Just Ella

Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix starts off where the Cinderella story ends.  Ella is living in the palace learning everything that she needs in order to be a princess.  She has nightly chaperoned visits with her prince and spends most of her day learning etiquette and manners.  She's also bored to tears.  She soon decides that she no longer wants to be the princess but finds that leaving the castle and breaking her engagement is not as simple as it seems like it would be.

This is a terrific book that tells the tale of what happens after the happily ever after and that perhaps things aren't as they seem.  We slowly learn the real story of how Ella got to the ball and find out the real reason as to how she came to be the princess.  I loved this book and finished it quickly.  I'd recommend it to fans of fairy tales.

Appropriateness:  There are some unsettling moments in this story that could prove unsettling or disturbing to young readers who think they're in for a light and fluffy story.  There is an attempted rape and a section of the story where the main character has to fear being raped and she is imprisoned in a dungeon with only a hole for a toilet.  It has a great message and Ella is a great character however, the pieces of the plot that clearly point towards the threat of rape (and it's not anything a reader could miss) make this book questionable for younger readers.   I recommend this book to readers 12-15