Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

I’ve never read one of Gregory Maguire’s books before. I tried to read Wicked and Mirror, Mirror, I think, but I never successfully got through either of them. I picked up Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister at the library the other day while I was waiting for the sequel to Twilight to wing it’s way to my doorstep after I’d finished the first book in a rush. I knew that if I didn’t return Twilight to the library I would just keep reading my favorite parts over again until I went crazy. 

On the whole, I don’t read a lot of fiction. The fiction I do read tends to be genre fiction–fantasy mostly. As a former journalist, I’ve always been something of a nonfiction junkie. It was interesting for me to read a book that while fantastical in nature was grounded in our of the earliest stories around. Every girl grows up knowing the story of Cinderella. 

Confessions is like the Cinderella story on steroids and infused with reality. I loved that Maguire was able to make the stepsister sympathetic in nature. Too often we want to believe that their is good and evil and no difference between the two. Of course Cinderella is a being of pure goodness beat down by her evil relatives. For her to be the one who was high-born and to have her fall and rise is a novel twist. I loved the way you bought felt for and hated Cinderella at equal turns. 

I can’t wait for more of Maguire’s novels. They’re not my every day fare but they are a nice treat between the mysteries and intrigue of fantasy.

 

Twilight…

I just finished reading Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. I was drawn to the book by the movie trailer of the forthcoming movie based on the book. The male lead in the movie is played by the absolutely gorgeous Robert Pattinson who played Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter films. 

Anyway, I ordered the book at my local library and I picked it up on Friday, not really expecting to find anything interesting. The book is AMAZING. I couldn’t put it down. Even though it was almost 500 pages I finished it in the middle of Saturday night because I couldn’t put the book down. Literally. I barely left the apartment all day because the book was so all-engrossing. 

I’m constantly amazed by how a good book can completely take you out of your world. I’m a voracious reader. I consider it sacrilegious to leave the house without a book and I sometimes even bring hefty tomes to the gym to read while I’m burning calories. 

Twilight won’t (can’t!) fail to impress you. It’s a love story but not kitschy, a fantasy but only in setting, a novel of choices and decisions that seem so important when one is young. And let me just say…the male lead is heartrendingly wonderful. He is beautiful and wonderful — the man who seems your beauty even when you can’t. He’s also a hopeless romantic. 

What I loved most about the book was the way it pulled me in. Within a hundred pages I wanted to know what would happen to this misfit young girl who is inexplicable drawn to the handsome but distant man. Who in the world hasn’t felt like an outsider at some point in their lives? I know I have. And so to watch a girl who is obviously more fabulous and deep than any of the other “popular” kids wind her way through love and death and life-wrenching choices is so much more pivotal than listening to people bitch about love and sex and hatred and evil. There is love in every word of Twilight, this was a novel written by someone who truly adored her characters. 

If you’re skeptical, that’s fine. Pretty much any public library should have a copy of this book on hand. Skip down and peruse at your leisure. Prepare to be dazzled.