books 2006: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, by Gregory Maguire

[supercheesegirl]

This was pretty good. I liked it, a lot more than I liked Wicked. Wicked had a sad ending, first of all--and even though I knew what the ending would have to be before I even started the book, it still upset me a lot, because the damn writer had created a character and made me fall in love with her, and I don't know that I'll ever be able to see The Wizard of Oz the same way again. Just thinking about it and my heart hurts. Cinderella, though, is a fairy tale, and fairy tales don't have borders as rigid as movies do. There's a lot of playing that can go on in a fairy tale, and the most important part of Cinderella's story is that she lives happily ever after--no one cares what happens to the stepsisters. So from the start there was a chance that the stepsisters in Confessions would turn out to be happy afterwards, and that's what happened, and I felt much better about it. I didn't see it coming that Ruth was the narrator in the Prologue/Epilogue, but I'm glad she was, since clearly there was a lot more to her than she was given credit for by her family. And it made me happy that Iris got to marry Caspar and be a painter. I also liked that Clara's own happiness was ambiguous, that we didn't get to see if she was happy or not with her prince and her children. I liked that Clara and Iris and Ruth were friends (in their own way) rather than enemies, and I liked that it was Clara's decision to become Cinderella.

So overall I liked Confessions much better than I liked Wicked, but I think Wicked is more likely to stay in my heart, while I'll probably unload my copy of Confessions at the next book swap and not think of it much after that. Interesting how books we like aren't always the books that affect us. But I do heartily recommend Confessions; it's an excellent read.

Comments

[myras-girls.livejournal.com]

I don't remember Wicked all that well but I remember really enjoying it. I very recently read Confessions and enjoyed it, too. I can't say if I liked it better or worse than Wicked. I thought Confessions was a little slow to start but once I got into I was really into it. If I am into a book I will think about it during the day and am usually eager to sit down and read for a good long spell.

I didn't expect Ruth to the be the narrator, but I did think that was a clever and appropriate aspect of the storytelling.