Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine, is about a girl named Ella who has been enchanted since birth.
Her curse? Obedience.
Whenever someone issues an order, Ella must obey, like it or not. Over time, she figures out how to delay her obedience, but in the end she must always carry out the order.
This makes Ella's life not only a nuisance, but also extremely dangerous. What could be done to her or to those she loved if someone malicious - if even her own father - found out about the curse?
Ella's story is a retelling of "Cinderella." This version was the result of Levine's thinking that Cinderella was too much of a goody two-shoes, so what if she was forced to always be obedient?
All the right ingredients are there: the evil step-family, the glass slippers, the Prince Charming (literally,the prince's name "Charmont" is a variation on the French word for charming), the royal ball, and the fairy godmother.
Unlike the original fairy tale, however, most of the book is devoted to Ella's life prior to the ball (there are three parties, all three nights in a row, in this case). She meets her Prince Charming more than a year before the original Cinderella did.
Interested? I hope so, because there's no way this Cinderella can marry a prince - not cursed, not when she could potentially be forced to end her prince's life. Go find a copy of Ella Enchanted and find out what happens!
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