terriko

Princess of Glass (Twelve Dancing Princesses) by Jessica Day George

This is book 2 in the series, following princess Poppy, one of the twelve sisters from the previous book. Somewhat sideways to Poppy's own story, there's a highly unusual and modern retelling of Cinderella in there that throws a completely different light on the tale. Fairy godmothers, it seems, don't have to be quite so one-dimensionally benevolent. I think even those who aren't drawn to reworked fairy tales would find something to love in this story, which is an adventure tale of saving friends and defeating evil. It's both funny and clever, and I highly recommend it!

Ash by Malinda Lo

This is a subtle retelling of Cinderella, where author Malinda Lo has taken the backstory and bones of the traditional tale and woven them into an entirely different cautionary tale about fairies, and about a girl who loses her mother and then her father entirely too soon and who wants to retreat into the forest forever, but by the time she finds a way to do that, she has finally moved beyond her loss and is starting to want to live again. That makes it sound dark, and in many ways it is, but it's also a tale of finding love and moving into the light.

Incidentally, I picked this up because I heard it was a finalist for some LGBT award (and many other young adult awards besides [1]), so I was expecting there to be some social strife regarding relationships in there as well, but actually relationships just were relationships, regardless of gender, and the strife came from other sources. I found it kind of refreshing.

[1] http://www.malindalo.com/fiction/ash/