Ogre Enchanted
By Gail Carson Levine
Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins, 2018. 340 p.
I have been a fan of the book Ella Enchanted for two decades. It is a brilliant book that reworks the fairy tale Cinderella. (For all of you who haven’t read that book—you really should. But the basic premise is that Ella is “blessed” with obedience from a fairy. So she has to do everything that people tell her to do.) Anyway, Ogre Enchanted is the story of Evora, a healer, who has been turned into an ogre by the same fairy that made Ella’s life miserable for not saying yes to a marriage proposal (she thought she was too young at 15 to get married and didn’t even want to think about marriage until at least 17). So Evie has to live as an ogre—a being who all the humans want to get rid of or kill—and figure out how to find true love and another marriage proposal so that she can turn back into a human.
I liked this book. I don’t think it is as strong as Ella Enchanted (though that was so amazing, it would be rather hard to top). But I did like seeing how another strong female character had to out-think the fairy Lucinda. This is a fun addition to a great world where sometimes fairies are a little too big for their fairy-britches and strong women have to figure out life despite the crazy hand Lucinda gives them. And even though this book could stand on it’s own—I still think that readers might be better off starting with Ella’s story. After all, that is a classic that won a Newbery honor.
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