Cinderella's Dress by Shonna Slayton
Grade: B-
Release date: June 3, 2014
This e-galley was provided by NetGalley and Entangled: Teen in exchange for an honest review.
Summary: Being seventeen during World War II is tough. Finding out you’re the next keeper of the real Cinderella’s dresses is even tougher.
Kate simply wants to create window displays at the department store where she's working, trying to help out with the war effort. But when long-lost relatives from Poland arrive with a steamer trunk they claim holds the Cinderella’s dresses, life gets complicated.
Now, with a father missing in action, her new sweetheart, Johnny, stuck in the middle of battle, and her great aunt losing her wits, Kate has to unravel the mystery before it’s too late.
After all, the descendants of the wicked stepsisters will stop at nothing to get what they think they deserve.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: My first thought about Cinderella's Dress is that Shonna Slayton really brought the 1940s setting to life. There's a mention of Christian Dior and his New Look, and that was really cool for me since I researched the New Look for a history project. The slang and descriptions of clothes were great and not too overdone. My main problems with this book come in the form of Kate's stupidity, the vagueness about the dress, and the open ending. I'll start with that last one first. The ending is very open, so I guess there might be a sequel? I don't even know. There were a lot of unanswered questions and unfinished business, so I can't see it just ending there, but Goodreads tells me nothing about if the story will continue or not. Also, throughout the whole book, I felt like I was a little too in the dark about Cinderella's dresses - what they were, why Kate's family had them, the necklace Kate wears, even the glass slippers. I still don't feel like I have all the answers so that goes back to the open ending. Finally, Kate makes some very stupid decisions when it comes to her pride and trying to make a name for herself. I won't reveal anything, but I seriously wanted to shake that girl. I will say that I really liked the romance in this book. Kate and Johnny Day are seriously adorable together. I also really liked Kate's brother, Floyd.
Language, romance, and violence were all tame.
The Verdict: Definitely an adorable read, but it definitely has some flaws so don't expect this book to be as perfect as Cinderella's dress.
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed in this book. I loved the history and the fashion. I actually went to school for fashion merchandising and took a whole class on the history of dress and we learned a lot about Christian Dior's New Look so that was cool to read about. But I basically felt the same way. The whole fantasy/fairytale aspect was not explained enough and kind of felt unnecessary. I think this book would have maybe been better without the whole dress theme and just as a historical fiction.
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