I just finished reading Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister last night at 1am.
I must say that the beginning of the book was promising. I was drawn in from page one, yet towards the middle of the book, I found myself yawning. There was really nothing exciting to anticipate; except for the ending. The Ball.
But anyways, besides that input, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is basically Cindrellas ugly stepsisters’ point of view on the well known childs tale Cinderella.
-Iris’ point of view.
Margareth and her two daughters are fleeing from home because of the death of her husband. With her comes her two daughters Iris and Ruth. Their master plan was to stay with Margareths’ father.
Apon their arrival they’ve only come to see that their journey will be a disapointing one. Margareths father has died. The home they were to live in, is no longer available to stay in.
Lucky as it may seem, a man named Schoonmaker- whom is a painter takes the three in. Margarethe whom serves in his home now, and the two girls whom run errands. He tells them, they are welcome to stay up until his apprentice comes to live with him.
Eventually the apprentice come to live with Master Schoonmaker. The three have yet to be fired.
Schoonmaker takes an interest in Iris, and paints her while his apprentice Caspar watches and learns.
Schoonmaker shows the painting off to some wealthy folks in town, which eventually leads him a job at the Van den Meers estate. Painiting their beautiful daughter Clara.
Maragreth and her daughters eventually move in with the family. Margareth becomes the servant, and the two girls become a playmate for their daughter Clara.
Margareth serves the family up until Van den Meers wife Henrika falls ill and dies, from what was believed to be the plague. Moving on…
Soon after Margareth marries Henrikas widowed husband Van den Meer, whom invests in tulips, and makes quite a nice amount of money doing so.
Iris continues to visit Schoonmaker and Caspar. She finds herself drawn to him as time passes. Eventually her interest becomes deeper and deeper. She thinks she is in love with him, and wonders if he feels the same.
On her way home from Schoonmakers home, Iris comes home to chaos. She learns that an investment in the tulips has gone bad for them family. (In all reality it is Margareths’ fault whom got greedy, which led to the loss.)
The family again is struggling to make ends meet. Day by day Clara, the once wealthy, and spoiled girl becomes more, and more of a kitchen maid. However the girl does not seem to mind much. She cleans, and cooks. This is where she refers to herself as Cinderella.
Margareth learns that the queen will be in town and her son, the Prince; whom is looking for a wife are throwing a Ball.
Iris knows that there are 4 invitations, and that van den Meer will be home laying in bed, like he had been doing for since the fall of his tulips.
She urges Clara to come. She asks for the help of Caspar to find Clara a dress.
Iris also notices that Caspar has an odd look in his eyes when he looks at Clara with the gold dress on, that he has brought for her. She admits to herself though, that Clara looks stunning. Perfect.
This is the part in the book that Clara tells Iris of how shes a changeling. She was kidnapped as a child by what she keeps calling bird spirits. They put her in a small hole in the lighthouse just outside of the woods.
They were nice to her, they fed her, and kept her warm, she says.
They had to teach her a lesson. That she was a spoiled child, and they were to change her.
However van den Meer, makes it clear that it was someone just holding her ransom for lots and lots of money. Clara still insists though, that it was kind bird spirits.
This is why Clara never left the yard. She feared being taken away again.
Schoonmaker is also invited to the Ball, he takes his painting of Clara with him. This way he could get some recognition, and perhaps sell more paintings.
The night for the Ball arrives and the Prince actually takes some interest in Iris. Iris is happy by this. Up until Clara opens the door wearing her golden dress, looking beautiful and perfect. The most beautiful looking one in the entire room. She enters like a golden godess, as if she glows. The prince is struck in awe with her beauty. He leaves Iris’ side and makes his way to her.
The rest of the night Clara and the prince are kept behind closed doors. Where rumors are quickly spread through the ballroom about how the prince was seen stroking her hurt ankle.
Iris feels dread. The prince showed interest in her, and because of her own charity, and helping Clara, the prince left Iris to be with Clara.
Irish also feels a pang of jealousy thinking that Caspar too has taken an interest in Clara.
She feels like she had lost 2 men to Clara this night.
There suddenly is a fire. Someone has set the painting of Clara up in flames.
Everyone runs from the ball. Iris, and Ruth, make there way back home to be greeted by their wicked mother, whom Iris now refers to as ‘the witch’
Soon Clara stumbles in, her dress a mess. Margarethe can barely see her, ever since her eyes started to burn. She sees blurry.
Margareth thinks it is the ghost of Henrika. -This is where you learn that Margareth actually killed Henrika with poision.
Margareth soon learns that it is Clara standing before her. Even though she cannot see much, she can clearly see blood between her legs. Margareth accuses her of no longer being a virgin. (Interesting peice the childrens fairy tale left out- Cinderella making love at the Ball in the back room)
Margareth then asks her how she got to the Ball.
Clara makes up a story about a pumpkin turning into a carriage, and rats turned into men that drove her to the ball. Her dead mother made her the dress…. etc. This is how the fairy tale comes to be transformed for children. In reality, its just a tall tale Clara made up with her imagination.
The ending however goes the same. The prince comes with the slipper Clara left behind. Clara has been saved.
The epilogue goes like this though.
Iris in the end does end up marrying Caspar.
The book for me had a good ending for one of the stepsisters. Yet the writer makes it seem bad. I mean Iris was in love with Caspar all along.
In the very end, you find out that Clara/Cinderella has died. This is why Iris felt compelled to tell her story. It brought up old memories of her childhood.
You also discover that it was Iris who set the painting of Clara on fire. Perhaps it was the way she stole the attention of the prince; or perhaps Caspar. She felt though that burning the painting meant no harm. Clara hated the painting. Burning it; Iris compared it to burning Claras childhood. The changeling.
Now with all of this said. I’m going to add that this book has quite a few words that I don’t even know how to pronounce. I could of looked them up in a dictonary, or www.wikipedia.com. However, I myself do not like to stop reading, just to look up a word. One word alone had about 14 letters.
Basically what I’m trying to get at, is if your not 100% familiar with websters’ dictionary this read can become annoying at times. Leaving you scratching you head saying, ‘what the heck does that mean?’
Tom cruise however would be excited to know that someone else has used the word ‘glib’.
Anyways, as a sum it up, I’d like to say that in no way was I touched by this story. I barely even made a connection to any of the characters. The slight connection I had was with Margareth. Even though she was refered to as ‘witch’. I could see that throughout the story her interest was for that of her daughters.(Iris mostly) Even if that meant hurting other people in her path. I don’t see this as wrong. This is something any mother would do if needed be.
Claras’/Cinderellas’ character was always boring, and sulking. Although the author tried making Ruth look out to be the slow stupid one; I myself felt that Clara was the only stupid character in the book. She only got by, and won the Prince because of her beauty. Woopity-doo!
I couldn’t see that the conversation behind closed doors at the Ball was so wonderful that the Prince wanted her forever. He got her virginity, and she was pretty. Thats why he wanted to keep her for his wife. Other than that, throughout the book all Clara did was whine/cry and make childish remarks. She spoke of changelings and imps, and things not of this world. Making her character seem slightly retarded.
Iris character was said to be ugly and plain. WOW! Great description! There was not a single line in the book that spoke of Iris’ or any of the characters hair color, (besides Clara) facial feature, body type, or age. I kept imagining 12 year olds. But came to learn they were to be much older than 12.
So basically Iris is ugly. You don’t ever get a feel of just how ugly she really is. The author doesn’t get into details.
However Iris is the smart one. I never saw how, or why she was refered to as the smart one by the author. She never displayed how bright she was in the book. I guess because she got Clara to go to the Ball; she was smart?!
Ruth- she barely got a moments of air time. In the story she basically was the black sheep child. The child who was in the way, and too dumb to do or say anything worth writing about. She seemed to me though the most precious and innocent of the whole group. In my opinion she had it worse than Cinderella and Iris. She should of been the one to marry the Prince, and rid herself of her tormentor (Margareth).
The Prince- yawn yawn yawn. Again no description on his apperance. He’s charming. Thats all. Charming.
Schoonmaker/Master- The painter. He seemed to be the jerk in the book. In the beginning he never had anything nice to say to anyone. Only towards the ending was he nice. Odd change of personality.
Caspar- This one, I honestly have no great input on. He is the one in love with Iris. Or was it Clara. The writer never made it clear as to which girl he truly did love and want. – I myself took a guess, and said Iris. He married her didn’t he!?
Oh, I think I could be wrong, he could of wanted Clara all along; everyone else did! I don’t like not knowing the truth after reading this thick book that I put many hours into.
I would of liked to also read about more of a romance between him and Iris. Not just, and they were married one day. Boring!
Even a kiss between the two would of been satisfying enough.
Henrika- van den Meers first wife. She never had much input either. She was pregnant though, so basically she spent most of her time in her bed or in her room. This is basically why her character was never really around. She didn’t like Margareth-This I do know. So Margareth kills her early on. Sick to know that Margareth killed a pregnant woman.
Van den Meer- Claras father. He spends most of his time in his bed also. After the fall of the tulips, this is pretty much all he does from start to finish. Lays in bed, half retarded the whole time.
Part 2 is needed. Maybe next time from Ruths point of view. Or better yet; Caspars. That should answer some questions unanswered.
On to my sum it up. The book is an interesting tale from the supposed ‘bad’ side. It lacked in many ways. There were many questions I still have that the book did not answer. It was pretty boring all in all.
I would though recommend this to my friends and family. Its a neat little addition to the Cinderella story. I do think though, someone else could of written it much better.
There was a lack of magic in the book also. I liked the child story of Cinderella because of the magic pumpkins, and mice into men. The animals that made a beautiful dress. The fairy Godmother, etc.
Everything in this book is from a logical scentific state of mind. The magical parts from the Cindrella story are exposed as nothing more than a rambling imagination.
The child in me was expecting some magic, I will admit I was disapointed by this, and many other things lacking in the story.
