Charlotte Kersten's Reviews > Ella Enchanted

** spoiler alert ** “And so, with laughter and love, we lived happily ever after.”

So What’s It About?

Ella of Frell is given a terrible “gift” by a foolish fairy when she is a baby- she must always be obedient when given a command. She grows up struggling against the crushing constraints of her curse but relatively happy and beloved by her mother and cook. Her world is upended by her mother’s death, and the changes that follow.

Nasty stepsisters, boarding school nonsense, sweet-talking trolls and fairy fickleness only brush the surface of the adventures that are in store for Ella as she struggles against her challenging new circumstances and her curse. Of course, there is a prince in the mix as well, and while their friendship grows into something more the dangers of Ella’s existence have never been more apparent. It will take every bit of this heroine’s resolve to find her happily ever after!

The F Word

I disliked the last fairy tale retelling I read because of the way the author failed to successfully capture the beloved message that is at the heart of Beauty and the Beast: love people for what’s on the inside, not the outside. When considering Cinderella for this review, however, I struggled a bit in deciding what the moral of the original story even is. Have small feet? Wait for a man to sweep you away out of servitude? It’s…a little less clear. Let’s settle for a generic “Goodness (especially in the face of adversity) is always rewarded.”

The thing that makes Ella Enchanted one of my favorite fairy tale retellings is that the clever and seamless incorporation of Ella’s curse provides the story a much bulkier message for young readers: one about the importance of free will and the control that others will always try to exert over us, and the fact that sufficient determination to do the right thing will prevail against even the most improbable odds. These are the truths at the hearts of Ella’s story, and it just so happens that they are presented in the midst of a story that is indescribably magical and charming.

The central appeal of this book to me is Ella herself. She’s simply one of the most lovable narrators I’ve ever encountered – spunky in a way that is genuinely endearing as opposed to annoying, endlessly clever and resourceful, capable, hilarious, charming and independent. You may remember similar praises for Aerin in The Hero and the Crown and Cimorene in Dealing With Dragons, and that’s because these girls (along with a few others we’ll be talking about soon enough…) truly shaped my conception of who I wanted to be when I was younger.

Ella’s struggle for agency is always the book’s central concern. What’s more, she breaks her own curse through her own determination and selflessness -and it should be noted that she breaks it by refusing to marry the prince who proposes to her. It makes me a little weepy to write about this because it’s JUST TEACHING GIRLS SO MANY THINGS- that their ability to make choices and think for themselves is their path to freedom, that there will always be people who will try to take these things away but they can be overcome, that they can find power in saying no.

But there’s one glaring exception to this book’s generally empowering and positive nature, and that is its completely on-the-nose treatment of the ugly stepsisters. It’s frustratingly regressive to argue that a girl being “ugly” outside (read: usually, unwilling or unable to conform to narrow and misogynistic beauty standards that emphasize looks above all else) is a bad thing or is correlated in any way with being a bad person and/or therefore unwanted and unloved. Hattie and Olive are spiteful and cruel people, and that should be enough on its own – why do we have to mock the way they look as well?

I’d also like to mention that Ella Enchanted is otherwise bursting with charm and color at every turn. Enchanting descriptions abound – everything from the tiny pottery castle her father sells to Ella’s magic self-replenishing book, her beautiful dresses for each ball to the food that she cooks with Mandy the cook/ fairy godmother. There are also delightful creatures: tiny dragons who toast cheese with their noses, gnomes who tell the future, waxy green elves who sleep under the stars and docile centaurs.

The other main thing that I need to yell about vis a vis this book is the giant, embarrassing crush that wee little Charlotte had on Prince Char. He seemed like the perfect boy™ to 8 year old me, what can I say!!!! Re-reading as an adult, I am delighted to inform you that Char is a Good Good Boy, and I suffer no regrets regarding my childhood infatuation. He’s a sweet, kind person and the development of Ella’s friendship and romance with him is adorable – the letters they exchange, abandoning a ball to search for hidden walls, giving apples to centaurs and -who could forget!-sliding down staircase banisters

“No one is here,” Char said. “You need resist temptation no longer.”

“Only if you slide too.”

“I’ll go first so I can catch you at the bottom.”

He flew down so incautiously that I suspected him of years of practice in his own castle. It was my turn. The ride was a dream, longer and steeper than the rail at home. The hall rose to meet me, and Char was there. He caught me and spun me around.”