Bound in Into the Forest

May 12, 2015 Lacey Louwagie rated it really liked it

Shelves: 100-book-challenge-2015, retelling, youngadult, youngadultfantasy, fantasy, fairy-tales, into-the-forest-2015

It's been so many years since I've read anything by Donna Jo Napoli -- I think more than a decade -- so I was pleased to find that she still "held up" after all this time, especially since I stopped reading her because I seem to have OD'd and found her books not "doing it" for me the same way they used to.

It's clear from Napoli's retellings that she has the utmost respect for her source material, and I admire that. She doesn't try too hard to find a "gimmick" or "twist" to make her retellings se It's been so many years since I've read anything by Donna Jo Napoli -- I think more than a decade -- so I was pleased to find that she still "held up" after all this time, especially since I stopped reading her because I seem to have OD'd and found her books not "doing it" for me the same way they used to.

It's clear from Napoli's retellings that she has the utmost respect for her source material, and I admire that. She doesn't try too hard to find a "gimmick" or "twist" to make her retellings sensational; instead, she simply sinks deeply and richly into the source material, particularly the psychology of the characters and the seemingly bizarre choices they make.

This is the first time I've read a Cinderella retelling that harkens back to some of the earliest, Chinese source materials, and I really liked the change of setting. The story is still there -- the stepmother, a half sister, an orphaned and disadvantaged daughter -- but there's a subtly different light cast upon it. At first glance this book seems to be less dark than some of Napoli's other work, but the scenes with the raccoon kittens and the ultimate fate of Xing Xing's fish prove that Napoli still does not shy away from the more disturbing aspects of fairy tales.

Napoli's characters are not two-dimensional -- Xing Xing's sister, who suffers the pain of bound feet, is a sympathetic character that Xing Xing genuinely pities and cares for. The stepmother, while dismissive and sometimes cruel to Xing Xing, is also made more believable for the pressure she feels to marry off her daughter so that the family can survive in a culture where three women alone are worth very little. Her cruelty is interspersed with moments of kindness, so that one does not feel the sort of simmering hatred of her that the stepmother usually inspires. It would have been soul-crushing to live under her roof, just the same.

There is a lot of buildup, so that the ending (the "ball," the search for the owner of the shoe, etc.) seems rushed. I never really "bought" the character of the prince, nor did I feel totally confident Xing Xing was heading off to a happily ever after. But since the romance aspect is probably the least alluring to me in the Cinderella story, it didn't bother me too much to have it downplayed here.

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Apr 25, 2013 Melanti rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015, young-adult, fairy-tales-folklore-and-mythology, historical, library, group-reads, intotheforest-2015

A retelling of a VERY old Chinese variant of the Cinderella tale. Ye Xian -- wiki article

I really enjoyed this variant of the story and I thought Naploi did a wonderful job of working in some traditional Chinese beliefs that weren't explicitly part of the Ye Xian tale or at least the versions of Ye Xian that I've found so far don't explicitly link the beliefs, though they might well have been implicitly linked by the people of that era.

I really liked how Napoli pulled in the belief of ancestor ...more

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Apr 21, 2015 Katy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: forest_2015

A quick read, but a lovely retelling of a Cinderella fairytale from China. Well done.

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Nov 15, 2012 Kristina Wojtaszek rated it it was amazing

Shelves: retold-fairy-tales, historical-fiction

If you've ever read any of the ancient versions of Cinderella, you will get a thrill out of this book. There is a part where she clings to a tree in despair-- and I had to smile, where I saw this as reference to the versions that followed the "mother's spirit in the fish bones" by "the mother's spirit in the gift bestowing tree." You can alwasy tell Napoli does a lot of research before writing her historical fiction, yet the lyrical beauty is always present as well. I also loved that the main ch ...more

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Aug 01, 2019 Netanella rated it really liked it

Shelves: place-china, fairy-tales, young-adult, 2019-july-reading-challenges

I fell in love with Donna Jo Napoli's books when I first read Sirena, a wonderful story of the Trojan War from the perspective of a siren left behind by a Greek sailor. In "Bound," Napoli combines Chinese folk lore with the Cinderella tale, and she creates yet another beautiful tale of a young woman setting out in the world. I am not really qualified to describe early Chinese life, but Napoli describes a beautiful and harsh world of Xing Xing and her stepmother and stepsister in their cave dwell ...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Leah rated it liked it

Shelves: into-the-forest-2015

A retelling of "Ye Xian," one of the earliest Cinderella stories. I found myself bracing for Xing Xing's well being when she was walking through the woods alone, traveling between towns, even when she visited Master Tang. Yet I'm not sure why I was so on edge. There were a few scenes of graphic animal violence which, understandably, darkened the overall tone of the story. Kind of like how I reacted to Beast: I wasn't blow away but I still enjoyed the couple of hours it took to read this story. B ...more

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Mar 29, 2010 Fairlita rated it liked it

Shelves: adaptation-or-retelling, china-or-chinese, folklore-fairytale_mythology_fable, ya, historical-fiction_alternate

Bought this book together with Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story (Carolyn Turgeon) and Cinderella: An Art Deco Love Story (Lynn Roberts) for comparison purpose. They are all versions/variants/adaptations of the Cinderella story.

The book gives insight on the Chinese Ming Dynasty culture. Geeeez... Did they really do those feet binding to, like, every girl even then? I mean, I thought this practice was only to blue-blood or at least rich girls during the Ching dynasty...

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