Cinder Ella by S.T. Lynn

Cinder Ella
by S.T. Lynn
Pages: 62
Date: June 24 2016
Publisher: LoveLight Press
Series: None

Review
Rating: 2.75 out of 5.0
Read: June 29 2016

I went into this story hoping/expecting to love it. Or at the very least like it. I found that hard to do. Unlike the most recent ‘fairy tale retold’ I had read, I had not previously read the original story. Though I have read numerous ‘retellings’ (one or more of which have been adult in nature).

There were several flaws I thought of while reading. 1) Gender – time period; 2) magic; 3) drag queen personality.

Gender: Ella was born in the body of a boy that his dad called Cole (not sure if mother was involved in the name at all, since she died while giving birth to Cole/Ella). I have no inherent problem with Ella having been born a boy, nor with ‘Cole’ realizing that they are actually ‘Ella’. No, I had a problem with the situation as presented. I mean, there is a reason why Cinderella ended up basically being a servant in the origin story.

Mother died giving birth to Cole/Ella. Dad remarries. Woman he marries has two children from a previous . . . situation (whatever that situation might have been; I was going to say previous marriage, but I have no information indicating that the woman had ever been married before except for the fact that she has children, and the fact that being unmarried with children in this time period (assuming this is still marginally historical fiction) ‘just isn’t done’ (or, in other words, it would be a scandal hovering over her head even after marrying Ella’s father). Father dies. And . . . um. Now we get into the interesting little bit about how Ella was born a boy named Cole. Or, in other words, Ella’s father had a son in terms of inheritance laws. In the time period this story is apparently set, the son would inherit, potentially everything – sometimes with a token given to the widow, sometimes nothing but some form of ‘live-inheritance’, or sometimes nothing. So why is Ella living in her step-mother’s house? Here I should be using the birth body gender, eh? Why is the son living without any inheritance in the step-mother’s house? This . . . doesn’t compute. So, that’s the gender issue.

Magic: I’ve not read the origin story, I note again here, so that I can say that I do not know the level of magic in it. I do know the retellings, though. The level of magic is on a par above the level shown here. The level shown here? About on the level of a magician. Some elements might be hard to ‘figure out’ how a magician did it (like the larger than expected tailor cart), but then how does a magician make the statue of liberty disappear? Roses grew much faster than expected in this story. Without blinking Ella just assumed that the land was fae enhanced land. Me? I just went with it – fae enhanced land. Though technically a magician could have done it by sleight of hand. Mini-rose bush planted. Ella disappears for a time (sleep, etc). Comes back, sees full grown rose bush, the kind that looks like it has been there for years. Could a magician do that? Of course – while Ella is distracted, plant a full grown rose bush (yeah, it is the exact same type of hybrid roses she planted that her father created, but just because she thinks it might be unique doesn’t mean it really is unique).

I expected certain things when I went into this story. I expected Ella to actually be transformed by her fairy godmother into a woman. The book description kind of even says something like that. Rereading the description, okay, it didn’t actually say that. I misread ‘transforms Ella’s life’ as ‘transforms Ella’. Meh. It is a fairy godmother story. They big powerful critters. Transforming woman trapped in the body of a man into that of a woman in the body of a woman? Child’s play. Instead the fairy godmother gives Ella a dress. And . . . that’s basically it (at least in terms of helping her get to the party – I expected the step-family to laugh at Ella and not allow her to go; which would have lead fairy godmother to step in and transform Ella, and her doggy also. She’d ride on the back of her dog slash horse and visit the party. Then flee when the clock chimes (that also isn’t how she exited the party, time was not an issue here).

So. Basically Ella is someone with a male body who wears a dress and make-up. No mention is made of transforming her voice in any way – which I mention because two of the people she meets at the big ball had previously meet Ella when Ella was bouncing around as Cole. No mention was made of Cole sounding like he had an effeminate voice, and no mention was made of Ella (a) sounding like Cole; or (b) sounding like she might have a deeper voice than expected.

I feel annoyed. I wanted Ella to be transformed.

drag queen personality: this one has nothing to do with gender, or the like. And everything to do with personalities. Drag Queens, real ones, can be straight, gay, bisexual, and even transgender (I know of several who have transitioned; though I mostly know of the one Drag King who transitioned but still performed, at times, to give back to the community who helped him come to the realization that he was transgender). No, this is personality/level/emotion/etc.

The person in the film ‘Crying Game’ was not a Drag Queen. I’m not actually sure where Jaye falls in real life or in the film. But Jaye, as Dil in the film, wandered around looking like a woman and presenting as a woman (who just happens to have a dick, if, you know, you got Jaye/Dil’s skirt off). There are some drag queens you have to look several times before you realize that they are in fact drag queens. By looks. By personality? More or less immediate – both types of Drag – king and queen, are something like caricatures of the gender they are performing as – on purpose they are.

And so I come to Ella’s personality in this story. She has kind of a caricatured female personality. A stereotypical personality. Overly emotional. Unable to stop the tears. Etc. Obviously that must mean Cole is really Ella, right, because men don’t cry or something like that? Well, just for the record (1) not all women are caricatures of women; (2) not all MtoF are caricatures of women (though I understand that there is something of a conflict in the community – like a relatively recent reality show had a contestant booted because she wore boxer shorts and ‘obviously’ ‘real women’ didn’t wear boxers (WTF?). Point being that I acknowledge that some MtoF (and some FtoM) ‘overplay’ their roles). Well, Ella overplays her role here (For most of the story; when she was off by herself growing things and making bread, she settled down to being more of a woman and less of a caricature).

I liked the magical elements of the other retellings I’ve read/seen. This story seemed to lack it; to replace it with extra extra harsh step-mother/sisters. And a magician slash tailor. That is/was unfortunate.

At the moment I rate this somewhere around 2.75 or 2.5. Meaning I might bump this to 3 stars on GoodReads at any moment. It might even have been a 3.5-3.75 (4 on GoodReads) if the magic had been a bigger part of this story – if Ella had been transformed. Had the body of a woman – maybe only for the period of time she was at the party (then something could have been added wherein she’d be transformed again, this time permanently, by way of the Princess finding her again and expressing her love or something (though that would be mixing Beauty and the Beast with Cinderella). Bah, I’ll go ahead and raise my rating to 3 on Goodreads while noting that I would rate the story 2.75 if I could. Still annoyed by that lack of transformation though. Mmphs.

June 29 2016