1) I love that the author sets up the protagonist’s family situation so quickly. This is a Young Adult novel, so a character’s family circumstances are much more important than they might be if the character were an adult. (What do YAs have outside of school and family?)
2) People of all ages should have at least a passing understanding of the very basics of the Latin-based Indo-European Romance languages. (If you see a German character in a movie say, “Nein!,” you should know the character is saying, “no.”) But look how gracefully Yesenia works in the translation for the less-common Spanish word that a non-Spanish speaker may not know. Offering us the translation of “veremos” allows the author to keep the characterization granted by the other language while keeping the reader in the loop.
I don’t usually go into the second-ish page, but the author’s story takes an important turn:
3) The opening of the book is a whipcrack of emotions. We (including Ella) go from happiness to the worst darkness in only a minute or two of reading. That rollercoaster of feels makes us want to find out how the character deals with the trauma.
Visit Yesenia’s site and check out #THEREALCINDERELLA on Amazon
