Cinderellis and the Glass Hill: A Review

Hello, my lovelies!

I’m back for Book 4 of The Princess Tales!

Cinderellis and the Glass Hill by Gail Carson Levine

5 Stars

In this unusual spin on an old favorite, Cinderella is a boy! He's Cinderellis, and he has two unfriendly brothers and no fairy godmother to help him out. Luckily, he does have magical powders, and he intends to use them to win the hand of his Princess Charming-- that is, Marigold. The only problem is-- Marigold thinks Cinderellis is a monster!

-From Goodreads

I knew there was a reason I was holding off on deeming The Princess Test my favorite! Having actually finished reading all of them now, this one definitely takes that title (though the last two are also great and I look forward to sharing them with you in the coming weeks).

This is a fun spin not only on the timeless Cinderella tale but also the lesser known Glass Hill fairy tale. I think there might even be another fairy tale mixed in that I’m missing. The stories mix well and I enjoyed the classic elements as well as the new twists the author put on them.

What I Liked:

Everything. What I liked about this book was everything. It was a fun tale with good characters, a solid plot, and the great narration I’ve been talking about since my review of the first book.

Cinderellis is such an endearing character, strong and brave and clever but also sweet and gentle and kind. He’s exactly what you would expect of a Cinderella character but in a nice, well-developed sort of way. I also adore the love interest, Princess Marigold. She’s the kind of character you wish you could just climb into the book and hug and hug and hug until every one of her broken pieces are put back together.

Together the two of them are one of the sweetest couples in this series (and it has a lot of sweet couples). I love them together and their relationship is great (though in keeping with the rest of the series, it’s written in a way you could read to younger kids without a problem).

The twists on the original tales was so fun! The “evil stepsisters” are Cinderellis’ two brothers who more ignore or barely notice Cinderellis than anything else. Most of his motivation throughout the story is to impress them, the little brother desiring for his older brothers to notice him and accept him as one of their own.

I also love the way the author manages to get inside so many characters’ heads in such a short book in such an effective way. Sometimes it’s the most random of characters (like the horses) but it adds something to the story when in so many other books the same thing takes away something. It’s just really good writing.

What I Didn’t Like:

Okay, so maybe I didn’t quite like everything. But I didn’t even dislike this enough to knock even a portion of a star off the rating, so it’s not even really worth mentioning. Except that it really annoyed me.

This started in Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep (Book Three) but for some reason all the kings and queens in this story have the same name now. In The Princess Test they were named King Humphry and Queen Hermione. In Princess Sonora they were named King Humphry II and Queen Hermione II. In this book they were named King Humphry III and Queen Hermione III. It continues into books four and five as well and every time I saw it, it would just make me mad. It just doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t understand it and I would have liked the author to make a different choice on that.

But like I said, it’s not even a huge deal. I just needed to rant.

Overview:

As stated, this is my favorite book in the series. I adored it so incredibly much and I’m so excited to share it with you. It’s a fun, lighthearted read that I plowed through in a day. It’s quick and simple but full of so many wonderful things. And I actually read this one out loud so I can say with certainty that it is in fact a great read-aloud book. I’m excited to have kids to read it to someday.

I started putting the series playlist together! Excited to share it with you in a few weeks.

Continuing along the theme of favorites, I’ll be back on Monday to share one of my favorite things with you! I hope to see you then. Until the next time we meet, don’t forget to live happily ever after <3

~Jennifer Sauer, the Ivory Palace Princess 

P.S. Let's Chat! What's your favorite lesser know fairy tale you'd love to see retold? What common fairy tales do you think it would mix well with?