All the Ever Afters

Author: Danielle Teller
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2018
Pages: 384
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: We all know the story of Cinderella. Or do we?

As rumors about the cruel upbringing of the beautiful newlywed Princess Cinderella roil the kingdom, her stepmother, Agnes, who knows all too well about hardship, privately records the true story.

A peasant born into serfdom, Agnes is separated from her family and forced into servitude as a laundress's apprentice when she is only ten years old. Using her wits and ingenuity, she escapes her tyrannical matron and makes her way toward a hopeful future. When teenaged Agnes is seduced by an older man and becomes pregnant, she is transformed by love for her child. Once again left penniless, Agnes has no choice but to return to servitude as the manor she thought she had left behind. Her position is nursemaid to Ella, an otherworldly infant. She struggles to love the child who in time becomes her stepdaughter and, eventually, the celebrated princess who embodies everyone's unattainable fantasies. The story of their relationship reveals nothing is what it seems, that beauty is not always desirable, and that love can take on my guises.

Lyrically told, emotionally evocative, and brilliantly perceived, All the Ever Afters explores the hidden complexities that lie beneath classic tales of good and evil, all the while showing us that how we confront adversity reveals a more profound, and ultimately more important, truth than the idea of "happily ever after."

Review: It took me a chapter or two to go into the language and writing style, and I wondered if I was even going to like this book. I was rewarded for my tenacity. So enjoyable.