Review: Tamed by the Wordprocessor and  an Editor!
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 20, 2012
The book has a lot of unfulfilled potential, and the reader is left with an empty feeling at the last page. Yes, almost every girl dreams at some point in her life of living the fairy tale: the rich/dashing/brilliant businessman mixed with the beautiful/virginal/blossoming ingénue is a recipe as old as Cinderella. That's where the similarities end. Since Cinderella has already been written, you can't just rewrite Cinderella and expect it to be a good read; there has to be a few new twists, else there is no reason to read it (or write it). The author does an OK job developing Serena/Cinderella, but puts no effort into Roman/Prince Charming. She may think she doesn't need to b/c this is essentially Serena's story, but she's wrong. We do need to know something about this man, else it's not interesting when they get together..Cinderella's obstacles were her stepmom/stepsisters/self-esteem, and as she conquers these, she begins to blossom. Serena has none of these issues, so this story's tension has to come from somewhere else--problem is the author doesn't know how to develop a storyline, so she throws a few pebbles at their feet, which are quickly overcome, and then the story is over. I listened to this story as I was working out, so I didn't have the "progress meter" to look as I would if I were actually reading it. As the story quickly came together for the ending, I was stunned--literally. I had to stop what I was doing and do double check to see that the book/novella was actually ending. It's as if the author spends all this time setting up the story, and then there isn't one. Novellas can be great--better than novels in many cases because of their intensity (Thomas Mann, Flannery O'Connor--OK, I know I'm crazy here; can't compare free Amazon novels with these classics, but you get the idea). Sadly here, the author sets up the characters, and then doesn't tell a story.