If they don’t measure up to the king’s high standards, they are shamed and forfeited.

Once turned 16 every girl must attend the ball in lavish hair, makeup and gowns, whether their parents can afford it or not. Why do they marry these men in the first place? That’s another rule. They have no rights, their husbands able to mistreat them in any way they chose. He is a tyrant, inflicting harsh rules on his subjects – especially women and girls. However, it was an entertaining enough story to read.Sophia lives with her parents in the town called Lille, ruled over by a king. Perhaps that is the fairytale element coming through. A lot of the characters are a bit lacking in depth. She could also have done more work on the world-building and characterisation. The author does, clearly, have an agenda and is somewhat heavy-handed in her approach on occasion. These are some really interesting ideas in this story. Because as bad as it looks on the surface, there are some even more rotten secrets at the dark heart of the city. In a desperate attempt to save herself, her friends and the women of Merseilles in general and give them back the right to make their own choices, Sophia must find out the real truth behind the Cinderella story. When the ball goes even worse than she imagined, she finds herself on the run alongside another young woman descended from one of Cinderella's stepsisters.

Sophia has always known that she would like to be matched with a princess rather than a prince, but her invitation to the ball has arrived and it looks as if all her choices are disappearing. Fail to be chosen or infringe society's laws in some other fashion and you become 'forfeit', are taken to the palace, often not to be seen again. And the annual ball, which is mandatory, is an occasion for unmarried young women to be chosen by whichever man wishes to do so. First their fathers, then their husbands control them as if they own them.

This is a highly patriarchal, nigh-on misogynist society where women have no rights. This is a world in which the Cinderella story really happened and now, two hundred years down the line, all girls in the city state of Merseilles must learn the palace-approved version of the story off by heart. 'Cinderella is Dead' is a YA feminist retelling of the Cinderella fairytale with a LGBTQ+ BIPOC heroine.

The cinderella is dead