Book Review: Charlie Glass's Slippers

Author: Holly McQueen

Publication Date: August 5, 2014

Publisher: Atria

In this delightful, clever spin on Cinderella, Charlie Glass, a heroine as loveable as Cannie Shapiro and Bridget Jones inherits her father's shoe empire and snatches up a drop-dead-gorgeous, multi-millionaire Prince Charming. But is he truly the key to her happily ever after?

When Charlie's beloved father, iconic shoe designer Elroy Glass, dies after a long illness, everyone expects that he'll leave his business to his glamorous wife and eldest daughters. After all, they've been running the company for years. But Elroy surprises everyone from beyond the grave: at the will reading, it';s announced that his fashion empire has been left to Charlie, his youngest-and plumpest-daughter.

Before she can run the company, Charlie decides she needs to make a few changes in her life. After several weeks at a California boot camp, she returns to London a new woman: thinner, blonder, and ready to revitalize the Elroy Glass brand. But as she'll soon discover, a good esthetician and a killer pair of stilettos can only go so far, and there's more to reinvention-and running a fashion empire-than meets the eye.

Endlessly entertaining, surprising, and ultimately inspiring, Charlie Glass's Slippers is a modern-day fairy tale about finding your own magic and transforming yourself from within.

I want to save Lucy’s agony, and let’s face it, this dinner party couldn’t be more of a disaster if aliens were to land on the street outside, take us back to the mother ship, and spend the rest of the night sticking probes in all kinds of unpleasant places.

The bigger you are, it seems, the less anybody sees you at all.

If Lucy could see me now, she’d get all huffy and puffy about me behaving like a waitress.

A truly wonderful modern retelling of Cinderella! I am in love with this new book and I cannot wait to finish typing this review so that I can go and place this book atop my favorite’s shelf. Charlie Glass has just suffered the loss of her beloved father and is left to deal with her evil stepmother, Diana, and her two obnoxious stepsisters, Gaby and Robyn. Charlie is also left, surprisingly by her father, his shoe empire that he and his ex-wife, Diana, worked years to build together. Charlie has no clue that her father planned to leave her his half of the business, and when she finds out his plans for her she accepts them courageously and finally tells Diana where to go, if you catch my drift! Charlie looks at her new life with wide eyes and hopes for the best adventure yet!

Charlie Glass was so much like Bridget Jones and I absolutely loved that! Charlie is not your typical chick lit heroine because she does not have a model figure and a perfectly handsome, rich boyfriend in tow. However, Charlie has quite a few self-confidence issues because she is overweight and looks nothing like her vibrant, beautiful stepsisters and she is afraid that she does not fit the Glass image that her father worked so long and hard to achieve. Charlie takes a lot of criticism from her stepmother, Diana, who I really, really disliked. Charlie is a very inspirational heroine and really had to overcome a lot throughout the course of this novel. She worked so hard to get herself back into shape and to really have more confidence in herself. In the end, she turned out to be one of the most courageous characters I have ever read and adored.

McQueen does something a bit different when it comes to the romance department in this book. This is a Cinderella retelling so many people would think that there is a Prince Charming who comes in and sweeps Charlie off of her feet, but in this book there are Prince Charming’s! I really liked this choice on McQueen’s part because it switched things up from the average, ordinary fairy tale retelling. Both men had good and bad qualities and honestly I did not know which one Charlie would finally choose. I really enjoyed the love triangle; it was so well-written and trust me romance is not my favorite part of any book that I read!

***A free copy of this book was provided to me by the publishers at Atria Books in exchange for my honest review***