The Pen and Book Files

 a review of Cinderella is Dead. Featuring the second cover, because I am a stan. "Cinderella reiterations are a dime a dozen. Cinderella is Dead flips them all 180 degrees, giving a kick-butt QPOC story and an inspiration to readers everywhere." Trigger warning: this review contains mentions of homophobia, domestic abuse, and totalitarianism. Introduction     Pride Month might be something of a corporate event in the bookstore sphere, but I have to admit there's one good thing about it. LGBTQIA+ books are put front and center, and that is exactly how I discovered Cinderella is Dead. I'm always looking for new books to read, so discovering this LGBTQIA+ fairy tale retelling completely by chance? It seemed to scratch the itch in all the right ways. Hearing that it was a fairy tale retelling didn't intrigue me that much. Those were a dime a dozen (quick shoutout to the Twisted Tales series here), but a QPOC fairy tale retelling?      Cinderella has been dead ...

  "Writing a prequel is hard. Writing one that can stand alone is even harder. Tessa and company are invaluable for fans and new readers alike. It keeps you glued until the last page."      A special thanks to Jane Austen for pushing me to write this review from beyond the grave. This piece is especially written due to my own (many failed) attempts to finish Pride and Prejudice.       The number of times that I have opened Pride and Prejudice, only to scarcely get through more than a page or two, is likely to be alarming to any reader of Austin’s work. The historical record it provided was complete, but I don’t know if I understood much of it. Turning back to my shelves, I discovered an old friend of mine: The Infernal Devices, telling the story of the people who would become the ancestors of the first Shadowhunters I was introduced to.      Tessa Gray, Will Herondale, and Jem Carstairs. Tessa was the only one who had been introduce...