Finding Cinderella by Colleen Hoover

Finding Cinderella is a companion novella to Colleen Hoover’s book Hopeless and the follow-up Losing Hope.  I read Hopeless a couple of years ago and loved it, so I had high hopes for Finding Cinderella.

It tells the story of Six, Sky’s best friend, and Daniel, Holder’s best friend.  They meet in a broom closet in school and neither knows who the other is.  They end up having sex (of course) and afterwards Daniel tries to find his mystery girl but to no avail.  Skip forwards a year and they meet at Sky’s house and - whaddya know - they’re instantly smitten with each other.

I’m not a fan of instalove and although Colleen Hoover is a great writer and makes a really decent fist of it, Finding Cinderella is still instalove and made me go a bit squinty-eyed, like the bit at the beginning of Frozen, when Anna meets Secretly Evil Prince Hans and they dance all around the rooftops professing their deep, enduring love for the person they met five seconds ago.

Although Love Is an Open Door is a top song.

I digress.

Despite the instalove, I’d still recommend Finding Cinderella.  It’s well-written, realistic, the story arc fits neatly into the hundred-or-so pages and it left me with a nice hopeful, fluttery feeling at the end.  Six and Daniel are great characters and although ninety pages isn’t really enough space to do a huge character analysis, Colleen Hoover still manages to make you care about them.

8.5/10