The book that I read this month is called Before Midnight, and it is by Cameron Dokey. This book is based off of the story of Cinderella, but with a few different twists. It’s a little bit more realistic than the original Cinderella, but with some small touches of magic, so I would still consider it a fairy tale.

In this story of Cinderella, the girl’s name is Constanze d'Este, but her friends and family call her Cendrillon. In this her mother died during childbirth, and her father loved her mother very much, so he became depressed and left her with their maid to be raised in their house by the sea. Her father lives in a palace far off and doesn’t ever visit her or communicate with her. So Cendrillion grows up in that house, loving in constant fear of a nearby country attacking and starting a war. Throughout the story it talks about how she is trying to grow things on her mother’s grave, but everything she grows there dies, which she thinks is because of her father’s anger at and sadness. This may seem unimportant, but it is to her. When her father marries a beautiful wife, named Chantal de Saint-Andre, he sends her to the house with her two daughters, Amelie and Anastasia . Soon there is a ball and every girl in the kingdom is required to come. I cannot say much more without giving everything away!

Some of the main differences in this book compared to the original fairy tale are that there is no fairy godmother, and therefore no magical carriage, or mice turning into men or horses. The stepmother isn’t exactly evil, but they do not realize she’s their stepdaughter/sister, so they treat her like a servant, and Cendrillon goes along with it. The author also adds a few characters, like a boy named Raoul that Cendrillon grows up with, the old maid, and in the original her father has died. But somehow the author did a very good job making the story still very much like Cinderella, without making it completely the same, so it was still very exciting.

This book was not the most action filled book I have read, but it was still very good. The author did a very good job with descriptions and characters. I think that the book got a little bit slow at some times, and so I didn’t always want to reread it. I usually did enjoy it though, and I really did like this book a lot, and I would give it 4 stars, because though I really like it, it isn’t one of my absolute favorites.

Overall, this was a really good book. I was spellbound by the amazing style the author had in her writing and how emotional the story was. I would suggest this book to anyone who enjoys fairy tales, historical fiction, and a little bit of love in their books!