Set in 1906, the novel unfolds against the real murder case that later inspired Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy. A young woman's coming-of-age story intersects with evidence from that death, binding her private hopes to a mystery larger than her own life. The narrative combines romance, history, and questions of responsibility as she considers the future available to her.
* "Printz Honor winner Donnelly offers up a stunningly focused story that rips into the heart of familiar fairy tale. Isabelle [is] a shattered but not unreedemable girl with a warrior's heart." -- Booklist , starred review An instant New York Times bestseller Optioned for film by Lynette Howell Taylor, the producer of A Star is Born and Bruna Papandrea, producer of Big Little Lies A Seventeen Best of the Year Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal An American Librarian Association-YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults book An American Library Association Feminist Book Project book A Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year Isabelle should be blissfully happy -- she's about to win the handsome prince. Except Isabelle isn't the beautiful girl who lost the glass slipper and captured the prince's heart. She's the ugly stepsister who cut off her toes to fit into Cinderella's shoe . . . which is now filling with blood. Isabelle tried to fit in. She cut away pieces of herself in order to become pretty. Sweet. More like Cinderella. But that only made her mean, jealous, and hollow. Now she has a chance to alter her destiny and prove what ugly stepsisters have always known: it takes more than heartache to break a girl. Evoking the darker, original version of the Cinderella story, Stepsister shows us that ugly is in the eye of the beholder, and uses Jennifer Donnelly's trademark wit and wisdom to send an overlooked character on a journey toward empowerment, redemption . . . and a new definition of beauty.
