All the Ever Afters: The Untold Story of Cinderella by Danielle Teller

read by Jane Copland

In the spirit of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked, All the Ever Afters takes a familiar tale and turns it on its head by telling from the point of view of the villain. In this case the villain-turned-protagonist is Agnes, Cinderella’s purportedly evil stepmother. And oh boy, do we get a different picture of what kind of person Cinderella really is.

To begin with, this is very much Agnes’ tale, not Cinderella’s (she’s actually called Ella), though of course that fabled beauty plays a tremendous part in Agnes’s life—and not just by spreading those nasty rumors about the woman who eventually becomes her stepmother. Ella is an ethereally lovely child with an extremely tenuous grip on reality; she’s also the spoiled only daughter of a drunken lord, in whose household Agnes becomes a laundress when her family can no longer afford to keep her.

Agnes works in the drunken lord’s household for a number of years, under the supervision of a lazy, despotic sadist of a head laundress. She has a fair amount of contact with the lord of the manor, first because as the lowest-ranking servant in the house she can be made to deal with him when his drunkenness has made him unusually difficult, and then because she proves herself equal to the task of jollying him along. He develops a fondness for her; he is, nonetheless, a frightening individual to be around when he is in his cups, which he usually is.

Eventually her fortunes improve and she becomes a better sort of servant in a better sort of household. Much later, after numerous ups and downs as her hopes for a better life are repeatedly dashed because of a society and legal system that are stacked against the poor, Agnes returns to work for Ella’s father—as a senior servant. Now that she has more say in how things are run, her understandable bitterness comes out in petty ways. But overall she runs the household well, including handling its still-drunken lout of a lord and his spoiled, mentally unstable daughter, Ella.

The “wicked stepmother” rumors start here, as Agnes tries to find ways to get Ella to learn the responsibilities of running a household and to have some appreciation for the hard work that all of the servants do for her. And Agnes does, by something of a miracle and much to everyone’s disapproval, end up marrying Ella’s father. And no, that’s not the end of the story—but I’ve already given away a lot.

Basically, if you like a good, solid retelling of a fairy tale with richly detailed world-building, especially ones from non-traditional points of view, you’ll like this one a lot. It’s a really good example of the genre.

Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley

narrated by Charlotte Parry

Ah yes, Beauty and the Beast: the classic fairy tale about Stockholm Syndrome. I have to admit that I am enough of a fan of this story (and of modern retellings of fairy tales generally) to have sought out the live action version last year. And to have thoroughly enjoyed it—because, duh, Emma Watson, but also, Josh Gad as LeFou: what a performance! Totally stole the show.

But also, like any right-thinking person, I’m always a bit queasy about the premise, no matter how good the execution is. Basically this is the story of a young woman trapped in an enchanted castle by a man who has literally become a monster due to a (well-deserved) curse, and whose only hope of becoming human again is to have someone agree, of their own free will, to marry him.

But apparently in this universe the idea of “free will” isn’t negated by coercing someone to live with him by threatening grave harm to said person’s father, who innocently stumbled across an enchanted castle and plucked a single rose to bring her as a souvenir—so that’s exactly what the Beast does. It’s not technically kidnapping, but morally speaking, it might as well be.

Of course if we take all of this stuff literally, and not as a metaphor for bad things that happen in real life, we can decide to just focus, as this retelling does, on Beauty’s specific experience, her bravery and loyalty and ability to see the good in just about any person or situation. And on the magic and the tragedy of the castle and its various inhabitants.

If your only experience of this tale is the two Disney adaptations, you’ll notice some changes in this version. For one thing, “Beauty” is just a nickname—one that its bearer has come to dislike, over the years, even more than she originally disliked her given name, Honor. That’s because she’s not as beautiful as her two sisters.

The book spends quite a bit of time telling the story of the three sisters and their father and their various suitors, and how they became impoverished, and how they settled in their new life. A lot of time. About two-thirds of the book. Fortunately for Beauty, there is no Gaston in this retelling (which, alas, means no LeFou). Her troubles are a quieter sort—until her father falls afoul of the Beast, who threatens to kill him for taking one of his many flowers as a gift for Beauty. But Beauty offers herself in her father’s place, and somehow convinces her father to accept this, under a lot of protest.

At the enchanted castle at last, Beauty encounters the invisible servants of the original tale (not the talking animated objects of the Disney versions) and sets about making the best of her new circumstances. The best part is, of course, the library—this Beauty being just as bookish as Disney’s Belle—but I won’t spoil it for you, there being few enough surprises in this version. The rest of the story goes on more or less as one would expect, if somewhat condensed.

The end of the tale is extremely condensed—that, apparently, not being the part McKinley was most interested in. That was a bit disappointing. But overall, this is beautifully written, and, in spite of a certain vagueness about when it’s supposed to have taken place, it does a lovely job of bringing these characters and this story to life. Recommended for adult and teen fans of the genre or of fantasy in general.