Gail Carson Levine returns with a prequel to her Newbery Honor Book, Ella Enchanted. Evie is a fifteen year old girl who wants to become a healer and is focused solely on furthering her medical knowledge and career. When her best friend, Wormy, unexpectedly proposes, she gently tells him, no, she’s far too busy to marry. Unfortunately, Lucinda, a fairy known for her… challenging gifts overhears and curses Evie to become an ogre. She has sixty two days to agree to marry someone or she’ll be stuck as an ogre forever.

Evie tries to make the best of her situation, especially when a deadly disease starts to spread through the kingdom, but she experiences a lot of prejudice along the way. In the end, no real lessons seem to be learned about others’ differences–ogres are not granted a better position or more understanding in the long run– though Evie becomes more confident and aware of her capabilities.

Levine’s stellar writing and character development is on display, as always. She has a gift for crafting interesting, original, and empowering takes on fairy tales that are a pleasure to read. As a long time fan of Ella Enchanted, part of the enjoyment of the book was spoiled by Levine twisting an element of her original creation. Ella’s parents are characters in the book. Ella’s father, who originally comes across as weak-willed but good at heart, is shown to be more deceptive and self-serving. Ella’s mother is shown to be even lovelier than we realize in the original book, but her suffering is doubled when another of Lucinda’s spells means that she will always love for her husband, but he will never be able to love her in return–a cruel fate for a character who already dies early.

Still, this book will be in high demand wherever fairy tale retellings, adventure stories with strong girls, and Gail Carson Levine are in high demand. Recommended for grades 4-8.

Reviewed by Sarah Cropley, Scarborough Public Library.