I really enjoyed the storyline in world building in the novel. I also really liked the characters. I thought this was a solid read, and I will definitely be reading more by this author.

I loved this book so much. I liked how the author took the original fairytale and shaped it into something completely different and new.

Man I wanted to love this book because I loved her other books. I love me a fairytale retelling (reimagining whatever you want to call it). The writing was amazing but the story didnt grab me. I didnt care which is sad. I think there is supposed to be more books but I will not be picking them up. As far the author goes I will buy anything she puts out so this isn't a total loss.

While I wanted to enjoy this book, this was one of my first reads that showed me that retellings were not for me. I was not the biggest fan of this book, sadly.

-- This review is several years past the release date due to the many issues of 2020, but a huge thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an early copy of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

I was very excited when I read the synopsis for this book! Especially when I read: "This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they’ve been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them." (Taken from Goodreads)

I enjoyed how diverse the characters were in the story and how it took a classic fairy tale and turned it upside down into a dark and unique retelling. The protagonist, Sophia, is a true force to be reckoned with. She is rebellious, powerful and wants to take a stance and change her world after she is told she has to "...parade in front of suitors."

This book was very well written and the story was thought-provoking. I can't wait to see what other incredible books the author has in store for the future.

While this would have benefitted from more thorough world building, the themes and plot offer a lot of avenues for discussion. The characters were layered and a twisted fairytale is one my favorite thing to read!
Rating : 3.5

Prepare to reshuffle everything you think you know about Cinderella and her stepsisters because this is a quick-paced yet captivating tale fueled by angst, anger, a burning desire to live one’s truth, and a refusal to believe that evil can’t be defeated. And like any good fairytale, there’s romance, betrayal, and weighty choices with dire consequences enough to weave their own kind of magic. With Cinderella is Dead, Bayron’s written a new chapter in the legend of Cinderella that opens the door to a world of intrigue just waiting to be told.

It engages feminism, homophobia and lies in such a way that it's not only intriguing but beautiful!

I loved the main character and I could relate to her throughout the story. She grows up seeing her world through a perspective that is proved to be made up. She's fighting every form of prejudice put her way but will she succeed??
What's the price to knowing the full truth??

I love this retelling because there's absolutely no prince charming! Instead we get a wholesome Sapphic romance because Kalynn is that queen!
Our main character is feminist, lesbian and bad ass, what's not to love?

Tbh, if you loved Cinderella don't read this. It might disturb you a bit because this Cinderella retelling is dark and deep.

(i received an e-arc from the publisher and netgalley in exchange for an honest review.)

this was a uniquely reimagined Cinderella retelling, with a sapphic romance i rooted for all the way!

I like how this book took a fairytale and turned it on it’s ear. I think that if you’re sick of fairytale retellings, this is exactly the book that you need as a palate cleanser. I liked the main character and I thought her relationships seemed authentic. I also really like the reveal of the bad guy—expected, but still well done. I think it drug a little bit in the center, but then picked up at the end. And hallelujah, it’s a stand alone!

Retelling are one things I love and I would have said more Cinderella ones have been done but this one had such a great original idea. The idea of taking a beloved tale and making it so twisted worked really well.

There were some really interesting characters and I wished they and their relationships had been flushed out a bit more. The pacing was a bit off for me as well, the ending came and wrapped out very quickly.

I do love Kalynn Bayron writing, it’s never hard to read and Sophia was a good character who was impulsive but also kind and really wanted better for everyone not just herself which made her likeable.

Thank you to netgalley for an advance copy of this one! I will read anything Kalynn writes!

I really like retellings, so I knew I had to pick this up! I liked that the world is based on Cinderella's story. Her story is law. You memorize the book, you recite the passages, you live as Cinderella did, and maybe if you followed the rules well enough, the Fairy Godmother will bless you as she did Cinderella.

I liked the premise and being in the story. I hated almost every man in this book. Every time one of them said something, I made a disgusted face. They were the worst. Which was the point.

I liked our MC Sophia and how she wanted to change her world for the betterment of the women, to give them a choice. I also really liked the Fairy Godmother (that plot twist tho!). I also liked Constance's back story and how she was connected to the OG Cinderella.

I do wish that Luke was a more main character and was with us more in the story. He seemed like he was going to be a big part of it at the beginning, then we didn't see him again till the very end. I also wanted there to be more world building. It seemed like the woods and the kingdom were the only place in the world. Other places were touched upon, but not really brought up and elaborated on.

Otherwise, I really liked this feminist retelling of Cinderella and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys fairy tales/retellings!

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately I just don't have a brain for fantasy anymore! This had such a good premise, but I could not focus on the world building or the story. I see why this one is so loved, but it just was not right for me.

This book gave me hunger games meets the selection vibes - which if you know me these are two of my absolute favourite YA books!

The beginning of this book I thought for sure it was going to be a five star read, however as I read on I am disappointed to say that parts of the book felt like they were dragging and didn't add much to the story.

I loved our main characters in this book, I loved the premise, and I'm so sad it ended up falling a little flat for me!

Wonderful fairy tale retelling. Will be adding everything this author writes to my reading list from now on. Energetic and well paced.

One of my favourite kind of stories is a fairy tale retelling. This book took that prompt and blew it out of the park.

For fans of alternate and modernized fairytales, Cinderella is dead has diverse characters in terms of sexuality and race. This is not my typical genre of choice, and while I did enjoy this more than I thought I would, I did find the transitions from one event to other to especially towards the end to feel somewhat rushed.

I loved the book so much that I bought a copy for myself. I’m anxiously awaiting more reimaginings from Kalynn Bayron.

I started reading this as a ARC a handful of times and bailed. I bought the hardcover thinking that the change in format might help, but it languished in my bookshelf until I saw the audiobook available from the library. Once I realized that the narrator was the incomparable Bahni Turpin, I was all in and finished it in a day.

It is not my favorite Cinderella retelling, and it took me a few pages to get into the story, but once I did the book flew by and I ended up reading it in a day.

<I>"Maybe Liv wants to be taken away. I can't blame her, but that's not for me. I don't want to be saved by some knight in shining armor. I'd like to be the one in the armor, and I'd like to be the one doing the saving."</I>

TL;DR: A queer, Black Girl Magic retelling of the Cinderella story: much needed representation + a strong message about knowing yourself and saving yourself (not waiting for a man to do it)are slightly undercut by flat characters and some weak world-building.
If this is your first Kaylynn Bayron book, don't let it put you off reading [book:This Poison Heart|54860241]. The weaker parts of this book are much improved and revised in Bayron's duology; I think this book needed to walk so the duology could soar.
<b><I>I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.</b></I>

Vibes: Cinderella + Gothic vibes + Handmaid's Tale

Genre: True YA Fantasy Retelling + Queer Romance

Romance Meter: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 ♡

Character MVP: Probably Constance...the characters aren't as dynamic and fleshed out as in Bayron's duology, but the descendant of one of Cinderella's stepsisters is a welcome addition to the story. She's sharp and acerbic (although not as much as Marie will be in Bayron's duology) and assertive; her connection to the Cinderella mythos is a fresh take on a tired trope (pitting women against each other).

Verdict: 3.5 stars, but I just couldn't round up to 4 stars because of some world-building / narrative / character things.

I'm actually really glad I read This Poison Heart duology first because I'm not 100% sure I would have read Bayron's other books if I had started with this one. It's a perfectly fine book -- and I may be being nitpicky because (1) I'm reading a lot on Cinderella (the story / tale type) for a class I'm getting ready to teach and (2) world building is pet peeve of mine -- but I also didn't have much trouble putting it down to move on to other things.

There are things that Bayron did well here, which I'll get to in a minute, but having read the duology first, this felt very much like a first draft of that story: spunky queer heroine falls in love with a strong, sassy, uniquely-haired Girl Who's Different and they end up on a quest guided by a morally questionable older woman / mentor figure. Sophia is an early draft of Bri, and Constance is an early version of Marie -- and both Bri and Marie are much more fleshed out and dynamic in the duology than Sophia & Constance are here.

What worked:
✔️ -- Representation. Where Bayron shines. Girls are strong and active, not passively waiting around for a man to save them, which is great, because men rarely come off well in Bayron's books.
Even the 'real' Cinderella (within the narrative-world) is plucky and devious, and manages to help -- much like the maternal spirit that presides over much of the agency in folk versions of the story -- from beyond the grave.
✔️ -- A Black Cinderella. Another point of representation -- and I think Bayron is responding to the tradition of casting fairy tale heroine as white women, because "POC DiDn'T eXiSt In Ye OlDeN eUrOpE!" (<-- ridiculous). There's this idea that "Fairy Tales = European" and we tend to whitewash a lot of figures, erasing the diversity that exists behind them (at least as much as we know for certain). So even though Brandy played Cinderella in 1997, and we have Tiana and Halle Bailey cast as Ariel, "fairy tales" are still very much exclusionary, and Bayron gives a giant "F that" to that idea.
✔️ -- An openly gay Cinderella. Also bonus representation. The whole arc is basically a coming out story and triumphing over internalized homophobia and how homophobia is used by a lot of people to reinforce the "normatively" of heterosexual unions -- which I 100% am here for. Also, I'm not familiar with a ton of openly gay Cinderellas...I know I've read at least one where Cinderella runs off with the Fairy Godmother instead, but I think it's more common to cast her as bi. Which is not a bad thing!

What Didn't Work (for me):
✔️ -- The Worldbuilding. Ugh. Always a pet peeve of mine. I just wanted *more.* Maybe Bayron was playing with fairy tale tropes in that we're often just thrown into a fairy-tale world with little details or backstory (once upon a time, in a far-away land), but the place names made it seem very French. And I *get* that "learning the true story" is part of the narrative arc, but it seemed that a lot of the first 75 pages or so were Sophia walking around proclaiming how awful it was to live in this kingdom because the King Was So Mean, and we didn't really know why or what his end goal was. Her relationship with Erin in particular was very flat to me: we know that Sophia loves Erin (and presumably Erin loves her back, even though it really doesn't feel that way), and she also tromps around a lot the first part of the book passionately declaring that "she wants to be with her and it isn't fair!" Now, I fully support Sophia's decision to be with whoever she wants to be, but a little more substance up front might have gone a long way.

✔️ -- Follow up: The King's Motivations. Again, this *is* a fairy-tale, so maybe my expectations were just too high, but he's a very flat, one-dimensional villain. He seems evil and cruel and his end goal is....patriarchy? Like, just generic (but still awful!) "keep women down and oppressed."
And all the other males seem 100% cruel because of it...Like, there are no good men here? Even Sophia's father is a bit dickish at times...

✔️ -- Except Luke, who was very underutilized. Now, I know Bayron likes to focus on female characters -- which I'm on board with. Most of her chapters would pass the Bechdel test. But Luke had such potential, and he was imprisoned for most of the book. Womp womp. I would have loved to see like a little outcast band of queer rebels go storming the castle, but alas.

✔️ -- Final major pet peeve, which may be *really* academic. There was a weird blending of the Grimm and Perrault (and even Disney) versions of the story going on that...I don't know. It *could* be a commentary on how there *isn't* One True Version of Cinderella out there, and the story is just a mish-mash of revised versions, but some details were oddly specific.
Like the place names (and some character names) were VERY French.
And Perrault's French version is the only version (99% sure on that one) with the fairy godmother (as a human-like person who descends to help Cinderella, rather than animals/tree) and the pumpkin transformation and the glass slipper. Those are very specific elements we can 100% trace back to Perrault's version.
But Sophia's last name is "Grimmins" (or something) which is clearly an allusion to the Grimms.
The Palace version of the story starts with the dying mother's invocation that Cinderella be kind, which doesn't happen in the French version; its more common in the German kind.
And, in the French version, the stepsisters are forgiven by Cinderella and end off married to court nobility which is either weirdly kind of Cinderella or amazingly petty, depending on how you look at it.
And, yes, I know that the point of Bayron's version is that the "Palace approved" text is used a tool to keep women in line and docile and obedient and subservient to men, which you can definitely say of BOTH the French and German versions. And that Bayron's "new" Cinderella -- both her book itself and the meta-story of Cinderella published at the end -- are about overcoming that patriarchal subjugation to be your own subject / person.
But it was a weird mish-mash of versions and it probably only really stood out to me because I've got Cinderella on the brain.

I just wanted *more* from the story, because the premise is really intriguing.