Gain Access Confessions Of An Ugly Stepsister By Gregory Maguire In Digital Copy

was an easy read and an interesting take on the "Cinderella" story, but it wasn't amazing, It felt like it gave a very long buildup to a climax that was vague and unexciting and a denouement that was pretty disappointing.
Only as an epilogue do we discover what happened to Iris, the main character of the book, and even then, it is brief and without many details.


Many of the ideas introduced into the storyline also felt as though they were left hanging at the end of the book.
Clara, the Cinderella character, seemed a very flat character to me, although she could have been interesting if the author had developed her more.


Mostly it was disappointing to not get the completion of Caspar and Iris's relationship after the entire book leads up to it.
You would think that if the story was written down by Caspar, as the epilogue explains, then we would have gotten it more from his point of view, rather than Iris's.


Overall, it was an okay read, but I'm not sure I want to read Wicked now after reading this one.
A Cinderella retelling in the perspective of an ugly stepsister, from the author of Wicked, Hmm. Okay, this book is just "not quite, " Which I need to put in the proper scale the setup is brilliant, as Maguire's generally are, and the followthrough is good, and the denouement is fine.
But I didn't want fine, I wanted this book to walk up to me and knock me on my ass with a right hook to the gut.
Instead it came up, dazzled me with some fancy footwork, and then asked me for a sedate waltz, Parts of this book are sheer genius the cleverness of the title which you don't realize until the very last page, the autistic ugly stepsister, the treatment of beauty in art and in life, Clara/Cinderella as a voluntary shutin, the setting in sixteenthcentury Holland, the reality of a prince searching for a wife.
And the writing itself is outstanding, the sentencebysentence pace intricate and beautiful, But this book, which was excellent by the standards of fiction everywhere, fell just that tragic bit short of the extraordinary thing that it could have been, that feeling
when you read a book and it's as if the whole thing rings like a bell, the note perfect and clear and dazzling.
And this sounded as if the author left his finger on the bell when he struck it, to overextend the metaphor, I'm glad I read it, but Im beginning to suspect this is Maguire's shortfall, and it makes me sad to see this beautifully conceived idea land in the realms of good and not blowyourmind.



Chased from their English abode, their father killed and themselves sought to be next, Iris, Ruth and their mother Margarethe, flee to a Dutch town, hoping to be taken in by their grandfather.
Upon arriving, seeking his home, they are ridiculed, shunned and abased, Both the girls are considered ugly, Ruth is a lumbering dimwit, Iris is a scrawny brain, No one wants to help or hire them, They are hungry, desperate and fraught,

Happening upon a painter in his studio, they query his work through an open window, He takes note of Iris, . intrigued by her blatant flaws, It is her that gains them access to work and shelter, He paints the unfortunates. He paints the religious scenes of depravity, He paints flowers. It all unifies and they maintain,

Set in the early craze for tulips and portraits, the trio winds up in the home of a more fortunate family.
It is here that the beautiful, spoiled and sheltered Clara lives, A playmate and soon stepsister to Iris and Ruth while Margarethe works the kitchen,
The story unfurls, like a dying tulip, and wilts, Tho there is much kindness, mostly from the haves, there is cruelty from the wants, Greed plays a substantial part in this telling,

A love story, a mystery, a historical fiction, All set in With Macguires typical use of language, period and tart, which may slow the reading a tad, but it enriches as you go.


Doesn't even deservestar, I almost slit my wrists reading this one, This was such an inventive retelling of Cinderella, It felt almost true to the original story, but with a change in perspective, RE: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Below are the comments I made about this book at my GR group:

I read sitelinkConfessions of an Ugly Stepsister by sitelinkGregory Maguire back in, but have forgotten to add it to my shelves here.
I will do that today,

I must have liked the book because I just foundpages of handwritten quotes which I had scribbled from it as I read! Even I can't believe it! LOL These days I don't copy as many quotes because it's too timeconsuming.
I haven't got the energy either,

Below is one quote from "Confessions" which I just now found among my notes:

"Approval is overrated, Approval and disapproval alike satisfy those who deliver it more than those who receive it, I don't care for approval and I don't mind doing without, "
p., Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire


I made the following notation for myself about the book: "Opens eyes to the world of art and artists.
"

BTW, I see that I was reading the book from Marchto June, Took me a while, especially copying all those quotations! lol

PSAnother quotation from the book is below:

"Is there a relative value of beauty Is evanescence fleetingness a necessary element of the thing that most moves us A shooting star dazzles us more than the sun.
A child captivates like an elf, but grows into grossness, an ogre, a harpy, . . a flower only painting endures But words endure too the small gesture of charity, Isn't that sort of beauty more beautiful than any other, . . perhaps charity is the kind of beauty that we comprehend the best because we miss it the most, "
Gregory Maguire, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister A Novel, p,
i swear to god this wasexposition While I think Gregory Maguire is brilliant to tackle these twisty fairy tales, and show us the "other" side, for me, I think that his writing is to wordy and feels too crowded, or overkill to actually tell the story he is looking to tell.


This is the story of Ruth and Iris, sisters THE stepsisters of Cinderella, aka, Clara Van Der Meer, Both sisters are ugly, but thoughtful, and care deeply about Clara, The happy fairy tale that everyone knows and shares, is turned upside down, and the real story is told,

For me just too much, Too many words, too much emphasis on extraneous events, and the truly evil one here is the step mother Margarenthe, Audio rereadThis was an all right story, Part prequel, part Cinderella retelling told from the POV of the stepsister, Iris is a strange and cunning child, After fleeing from the UK to Holland in the dead of night, Iris must help her mother try and make a living.
They end up in the home of a master painter, before Iris finds a job as a servant to a wealthy family with a beautiful young daughter named Clara.


I don't have a lot to say about this book because for the most part it was very okay, I liked the complicated relationship between Iris and Clara and how they both cared and protected Ruth, The ending was really fun, but overall I didn't care about the characters much,.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but it was not quite what I expected, For about half the book, there are very few correlations between the narrative being told and the fairy tale Cinderella, on which this story is based.
Maguire spends most of the time developing Iris ugly step sister, and Clara Cinderella, My first experience with Gregory Maguire was Wicked I never read it, but watched the musical, I plan to remedy this, so I think I expected more shocking twists and reveals.
I was not exactly surprised by anything that happened, but it was an enjoyable experience, The writing is colorful and whimsical, and makes you feel like everything is sunny and warm, despite being a slightly darker version of the classic fairy tale.
I think as I have gotten older I have started to reject the narrative that heroines must be pretty and talented, which is why Iris is so refreshing.
I feel except for some subtle adult content, this is actually a much healthier version of Cinderella for young girls, It teaches us that beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, and that you do not have to be aesthetically pleasing to accomplish great things and find love.
That beauty itself can have consequences, and there are better things to do than spend our lives wishing to be prettier, or thinner, or more talented.


Thank you Gregory Maguire for continuing to challenge our perspectives, Two and a Half Stars

Having already read Gregory Maguire's sitelink Wicked I was something less than thrilled when I got roped into reading sitelink Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister for a decidedly informal book discussion group.
It wasn't that I found sitelink Wicked a bad read, I actually rather enjoyed it, but the blurb on the back of "Confessions" lead me to think that Mr.
Maguire had essentially repeated the same formula with a different fairy tale, Actually, 'Wicked' was written after 'Confessions' but I read 'Wicked first, . . Deconstructing a fairy tale and retelling it from the point of view of a traditionally unsympathetic character looses its novelty quickly,

Anybody who has read sitelink Wicked will instantly feel right at home, Mr. Maguire provides interesting characters and plots that keep a reader interested, That said, I found the writing itself in sitelink Wicked to be more polished than the writing in sitelink Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister.
The retelling of 'Cinderella' felt less developed and the world of "Confessions,"th Century Holland, seems less vivid than Maguire's reimagining of Oz.


With the novelty of retooled fairy tales gone, "Confessions'" ended up being a bit underwhelming, While the opening scenes were engrossing, the middle of the book was merely ok and the climactic scene, Cinderella at the ball, ended up feeling slow and flat.
The post script seems like an afterthought,

Mr. Maguire has turned his shtick into a cottage industry, which is fine, It's a decent shtick. But unless you're interested in going through a postmodern reinvention of every single one of Grimm's Fairy Tales, read sitelink Wicked.
The concept is the same and the writing and the plot are better, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is way better than sitelinkWicked, not least because the characters have consistent personalities and the plot is coherent.
I appreciated the sensory details and descriptions, and the various characters are original, There's a nice twist near the end which gave me a little brain jolt, and I always like that,
Maguire's ability to come up with an interesting story is far better than his ability to tell the story, His writing is often a bit too labored, his symbolism too transparent, and his literary devices a bit clunky,

Like 'Wicked', 'Confessions' offers the reader a variation on a wellknown story, Also like 'Wicked', 'Confessions' is not really all that much to write home about, A somewhat creative variation, but one in which many of the characters are incredibly hard to like, and the story just falls flat in the end.
The epilogue reads like something that has been tacked on in order to make up for loose ends, and ultimately transforms a story that seems like it is trying to veer away from the formulaic fairy tale mold into a "happilyeverafter", problemssolvedinthelastfiveminutes kind of thing.
I wouldn't exactly call it satisfying, .