ŷ������

This review is for Nebula Award-nominated novelette “Stepsister�� by Leah Cypess:

Fairytales pre-Disneyfication tended to be grim and often vengeful. The world was dark and cruel, and the stories reflected that. Put Disney Princess gloss on them all you want, but Brothers Grimm had their versions of Cinderella’s stepsisters chop off bits of their feet and then have their eyes plucked out by birds, Hans Christian Andersen has his Little Mermaid commit suicide rather than enjoy the happily-ever-after, and Sleeping Beauty was raped and impregnated with twins by the king, while unconscious.

Yeah.

Maybe that’s why fairytales retelling remain popular �� because somewhere deep inside we sense that the sanitized technicolor version of these tales are just NOT RIGHT.

I mean �� look into those innocent eyes �� there must be something sinister hiding there.

“She was right to punish them. I was there, Garrin. I saw how they treated her. Her stepmother was the worst, but her daughters were eager learners. And jealous besides. Ella was better than them, far better, and yet she was the one forced to stay home and scrub dirt off their shoes while they got to go to the castle and dance with dukes.��

By better, of course, she meant prettier.��

This story is narrated by the new king’s illegitimate brother who once has a brief infatuation with Cinderella’s stepsister. Cinderella is now a ruthless queen Ella; her husband Ciar is an entitled prick, and there’s fairy magic in the background.

And honestly, I was pretty lukewarm about it. Maybe it’s because I am overall indifferent about fairytales or their retellings, or maybe because the supposed twist of a goody-goody character turning out to be a ruthless monster is not a new trick, or maybe because the interesting parts (blood sacrifice to the fae, the identity of Amelie) are just mentioned in passing, while page time is devoted to less interesting events. Or maybe it’s because our narrator Garrin does not have much agency, more or less stumbling along until the “big moment�� in the end of the story, which made me want to see this through someone else’s eyes. Or maybe it’s that odd wistfulness in the narration that did not quite fit the voice.

Whatever it is, it left me unengaged and grumping that maybe it’s time for authors to come up with original stories instead of relying on nostalgia for childhood tales, and then something about “those kids�� needing to get off my lawn.

3 stars.

—�Ĕ�Ĕ���-

Read it free here, on the author’s website:

—�Ĕ�Ĕ���

My Hugo and Nebula Awards Reading Project 2021: /review/show...