The Ugly Stepsister (eARC) — 3 ⭐️

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 —
👀 Multiple POVs
🧚 Fairytale Retelling
👥 Well Developed Supporting Characters
🔓 Open Door Romance
🥾 Adventurous

𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰: After adoring Second Star to the Left, I was so excited to read the author’s next fairytale retelling, The Ugly Stepsister. While I enjoyed the premise and the twists, the pace felt very slow to me. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it, but I didn’t like it as much as the author’s first book in the Reimagined Fairy Tales Collection Series.

𝐓𝐖: sexual content, profanity, violence, sexual assault, death of parent (past), suicide

Thank you, NetGalley and City Owl Press, for providing me an eARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Nothing brings me as much joy as a twist on a classic fairy tale, and this series absolutely delivered. There’s something so special about the second book in a series, getting right into the swing of things—especially in a setting like this one, with a world already so fleshed out—and it truly had me hook line and sinker right through to the end, I’m chomping at the bit for more!

I am starting to feel like Megan Van Dyke can not do a bad retelling. This was such an enjoyable take on Cinderella. can't wait for her next book.

Fascinating point of view where Cinderella is the villain! Wonderful original retelling, I really enjoyed the fresh take.

This was an interesting spin on a Cinderella retelling. We also pulled elements from both Snow White and Sleeping Beauty too. I liked that we villainify our Cinders, Ella is the bad egg here and Anna, the step-sister is our MC. We also get an alternative POV from Will, but I at times struggled with the format.

I very wrongly presumed that this was YA… it’s not! We get a lil spicy over here! I enjoyed it and I’d pick up another book of Megan’s!

Fairytale retellings are a dime a dozen, but one that takes a character that we were all grew up to dislike and lets them tell a different side to the story...got to love it. This book made me enjoy Cinderella a little more than I ever have in the past, a great retelling!

Thank you netgalley for an arc. I love fairytale retellings and villain origin stories. This fairytale retelling is a bit different. Cinderella is the villain this time. Anna and her mother and sister flee when guards come to arrest them on the order from Cinderella. In comes a huntsman who was almost killed for objecting to Cinderella becoming queen, and sets out to bring her down. This is a mix of Cinderella, and a sprinkling of Snow White. Definitely an interesting new take on the fairytale we all know and love.

More dark, romantasy fairytale retellings? with an Evil Cinderella?? Sign me up!
Many Thanks to NetGalley and City Owl Press for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Review:

Plot-The synopsis is a reimagined fairytale- and this well and truly delivered. I loved every second of this and was invested from chapter 1. Cinderella is evil, Mulan vibes and forced proximity to a huntsman? it is by far one of the most intriguing reimagining's I have read in a while and the plot was well thought out and delivered.

World building-Yes, just yes. Well done, this is not an easy thing to do with reimagining's but in this book its done really really well. My only minor issue was how fast paced it was, sometimes it felt like I was struggling to keep up with the story or missing some details which came up later on.

Characters- I loved how well developed they all were, and the romance was so well done it was amazing.

Final Thoughts,
One of the better fantasy romance reimagining's i have read, and the authors style is really engaging and amazing.

This story was interesting, but didn't hold my attention as well as I was hoping for it too. Overall, it is a good concept for a story.

The Ugly Stepsister: Reimagined Fairy Tales, Book 2 by Megan Van Dyke is part of a series and a great follow up! If you like fairy tales don't miss this one.

[ARC REVIEW]

Almost lost me in the beginning but I am SO glad I kept going.
The retelling of this story is GREAT and I love how other stories were incorporated as well; Cinderella, Snow White, and that little surprise at the end 🤌🏻💋
I am definitely becoming a fan of your work!!!
Looking forward to book 3 for sure.

I haven't read 'Second star to the left', for full disclosure. I enjoy retellings of fairytales (huge fan of Naomi Novik's work) and this was a good story within that genre.
I was kind of hoping that Anna pretending to be a boy would evolve into a queer story but it was good otherwise, and I can't have everything.

I really liked this book. I've read quite a few fairytale retelling over the last few years, so kinda had a high bar. But this was great, would definitely recommend.

Yet another brilliant weaving and retelling of classic fairytale stories! Megan has a way with making even the oldest story seem completely new each time she takes up the pen!

An interesting concept…… The premise here is that Cinderella is the evil one and her step family are the true victims. Written in an engaging manner, I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes the genre. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a quirky, different take on the Cinderella legend. The "Ugly Stepsister" is the good guy, and Cinderella is the evil, conniving witchy one! Rollicking good read and very enjoyable, I will look for more from this author at my local library or bookstore. Recommended!

Thank you @netgalley & @cityowlbooks for access to this book! It is out and available now 📖

This book was very middle of the road for me. There were some things I really liked about it and other things that just didn’t work for me, so I’ll just list them out.

👍 The nods to other fairytales aside from Cinderella (Snow White and Sleeping Beauty)
👍 The plot twist which was good and caught me by surprise
👍 The unexpected, good bit of steam
👍 The quick pace/consistent action

👎 The writing felt a bit novice at times
👎 The FMC and MMC’s instalove despite having little chemistry off the bat
👎 The characters’ total oblivion to the FMC originally disguising as a male despite the only change really being short hair lol
👎 A tad bit too cheesy for my liking

A decently fun read but nothing mind-blowing, IMO. I really do enjoy retellings though and would like to read more in the new year!

The ugly stepsister by Megan Van Dyke

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Thank you to netgalley, city owl press and Megan Van Dyke for the opportunity to read this book

I'm giving this book 4 stars which puts it in line with the other book of the series because I feel like I enjoyed them both equally.

This installment in the reimagined fairytale series features not one but two tales. One lf which you can tell from the title is cinderella and the other is eluded to gradually and I caught on pretty quickly to it. What I did not catch on to was a certain plot twist about a characters identity, I'm not sure why it just really hadn't occurred to me and I loved it.

The romance is a little quick but I appreciate the message of how important it is to make sure the person you're with feels accepted and out male MC did a really good job of that. And yes there is some spicy/ smutty scenes and they do actually serve a purpose in the story in their own way.

The side characters I loved and I think it was a great choice to use them to show that love and acceptance comes in all forms not just romantic relationships. The links to the previous installment and the next are very loose but they are there and I hold out hope for a larger crossover.

Which brings me to the one complaint I have for the book and that is cinderella. We are told from quite literally the first page that she is a liar and a bad guy in our tale but never really shown it. I think that having some flashbacks or some more overheard conversations would have gone a long way in developing her as the villain we are told she is. We could even have had a link to the original tale by having the potions drive people to do things in order to please her or something along those lines. That said she is still the one out of the three with the most development and I really liked the ending they gave her.

I love Megan Van Dyke's fairytail renditions, so I knew I had to read this one! The spin was amazing, from Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother being evil to adding in details from Snow White and the mirror and the apples. The characters fell a little below what I was wanting, with their personalities being funny at times and monotonous at others. All in all, this was such a fun read and for a fairytale standalone retelling, I recommend!

This wasn't really to my taste which isn't the author's fault! I didn't realise this was a "spicy" book when I requested it and I wouldn't have necessarily requested it had I realised. I do believe it was well written if that's what you want to read but I really did not.

I did appreciate that this was a "fresh" retelling of the Cinderella story -- a genre otherwise done to its absolute limit. That being said, although I appreciated the heroine Anna and her double identity, her strength and tenacity ended up very tell and not always show. She fell easily into being "frail and girlish" in places when she was fiesty and full of ideas in others. I didn't really warm to her and I found myself bored waiting for things to happen. The first half of the book was largely uninspired and I thought it was very unexciting to twist the story and make Cinderella/Ella overtly villainous without much deeper thought. It was comically black and white for me personally. Would've been nicer to see some depth.

The big reveal with the love interest was fun, although not exactly surprising. He was an alright character, too, although I feel like we didn't get chance to really explore him despite the fact that half of the novel is from his perspective. I certainly did not enjoy the amount of time dedicated to telling us what his -ahem- downstairs was thinking and feeling. At times the language felt very modern and crass in comparison to the fantasy setting. It was distracting (and not in a good? way).

To be honest, I think the book felt overlong and quite lacking, but there was certainly the kernel of a very good tale here. All in all, this is a fun read although I think, given my ignorance of the author and her brand, I was somewhat mis-sold on the content. If I hadn't felt the urge to skim through the adult content maybe I would've enjoyed it more. I don't know.

Thanks for the free book, though.