Soraya read and liked Emilie's review of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister:

"Maguire's ability to come up with an interesting story is far better than his ability to tell the story. His writing is often a bit too labored, his symbolism too transparent, and his literary devices a bit clunky.

Like 'Wicked', 'Confess...more Maguire's ability to come up with an interesting story is far better than his ability to tell the story. His writing is often a bit too labored, his symbolism too transparent, and his literary devices a bit clunky.

Like 'Wicked', 'Confessions' offers the reader a variation on a well-known story. Also like 'Wicked', 'Confessions' is not really all that much to write home about. A somewhat creative variation, but one in which many of the characters are incredibly hard to like, and the story just falls flat in the end. The epilogue reads like something that has been tacked on in order to make up for loose ends, and ultimately transforms a story that seems like it is trying to veer away from the formulaic fairy tale mold into a "happily-ever-after", problems-solved-in-the-last-five-minutes kind of thing. I wouldn't exactly call it satisfying.(less) "