Ella

Product Information

What is the significance of Amos Minnow Pea writing, quite by accident, a sentence which surpasses Nollop’s illustrious pangram? In what way does this undermine the divine value that the high council attributes to Nollop’s sentence? Night after night Tate fends off the persistent advances of the undeniably charismatic man, but after an explosive moment in the bar, all bets are off as he finds his body stirring with a different desire than his mind. When Ella’s father announces that he is sending her to finishing school, Ella is forced to leave her home accompanied by two descriptively rude and annoying girls she met at her mother’s funeral, Hattie and Olive. Soon the curse begins to plague her life in new ways, as Hattie finds out about Ella’s curse and commands her about whenever possible. The relationship between Ella, Hattie, and Olive is an important component in the exposure of the original Cinderella’s patriarchal undertones. As the antagonists, the stepsisters are deliciously comic figures. They are such nasty bullies to Ella throughout the novel that it is, perhaps difficult not to cheer Ella’s refusal to forgive them at the end. Still, the social and educational systems that have acculturated Hattie and Olive cannot be fully divorced from Ella’s fate, despite her seemingly magical transcendence of their constraints. (Reimer 36). Female depiction Ella

That's why I respect Ariel(well, really, the Disney version of Ariel), Princess Jasmine, and Belle most of all, at least they spent some time with their guys before hitching those rides. Between Ella and Charmont, letters were written, ideas were exchanged, and thoughts were shared. First came friendship, and then came love. All I can say is: How I loved those letters! In the epilogue of the 10th book, it is revealed that Eleanor was the one terrorizing Delilah and not Ella

READERS GUIDE

I never liked Cinderella as a kid. It seemed like whenever she got into trouble, her best plan was to burst into tears and wait for someone to come along and help her. I also wondered, even if she couldn't leave her stepmother's house, could she at least tell the awful woman to go make her own damn breakfast once in a while? As far as little cynical-as-hell Madeline was concerned, Cinderella was a spineless twinkie who was painfully useless.

Wentworth] was, at that time, a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit, and brilliancy; and Anne an extremely pretty girl, with gentleness, modesty, taste, and feeling. Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, ...; but the encounter of such lavish recommendations could not fail. They were gradually acquainted, and when acquainted, rapidly and deeply in love." Cinder & Ella is a (surprise, surprise!) Cinderella retelling taking place in Hollywood. Only the stepmother isn't evil, the father is alive, Prince Charming is a swoonworthy playboy and Cinderella a fantasy geek. The real villain, besides the awful, I-wanna-strangle-you-bitch Kaylee, is the society. The society that can't show compassion to a girl who lost her mother and was damaged both mentally and physically during the accident that turned her world upside down. Being bullied all the time and feeling unwanted by a family she just got to meet, Ella's only sunshine was her internet friend Cinder. She never met him in person, but she felt like she had known him her entire life. And the best part is (the one I absolutely adored) that the reason it all started was their love for the same fantasy books! I love nerdy protagonists! Soooo I guess I’m gonna be the first one to say that I was a bit disappointed by this version of the book.

After a family tragedy, the previously sheltered Ella is forced out into the world where she goes on a quest to find the fairy who cursed her and ask for relief from her burden. I loved the her love interest Prince Char - he was genuinely interested in everything she had to say and found her to be the most amazing person he had ever met. He was friends with her for a long time first before confessing his feelings and he was 100% dedicated to her. He was basically a sweetheart. What strategies do the islanders use to protest, oppose, and finally overthrow the tyranny of the High Council? How do these strategies create suspense in the novel? The central appeal of this book to me is Ella herself. She’s simply one of the most lovable narrators I’ve ever encountered – spunky in a way that is genuinely endearing as opposed to annoying, endlessly clever and resourceful, capable, hilarious, charming and independent. You may remember similar praises for Aerin in The Hero and the Crown and Cimorene in Dealing With Dragons, and that’s because these girls (along with a few others we’ll be talking about soon enough…) truly shaped my conception of who I wanted to be when I was younger.

So really the book is two stories. The totally awesome cool story that the author started with...and the cliche, not-at-all-revamped Cinderella story that she ended with. Even though I was surrounded by countless people who were proud of their interests and embraced a broad spectrum of what it means to be a woman, I struggled to share in that pride. Feminist novels like Ella Enchanted helped reinforce the message that feminine qualities are valuable and valid and not confined to any one interpretation, but it was only through digging deep within myself that I found my voice. In adulthood, I developed the willpower to confront and overwrite my own internalized misogyny (although there’s always more work to do there). Instead of giving in to that impulse to present a “cool girl” version of myself, I finally have the courage and confidence to say, “Romance is a vital and profound genre, and if you feel the need to belittle it, I’m not going to be quiet about the reasons you’re wrong.” An established relationship between Cinderella and the Prince before the night of the ball. I'm sorry, but I just never understood it. Cinderella spent one night with a guy and bada-boom boom! Love ⏩ Marriage ⏩ Happily ever after? I'm sorry honey And for Goodness Sakes! WHAT WAS WITH THE ELVES GIFTS?! She made it seem so damn important that we should know about these gifts and all the way through the novel Ella is hiding them and they're special and they're everything her father ever wanted... I’d also like to mention that Ella Enchanted is otherwise bursting with charm and color at every turn. Enchanting descriptions abound – everything from the tiny pottery castle her father sells to Ella’s magic self-replenishing book, her beautiful dresses for each ball to the food that she cooks with Mandy the cook/ fairy godmother. There are also delightful creatures: tiny dragons who toast cheese with their noses, gnomes who tell the future, waxy green elves who sleep under the stars and docile centaurs.

A unique retelling with some truly surprising plot twists. Quite different from the other Gail Carson Levine’s fairy tale retellings that I have read. Ella Enchanted and more lush writing style and less deliberately comical and stilted interactions and it possessed quite an enjoyable style. Largely because of the popularity of Netflix’s Bridgerton, there’s a new demand for queer regency romcoms. One such historical romance is Alexis Hall’s A Lady for a Duke , which has a transgender heroine. Meanwhile Lex Croucher’s Infamous, out in July, is described on the cover as “ Booksmart meets Bridgerton”, and includes bisexual, lesbian and non-binary characters. Croucher’s previous novel Reputation was another regency-era romcom. “The publishing industry is coming to the realisation that there is an audience for this stuff, there is money to be made telling these stories,” Croucher says. With 11 days left in the challenge, “U” falls, the first vowel to be banned. The Council then provides a decree that citizens may use letters to substitute others, but only in writing. The letter “X” falls soon after, and while Mannheim and Tom are trying to work on Enterprise Thirty-two, the L.E.B. interrogates them and Mannheim uses an illegal letter during a police interview. He refuses to be exiled to the United States, however, and when he tries to run away he is shot and killed. His young daughter Paula, having no other relatives left on Nollop, is sent to Ella. Tom also goes into hiding following Mannheim’s death, leaving Enterprise Thirty-two entirely to Ella. Mittie is Ella's aunt. She is a teacher at the local elementary school. Because of her career, she finds the laws passed by the council quite difficult to follow and obey. This, in turn, creates serious problems for her. She commits her first offence while explaining to her students that 12 eggs are equal to a do Zen. The laws and restrictions put on the use of language on the island create a sense of depression in her life. She, along with her daughter and Nate Warren, travels to the States to escape her daughter's death sentence. I’m cursed with obedience as well. When a stranger asks me for a favor—to edit something, maybe, or give advice—I have a hard time ignoring that request. But this realization has helped me recognize how others are cursed with obedience, too, and how easy it is to accidentally take advantage of their willingness to give.

Georgeanne becomes more and more lonely with so few people left on the island, and she takes to painting her own body. She uses toxic paint to do so however, and she dies of lead poisoning. Tanya also leaves Nollop and takes Paula with her, feeling that Nollop is now a wasteland. Only 14 letters remain, with four days left to complete the Council’s challenge, and “G” has just fallen. Ella stops writing to her family in America, finding it too tiring to try to express herself with so few letters. Yes, there is a pumpkin coach, a glass slipper, and a happily ever after, but this is the most remarkable, delightful, and profound version of Cinderella you'll ever read. Ella’s struggle for agency is always the book’s central concern. What’s more, she breaks her own curse through her own determination and selflessness -and it should be noted that she breaks it by refusing to marry the prince who proposes to her. It makes me a little weepy to write about this because it’s JUST TEACHING GIRLS SO MANY THINGS- that their ability to make choices and think for themselves is their path to freedom, that there will always be people who will try to take these things away but they can be overcome, that they can find power in saying no. The solution comes down to empathy and humility. As well-intentioned as someone’s actions might be, if it hurts or bothers the person they were trying to help, then they need to ask themselves, “Was I doing this for them or for me? Was I assuming I knew what they needed when they didn’t ask for that?” A peaceful valley in Idaho is the setting for Matt and Harrison Query’s Old Country. Photograph: Panther Media GmbH/Alamy

Loved all the side characters, even Lucinda was fun to me. I loved that most of the characters evolved through the story and some did not. Great storytelling.