Author: Gail Carson Levine who also illustrated the print book
Publisher: Listening library
Rating: WARTY!
This is another movie/book tie-in. You can read the movie review in the movie section of my blog. This audio book was read by Eden Riegel who does a completely amazing job. I don't know how old she was when she recorded this but Riegel sounds perfect for the main character who is, be warned, much younger throughout this novel than ever she was in the movie (barring the first few scenes). The voice is a little bit sugary or flowery, so it might put some people off, but I liked it.
This novel is quite different from the movie - or more accurately, they changed things a lot when they turned this novel into a movie, and they made a better job of it in my opinion. This is sad, because I really enjoyed the first disk, finding it amazingly entertaining, and feeling as though I would be giving this novel a worthy rating, but after that first disk it went down hill. Unlike the movie, the novel follows the original fairy tale quite closely in many regards, including the glass slipper finale (which probably wasn't actually glass, but fur in the original fairy tale).
The Ella in the novel is considerably younger than the one played by Anne Hathaway. The novel is also quite different from the movie in how it tells this story. Ella is friends with the young Prince Char (Charmont) from childhood - they are never 'rivals' or in contest as depicted in the movie. Ella also spends some considerable time in "Finishing School" - sent there by her father - before she finally decides she has to locate Lucinda.
She is cursed with obedience at an early age and realizes at a later age that her curse would also be a curse for Char if she were ever to marry him, allowing anyone to take advantage of him and his riches or even to assassinate him if they so chose, using her as a tool to do so. In the end, she finally finds the wherewithal to refuse to marry him in order to protect him, and thereby breaks the curse.
The problem with the story is that while it was immensely entertaining and inventive for the duration of first disk (of five), it became really tedious thereafter, with nothing of interest or of entertainment value occurring at all - not for me, anyway. That's why I can't give it a worthy rating. 20% entertainment doth not a novel make!
