Ella

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My pet peeve is that on close-ups there is no way to differentiate Tate from Logan. They are drawn the same from the mouth down with the same exact stubble so when they zoom in on a kiss you have no idea who is who. 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.”

SERIOUSLY THIS STORY IS ABSOLUTELY PRECIOUS AND PERFECT AND THE MOVIE RUINED IT, I CAN NOT STRESS THAT ENOUGH FOR YOU Ella Minnow Pea is the 18-year-old protagonist of the novel. Her name is a play on words as it sounds like the pronunciation of the letters "LMNOP", fitting with the content of the novel. She is a strong and intelligent young woman who uses her determination and persistence to survive the hardship placed on the island of Nollop by the high council. Towards the end of the novel, she is the only one in her family left on the island and is in charge of Enterprise 32. She eventually runs across a sentence in her father's farewell letter that will save the citizens of Nollop from the oppression they are experiencing, and allow her family to return to the island. Following the untimely death of her mother, Lady Eleanor, Mandy becomes the sole person with whom Ella feels safe. She trusts Mandy to understand her minor attempts at rebellion better than her cold, impatient, and demanding father Sir Peter of Frell. Unlike Sir Peter, Mandy does not encourage Ella to behave as her forerunners do in the classics: When, at fifteen, her mother dies several things happen. Firstly, she meets Prince Char and forms a friendship with him, and secondly her father decides to send her to finishing school along with the two hideous daughters of Dame Olga, who has her sights set on Sir Peter. The daughters, Hattie and Olive, are greedy, rude and obnoxious, but things become worse when Hattie realises Ella must obey her. It’s been almost a year since eighteen-year-old Ella Rodriguez was in a car accident that left her crippled, scarred, and without a mother. After a very difficult recovery, she’s been uprooted across the country and forced into the custody of a father that abandoned her when she was a young child. If Ella wants to escape her father’s home and her awful new stepfamily, she must convince her doctors that she’s capable, both physically and emotionally, of living on her own. The problem is, she’s not ready yet. The only way she can think of to start healing is by reconnecting with the one person left in the world who’s ever meant anything to her—her anonymous Internet best friend, Cinder.Have I mentioned I love middle grade? Because hey, guess what, I absolutely goddamn love middle grade. (I feel like I shouldn’t say “goddamn” in a review of a children’s book, but also I am still me. I still have my brand to look out for, regardless of target audiences.) Published in April, Kay’s most recent book, Tell Me Everything, is another romcom, this time about therapist Natasha, who is still living with her ex-girlfriend. But Kay’s book is far from alone. This summer, a host of LGBTQ+ romcom novels are coming out (excuse the pun), crammed with blossoming romances and glittery escapism. “It feels like there’s sort of a shift,” says Kay. “I think that’s because the people that make the decisions are seeing that there’s an audience that are desperate to read queer romcoms.” I thought the scene in the book with the ogres, which I am not going to spoil, was absolutely fascinating. AND THE MOVIE DIDN'T EVEN -- UGH. An established relationship between Cinderella and the Prince before the night of the ball. I'm sorry, but I just never understood it. Cinderella spent one night with a guy and bada-boom boom! Love ⏩ Marriage ⏩ Happily ever after? I'm sorry honey Like seriously, who decided to only use the names and the curse and rewrite everything else for the movie? Why did we need a talking snake and an evil uncle and a fan group for the prince? Wasn't evil Hattie enough?

Georgeanne becomes more and more lonely with so few people left on the island, and she takes to painting her own body. She uses toxic paint to do so however, and she dies of lead poisoning. Tanya also leaves Nollop and takes Paula with her, feeling that Nollop is now a wasteland. Only 14 letters remain, with four days left to complete the Council’s challenge, and “G” has just fallen. Ella stops writing to her family in America, finding it too tiring to try to express herself with so few letters.

Publication Order of Ella Dark Books

I have a kind of complicated relationship with the movie. It has a reputation for being among the worst book-to-film adaptations, and that is, guess what, totally warranted. They’re two totally different stories, essentially. But uh…(whispers) I guess that’s kind of why/how I like them both? After Sir Peter weds Hattie and Olive’s mother, Dame Olga, Ella is subjugated into servitude. This mimics the structure of Cinderella, the main character is abused and alone. It is important to note here though, that Hattie and Olive—apart from each other—are also abused and alone. They are abused by the harsh criticisms of the reader, and boxed away in their own villainy. Ella’s remaining weakness at the end, when she denies Hattie and Olive forgiveness, is that she is punishing them with the same isolation that she has struggled to overcome. This screams patriarchy; it is the subtle statement that women are so weak that they can neither handle themselves, nor each other. As such, they are doomed to solitude unless they are beautiful enough to be rescued by a man. Female collaboration Night after night Tate fends off the persistent advances of the undeniably charismatic man, but after an explosive moment in the bar, all bets are off as he finds his body stirring with a different desire than his mind. Ella later appears when Charlie returned to her father's house for the second time with John. Ella appeared not to be damaged by the storm. John then finds a photo of Charlie when she used to be the same height as Ella. Most of all, the story’s details stand out in my memory—certain flashes of thread in the larger tapestry that stay in motion. These are the moments that taught me, from a young age, ways to live and love. I’ve distilled them into a tonic of five life lessons I’ve learned from Ella Enchanted. ( Plot spoilers below!)