; a morality play, a psychological study, a feminist manifesto, or perhaps a plain explanation of what it is to be human. Villains turn out to be heroes, and heroes disappoint. The story's narrator wryly observes, "In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human beings. When we grow up, we learn that it's far more common for human beings to turn into rats." Therese Littleton 1758112 1999 Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister total:13551|5:1871|4:4574|3:4916|2:1703|1:487| 13551 46292 18924 1450 3 7 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Sep 24 15:35:04 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 14 16:06:04 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 2 false false Thu Jan 17 20:07:13 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 17 20:16:39 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 3 true false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Fri May 11 07:05:25 -0700 2007 Sat May 12 06:02:49 -0700 2007
I started the novel in the morning, the day I had to take my par...more...]]> 2 5 false false Thu Apr 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Mar 05 08:32:10 -0800 2008 Tue Apr 15 17:57:07 -0700 2008
Like 'Wicked', 'Confessions' offers the reader a variation on a well-know...more...]]> 4 3 false false Wed Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sat Dec 27 16:12:53 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 27 16:13:28 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false false Wed Sep 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 26 06:53:03 -0700 2008 Mon Dec 22 09:23:15 -0800 2008
Having already read Gregory Maguire's Wicked I was something less than thrilled when I got roped into reading Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister for a decidedly informal book discussion group. It wasn't that I found Wicked a bad read, I actually rather enjoyed it...more...]]> 4 3 false false Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sat May 05 10:43:43 -0700 2007 Sat May 05 11:00:47 -0700 2007 Set in 17th century Holland during the Tulip craze this version of Cinderella is by far my favorite. The central character is not Cinderella (who is a spoiled brat) but Iris, the youngest of the t...more...]]> 4 2 false false Wed Mar 28 12:37:34 -0700 2007 Wed Mar 28 12:37:53 -0700 2007
If magic was present, it moved under the skin of the world, beneath the ability of human eyes to catch sight...more...]]> 2 1 false false Fri Nov 19 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Thu Apr 03 23:42:23 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 03 23:43:19 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Feb 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 19 16:20:00 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 03 15:42:46 -0800 2009
T...more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu May 29 18:34:15 -0700 2008 Thu May 29 18:43:30 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Jul 11 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu May 22 10:46:29 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 12 18:12:15 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jun 24 14:46:42 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 26 10:18:34 -0700 2007
Nearly all the action in this book is precipitated by Margarethe; the other characters react to her, but they rarely make choices on their own. And Margarethe was almost too villainous to be believed.

My bad opinion didn...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Jan 17 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Thu Jan 15 05:47:08 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 15 05:47:08 -0800 2009
synopsis:
"Confessions" is set in Holland of the 17th century, and begins with Margarethe Fisher & her daughters Iris who is plain and Ruth who has been referred to her mother as an ox who c...more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 02 15:39:35 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 02 15:41:18 -0800 2008 1 Wicked! It was so much easier to read, to follow, to keep reading and not put down ... Of course it had some darkness to it, like Wicked, but nothing on that scale! Talk about your fractured fairy tale, huh? One of the previous people who read this book said t...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Sep 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 03 13:27:25 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 04 06:50:45 -0700 2009 Wicked The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. In this re-telling of the Cinderella story, I loved how Maguire turns everything upside down that we think and assume about Cinderella’s history, her adopted family, ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Aug 07 00:00:00 -0700 2004 Sun Jun 14 22:47:48 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 14 22:48:09 -0700 2009
The novel's set in 1...more...]]> 0 0 false false Sat May 30 17:48:58 -0700 2009 Sat May 30 17:49:07 -0700 2009
From Gregory Maguire, the acclaimed author of Wicked, comes his much-anticipated second novel, a brilliant and provocative retelling of the timeless Cinderella tale.

In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, m...more...]]> 2 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 03 18:11:53 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 05 21:29:54 -0800 2008
I really appreciated the author's work with character, setting, and historical detail. I was also genuinel...more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Apr 29 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 20 18:59:12 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 29 19:16:24 -0700 2009 more...]]>