Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire As you may have guessed from the title and book cover, this is a very clever retelling of Cinderella, from the point of view of one of Cinderella's stepsisters, Iris. Most of the book sets up the background story for the famous ball scene, which comes at the very end of the book. As you can't really tell from the cover, Maguire has eliminated all magical elements from the story, which makes you keep wondering how things are ever going to resolve at the end. He has also added a lot of depth to all of the characters, which makes you appreciate them all. One thing that left me unsatisfied was that most details that made the Cinderella story special (the pumpkin carriage, the rat servants, the fairy godmother) played only a small role in the story. It makes sense, considering that there's no magic involved in the story at all. Also, the epilogue was not very convincing. It was written by Ruth, the stepsister who had been portrayed as a dumb mute all along. I had come to believe that she was retarded; I wasn't convinced that she was pretending to be dumb this whole time. Overall, the book was very entertaining and thought-provoking, and incorporated other themes and historical facts which made it richer. I'd also read the book Witch by the same author, who retold the Wizard of Oz from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West. I recommend them both!