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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24337.Ella_Enchanted?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Ella Enchanted" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1167521378m/24337.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24337.Ella_Enchanted?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Ella Enchanted</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13677.Gail_Carson_Levine">Gail Carson Levine</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/10019445?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>Having seen the movie version, I'd had the thought, "Hmm, this is okay, but there's probably a better movie in there somewhere." To that end, I decided to read the book to compare the film to the source material. Knowing that the movie relied heavily on <i>Shrek</i>-style pop culture references and, inexplicably, '70s Top 40 hits, it serves to reason that it differs dramatically from the book, and it does, with little beyond the premise and some characters making the transition. While I think some of the changes made for the film weren't advisable, it's easy to see why the filmmakers made changes. Levine's pacing is stilted and awkward, setting up Ella's departure to finishing school and her escape to find the misguided fairy Lucinda only to reset her story halfway through the novel by sending her back to her father's house and back to the casual cruelty of Hattie and Olga. The Cinderella storyline, on which this book is ostensibly riffing, doesn't kick in until two-thirds into the book. A lot of it reads like first-draft brainstorming, with characters that come and go with little payoff and plot devices set into motion that never come into play beyond Levine's own indulgence. <br/> <br/>Honestly, I'm not the target audience for this book, so giving the structure of it some undue scrutiny is possibly me just being a bad sport. Levine writes in a modern tone mixed liberally with medieval-isms, and as a whole there's some lovely language and Ella's definitely a heroine you want to root for (though an uncomfortable amount of time is spent addressing why teenage Ella isn't too young to get married). It has the requisite fairy tale ending, so if you're inclined to like that sort of thing and aren't too hung up on the particulars of Levine's plotting, you'll probably find something to enjoy here. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/347733?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>