Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Confessions Of An Ugly Stepsister
    Confessions Of An Ugly Stepsister
    Confessions Of An Ugly Stepsister
    Audiobook12 hours

    Confessions Of An Ugly Stepsister

    Written by Gregory Maguire

    Narrated by Jenny Sterlin

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Gregory Maguire, critically acclaimed author of Wicked, returns with his eagerly anticipated second novel. Using a dazzling reincarnation of the Cinderella story set in 17th century Holland, Maguire deftly weaves together stories of inner and outer beauty. Iris is a plain but intelligent young girl. Forced to flee England with her recently widowed mother, Margarethe, and her older sister, she finds herself swept into a life that becomes a legend. Arriving destitute, the family becomes employed in the home of a wealthy tulip merchant. Margarethe is hired as the housekeeper and Iris as a companion to the merchant's stunningly beautiful but troubled daughter. When the merchant's wife dies, Margarethe seizes the moment, and a wicked stepmother is born. Narrated with spirit and warmth by Jenny Sterlin, Gregory Maguire's vision of Cinderella is a sweeping story of love and deception, where a ball, a handsome prince and the betrayal of a daughter can lead to everyone living happily ever after.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 14, 2014
    ISBN9781490620275
    Confessions Of An Ugly Stepsister
    Author

    Gregory Maguire

    Gregory Maguire is the New York Times bestselling author of the Wicked Years, a series that includes Wicked—the beloved classic that is the basis for the blockbuster Tony Award–winning Broadway musical of the same name and the major motion picture—Son of a Witch, A Lion Among Men, and Out of Oz. His series Another Day continues the story of Oz with The Brides of Maracoor, The Oracle of Maracoor, and The Witch of Maracoor, and his other novels include A Wild Winter Swan, Hiddensee, After Alice, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost, and Mirror Mirror. He lives in New England and France.

    More audiobooks from Gregory Maguire

    Related to Confessions Of An Ugly Stepsister

    Related audiobooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Reissues

      Oct 9, 2019

      Pick of the paperbacks this time: Adrian Tchaikovsky’s CAGE OF SOULS ( , out now, Head Of Zeus). Set when the sun is dying and less than 100,000 humans survive in the last city, it centres on a rebel confined on an island prison in a predator-filled

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Air You Breathe

      Aug 20, 2018

      The Air You Breathe
      23 min read

    • Article

      That Particular Sunday

      Jul 6, 2023

      That Particular Sunday
      26 min read

    • Article

      Cul-de-Sac

      Dec 1, 2021

      That old rage for order: how my father drove a square mouthed mower over-and-back, over-and-back, each row of neatly trimmed grass cut just like he told his barber: boy’s short, regular. O pioneer, taming this joke bit of prairie, no bindweed or dog

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Eternal Adventure

      Jun 29, 2021

      The Eternal Adventure
      4 min read

    • Article

      Seven Poems

      May 1, 2023

      There was a boy even stranger than I waswho’d call me in the eveningto see if I’d come to Scouts. Something in mehesitated. Then one morning during eighth grade English we got hall passesand did it in a stall in the bathroomtaking turns over the john

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Story Pilgrimage

      Jun 8, 2021

      A Story Pilgrimage
      3 min read

    • Article

      Guiding Presence

      May 18, 2020

      Guiding Presence
      7 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jul 1, 2023

      Jester-necked pile of ideasfattening by the cutting board.I have known the summer wall,it says slowly. The hillside facessouth into the valley.Dew on the tomato plants.Anything that grows, swarms,bunches itself against a stayand cannot stay. The vine

      4 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Sep 1, 2020

      Cricket League
      7 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2021

      Light delimits the darkness as snowgives shape to the silence of winter trees.Above a rooftop, the shadow of illness hoversindistinguishable from the wraithsof common chimney smoke.Strip skin from flesh, flesh from boneto behold the comical, adumbrat

      4 min read

    • Article

      Hauntings

      Jul 5, 2023

      Hauntings
      11 min read

    • Article

      Worlds Of Ink And Paper

      Nov 22, 2022

      As a young girl, I still remember my dear mother, smile on her face, curled up with Family Circle magazine in her lap. She was engrossed in an article titled “Butternut Wisdom,” written by Gladys Taber. At my age, it didn’t mean a thing to me. But as

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Postmenopausal Fairy Tale

      Feb 4, 2019

      The Postmenopausal Fairy Tale
      9 min read

    • Article

      Six Poems

      Feb 28, 2023

      Dear C, At first Virgil’s poem is quite dull; equivocalnames of products at The Container Store: Elfa White Medium Drawer, Mesh NarrowRolling Cart (Medium Solution), Narrow Classic Mesh Box and the number of pirouetting starseach product attained. An

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia

      Aug 26, 2022

      A Puzzle Of Nostalgia
      5 min read

    • Article

      Gold Shells Tumbling

      Jan 2, 2022

      Gold Shells Tumbling
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Plague Legends

      Dec 1, 2021

      The Plague Legends
      12 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jul 1, 2023

      People let themselves down so hard they took to clappingwhen the plane lands. Sometimes even at the creditsof a movie. Their funerals turned out to be for the livingall along. You wouldn’t know how much they hatedcrowded trains by the way they kept b

      3 min read

    • Article

      Sweet Fantasy

      Nov 20, 2021

      Sweet Fantasy
      8 min read

    • Article

      Six Sonnets

      Jan 1, 2021

      Goldenrod, I could say, you know, everybody wants somethingfrom me, but, well, everybody wants something and nobody wantsnothing from me, goldenrod, towhead, beast. Goldenrod, you packthe meadows like gold-plated sardines. I have heart palpitationsbu

      3 min read

    • Article

      Hit T He Books

      Nov 28, 2021

      Travel through some of the most beautiful and unusual gardens in the land, learning the stories of how they were created and finding inspiration for your own backyard. Brimming with gorgeous photography, the places it will take you to include a dry g

      2 min read

    • Article

      Splash

      Feb 9, 2018

      Splash
      6 min read

    • Article

      Cherry Season

      Sep 3, 2020

      1. My mother’s mother kept a set of painted wooden nesting dolls on top of her television. When I was small and went to her house, I would take the set apart and line up the five dolls on her living room floor, side by side, from biggest to smallest.

      16 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Confessions Of An Ugly Stepsister

    3.5/5

    2,008 ratings95 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      I'm sorry, I just cannot get into this story. I don't know what it is exactly but I just can't get into it and it's boring as hell. The author writes very well and very clearly. I've read a couple other books by him. But for whatever reason I just simply cannot get into this story. Just not interesting at all for me. I gave it a chance. That's all that matters.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Confessions does a good job of offering reasonable explanations behind the normally unexplained motives of the characters in the classic Cinderella tale. Most of the magic is lost, though, to cruel reality. Also, the book is written in 3rd person, present tense, and that takes some time to adjust to. Only after completing the novel could I really appreciate the uncommon tense and point-of-view that Maguire chose to write in.
    • 3/5
      Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister was my introduction to Gregory Maguire and his books. I actually saw the made-for-tv movie of this first back in 2000 and first read the book from the library a few years later. Last week my dad bought it for me, and I read it again.Confessions is an entertaining book, but the premise of retelling fairytales from a 'villain's' perspective isn't new, and as Cinderella is one of the most popular fairy tales, Confessions isn't exactly groundbreaking. And though the story tries to show us how the stepmother and stepsisters aren't really so wicked, the story mostly preaches that to us rather than displaying it. While Margarethe's (the stepmother) motives are fully explained, that doesn't make her character or her actions any less evil. And while the Maguire assures us that Iris, though very plain, is intelligent & kind, neither of those traits really shine through. As Iris says, she is uneducated and her supposed inherant intelligence is never really seen. Iris shows some kindness to her sister, Ruth, but by the end of the book Iris is hardly interacting with Ruth at all and there are no other displays of this kindness throughout the book. Indeed, Iris is very much like her mother, Margarethe, which is actually a theme of the book, but it does disservice to Maguire's notion that the stepfamily isn't so bad.Clara, or 'Cinderella', seems to also be misrepresented. In the book Iris (and therefore the voice of Maguire) calls her very cold, this coldness isn't seen often. In fact, Clara, by the end of the book, is much nicer to Ruth than Iris is, a fact which Iris notes as Clara's one act of kindness. Maguire's message seems to be that while Cinderella may be beautiful, she isn't beautiful on the inside, but because of how his characters are, this message rings false.All in all, the book is well-written and the descriptions of 17th century Dutch life are lovely, but this book hardly made me rethink the story of Cinderella. Maguire does make his characters human, but in doing this the stepfamily is still wicked, albeit in different ways, and Cinderella is still sympathetic, which I doubt was his intent.
    • 3/5
      No one and nothing is what it seems at first in this novel twist on "Cinderella." Yet the Master is constantly directing us to "look," to SEE. Marguarethe is desperate but ultimately avaricious. Iris is plain, but the star of the group - talented and smart. Clara, while beautiful, is a recluse who marries to protect her father. And Ruth - silent, mute, oxen Ruth - turns out to be a scheming avenger.
    • 3/5
      Confessions does a good job of offering reasonable explanations behind the normally unexplained motives of the characters in the classic Cinderella tale. Most of the magic is lost, though, to cruel reality. Also, the book is written in 3rd person, present tense, and that takes some time to adjust to. Only after completing the novel could I really appreciate the uncommon tense and point-of-view that Maguire chose to write in.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed Confessions more than any of Maguire's other books. In this retelling of Cinderella, "Cinderella" is Clara, a beautiful recluse. Her step-sisters, Iris and Ruth, fall into her home almost by accident. The story focuses mostly on Iris (Ruth is a deaf mute), and how she draws Clara out into the world.
    • 2/5
      I'm sorry, I just cannot get into this story. I don't know what it is exactly but I just can't get into it and it's boring as hell. The author writes very well and very clearly. I've read a couple other books by him. But for whatever reason I just simply cannot get into this story. Just not interesting at all for me. I gave it a chance. That's all that matters.
    • 3/5
      I didn't really enjoy this book. It was hard to get in to and I didn't really follow the story very well. I honestly ended up returning this to the library with a few chapters unfinished. This was not one of the better books that I've read.
    • 5/5
      Another great read from Maguire! Excellent job with characters and plot and twisting the traditional tale just enough, but not so much that it breaks.
    • 3/5
      Irish, a plain girl, has fled England for Holland with her mother and slow, ugly sister Ruth. Mother Margarethe is determined to keep herself and her girls from starving; her schemes and plots form the core of this story, a reworking of the Cinderella myth. Maguire does a great job writing a fairy tale for adults. The historical Dutch background, faithfully drawn, makes this story realistic and believable.This work is miles away from "Wicked". I liked it much better; it's less political and more of a straight-on story. There's just a tiny twist at the end to take the reader by surprise.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed Confessions more than any of Maguire's other books. In this retelling of Cinderella, "Cinderella" is Clara, a beautiful recluse. Her step-sisters, Iris and Ruth, fall into her home almost by accident. The story focuses mostly on Iris (Ruth is a deaf mute), and how she draws Clara out into the world.
    • 3/5
      I didn’t hate this book, but I didn’t love it, either. I liked the premise, but I’m not overly fond of books written in the present tense, and that bothered me a little. It was also...rather dark and melancholy and I’m not entirely sure I like all of the author’s choices. But it was definitely an interesting book, for better or for worse.
    • 2/5
      Not sure if it was his writing style or the story but couldn't finish it.
    • 3/5
      It took me so long to slog through this, which surprised me because I sped through the Wicked series and other reimagined fairy tales by this author. His retelling of the Cinderella story, however, just did not grab me. Set in Holland during a period where tulips were becoming popular, and spending a lot of time on that as well as the practice of becoming a painter, it seemed to lose the thread of the fairy tale itself. Not just a reimagining, but an entirely different story with a loose basis in the plot of the familiar tale. I had a hard time caring about any of the characters and a lot of the time didn't really understand what was going on. This might be my own fault, because I put it down several times to read things for book club as well as things I was just more interested in. Overall, though, this isn't Maguire's best.
    • 4/5
      It took a while before I started liking the book. I wasn't very impressed at the start, but the more I read, the more I liked it. It did take a while to figure out when the Cinderella part of the story was going to kick in - or even a reasonable facsimile! - but it did and I ended up really enjoying the book. Who knew I'd actually LIKE the ugly stepsister! If you are someone who gives up on a book after a certain amount of time, I say keep going on this one!
    • 2/5
      I really expected to enjoy this one. What a letdown. In the same vein as his other fairy tale interpretations, Stepsister tells the Cinderella tale from a different vantage point - the stepsister... I wish I could recommend, but it was drawn out, touched upon storylines that really had no overall consequence and left the ending extremely loose. I will continue to read Maguire, I still love the concept.
    • 4/5
      Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is not Fantasy as I had thought it would be. After all, it sounds like the classic Cinderella story. You could think of it that way because of the fairy tale aspect... but it's more Historical Fiction. The book takes place in Renaissance Holland during the time of the Dutch Master Painters. The character Iris, the lead... is both sympathetic and likable. She's not evil or devious, though she does have her moments. She's also not the demure would be princess waiting for Prince Charming. She's a little bratty and petulant and we see her responding to her situation in a completely realistic way. It was an entertaining read. Although it was not my usual choice in a book...I have to say that it was good.
    • 3/5
      Not as good as Wicked, but still good. It cleverly discusses issues of trade, beauty/ugliness, relationships of spouses and children.
    • 2/5
      I'm sorry, I just cannot get into this story. I don't know what it is exactly but I just can't get into it and it's boring as hell. The author writes very well and very clearly. I've read a couple other books by him. But for whatever reason I just simply cannot get into this story. Just not interesting at all for me. I gave it a chance. That's all that matters.
    • 3/5
      This was a brutally truthful book. It doesn't graze over the uncomfortable. If you can't face real truths, then you won't like this book. I found a bit of myself in Iris and in Clara. I was able to develop a connection to them that made the book enjoyable. What was tricky was the author's writing style. It is present tense. Says Iris or Clara. It took a while for me to get used to it. I thought the beginning started out slow, and the story would never get rolling. But at some point in the middle it became really interesting and magical in a brutal, obscene way. There is no other way to put it. I guess I became attached to the characters. It really surprised me at the end, the twist the story took. Clara was a little flaky to me, and I thought, in the end, she let me down. I guess it just goes to show we are all a little human. Not sure if I would recommend this one. Read a couple reviews and judge for yourself. It was weird in a freaky sort of way. I feel changed by reading it. Sinister, cruel, and 'life in not what you think it is' are other ways to describe this book.
    • 4/5
      Oh, the cleverness of Gregory Maguire to set the reselling of Cinderella in 17th century Netherlands during the tulip fever. In incorporating an artist of the period, as he realizes he must paint only complimentary portraits of the greedy merchants to pay his bills. The stepmother who rises from poverty to become the wife of a wealthy merchant and desire to show off her wealth even as the merchants is bankrupted is great background material for this story of greed and poverty, Love and hate, beauty and ugliness.
    • 3/5
      I'm guessing when I read this. It was quite a while ago.
    • 3/5
      I bought this book last summer, and only now have I finally picked it back up and finished it. It was pretty hard to get into at first, but once I was well into the book, it picked up pace. However, it's only at the end in the epilogue that I feel we get a return for what we, as readers, invest into the story. I enjoyed his take on the classic Cinderella story, particularly in the derivation of the name, as well as the meaning behind the name at the end of the story.

      Reading it through, I probably would have given it only two stars, and it's only the epilogue that tries to tie everything up, which satisfies me enough to give it an extra star. The revelation at the end almost reads like a crime drama...like 'wha?'

      A decently good book. Nothing more, nothing less.
    • 1/5
      never finished. The story was slow and never grabbed me. It seemed like a semi-fantaasy book with "changelings" (children who were switched at birth with these semihuman creatures) but the fantasy world seemed to be the important thing --not like Harry Potter where the story line is key & just happens to occur in a fantasy world
    • 4/5
      Gregory Maguire has taken the Cinderella story and set it in the 17th century Netherlands. An English widow, Margarethe and her two daughters settle in Haarlem, where she takes a position as housemaid to Cornelius van den Meer, his wife Henrikas, and his beautiful but spoiled daughter Clara. The story is told from the standpoint of Iris, the younger daughter, a plain but intelligent girl. When Henrikas dies in childbirth, Margarethe wastes no time in convincing Cornelius to marry her. No fairy godmothers, but with a few minor differences, the story progresses as expected. I love the way Maguire transforms fairy tales into historic stories. He did a bang-up job on this one!
    • 5/5
      Maguire likes to shake things up. We all know the story of Cinderella: ugly and horrid stepsisters, raging and sinister stepmother, glass slipper, dashing prince, yada, yada, yada. Maguire unhinges these characters, as if from a magic box, and sets them down as completely different entities. I think in order to enjoy Maguire's adaptation of any fairytale you have to throw out everything you think you know about the villain and start over. He is adamant that every "bad guy" has a reason for his or her unpleasantness. Take the wicked stepmother in Cinderella. In Maguire's Confessions her husband has been murdered. Fleeing England with her two small daughters she lands penniless in Holland. She has to rely on the kindness of strangers to feed three mouths and she is savvy enough to know her daughter (Iris and Ruth) are too ugly to be married off to wealthy suitors. They are going to need significant dowries if they are going to attract any man at all. She might not be the nicest of mothers, but it is obvious she is trying to look out for her children and herself. Survival of the fittest. In Maguires' tale, Iris and Cinderella (known as Clara here) are tolerated friends. They even grow to care about one another. Of course there is a prince but the twist here is that he is intrigued by ugly stepsister Iris because she is witty and can carry on a conversation, unlike the throngs of pretty girls his mother has set him up to meet. Probably the most interesting spin on Maguire's take on Cinderella is the commerce side of the times. The tulip trade and art world of Holland play prominent roles in the story. Real events surrounding the crash of the tulip trade and actual artists of the region are cleverly portrayed.
    • 3/5
      Once again, I wish Goodreads had a "1/2" option, this book is 3.5 stars, but not quite 4. :)

      This isn't the book that I expected it to be, and it is very different from the Disney version.

      Cinderella isn't the nice girl she is always portrayed to be. The stepmom IS just as terrible, though, the sisters aren't really.

      A fun read. I like MacGuire.
    • 5/5
      Very good. I enjoyed it a lot.
    • 3/5
      I have been meaning to read this book for some time, simply because I loved Gregory Maguire's Wicked so much. This book I read considerably slower than I expected, though I still found the plot compelling. In this retelling of Cinderella, the reader follows the viewpoint of Iris, one of the "stepsisters" of the original tale. Iris is smart and artistic, but plain-looking -- a fact her mother never fails to point out endlessly. Iris's older sister, Ruth, is dumb and mute, which makes life at times both interesting and difficult for Iris and their mother, Margarethe.
      The trio flee England for Margarethe's homeland of Holland -- the reasons for which remaining a mystery for most of the book -- and are forced to beg for shelter and work before falling under the mercy of a local painter. This is where Clara, the blonde changeling girl standing in the place of "Cinderella," is introduced. Her beauty is so ethereal that she lives a reclusive, sheltered existence under the extreme protection of her mother. Strangely, Clara and Iris seem to make up two sides of the same coin -- where one lacks the other excels in. Where Clara hides from strangers, Iris is adept at social interaction. Iris's vivid imagination makes up for Clara's lack of intelligence.
      Margarethe's machinations first get her and her daughters into the same household under Clara's parents, as their servants. Then when Clara's mother dies through mysterious circumstances, Margarethe maneuvers them to become Clara's step-family, effectively pushing Clara's father almost completely out of the picture. Ironically, a picture is what serves as the glue for almost the entire plot, motivating all of the main characters to a particular behavior.
      Clara is almost the complete opposite of what one would expect from the image of "Cinderella." She is spoiled, rich, obstinate, paranoid, reclusive, delusional, confrontational, and quite childish even in adulthood. Margarethe is a villain that is relate-able, as her choices throughout the book stem from an obsessive need to both survive and thrive. Though at times I intensely dislike the things that she spouts, I cannot hate her due to the suffering she endures from a certain ironic malady that befalls her.
      The ending that is so familiar to the original tale seems to happen almost by accident -- and how easily Iris could have taken Clara's place makes me a bit sad for Iris. The ending to the book is also a nice surprise, causing me to rethink many of the scenes and the thoughts that could have been occurring to one of the central characters. Indeed, the ending makes the book almost worth a re-read.
    • 2/5
      After getting part way through this book, I realized that I had read it before. I remembered not liking it the first time. The second time didn't improve my opinion. I did like the way Maguire made the story of Cinderella semi-plausible, but he is much too negative for me. Whether stupid or not, I want to think of the world as mostly positive. This mindset was impossible with this book. I know that bad things happen in the world and that bad things can move a story along, but Maguire's writing style infuses the entire story with dark, damp dreariness.

      Margaretha escapes from England supposedly after her husband there is killed. When she arrives in Holland, she finds that her father, whom she was counting on to survive, is dead. As a result, she has no means of support. She begs for a job and finally gets one with a self centered, but essentially good hearted, painter. Margaretha turns out to be much deeper and more complex than one might think. Actually all the characters turn out that way, except for Clara. I thought she would be very deep, but she turns out, IMO not to be.

      I wish someone else would re-imagine fairy tales in more positive manner so I could get another perspective.

      I enjoyed listening to Wicked, but Son of a Witch not so much. I think it is time to purge Maguire books from my to-read lists and move on to other authors.