Review: The Cinderella Blues by Obren Bokich

Format Read: ebook from author
Number of Pages: 294 p.
Release Date: April 12, 2012
Publisher: CreateSpace
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Formats Available: paperback, ebook
Purchasing Info: : Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Book Blurb:

The Cinderella Blues (Thuh Sin’-dur-rel’-uh Bluze)
n.
1.
The phenomena whereby otherwise intelligent, capable, successful professional women are convinced they need rescuing by a prince.


My Thoughts:

This was originally posted at Book Lovers Inc.

The Cinderella Blues starts out in the middle of some of the cheesiest, I swear, the most cliché-ridden, bodice-ripping drivel ever written.

And I could have sworn this was supposed to be a contemporary romance. It said so right there on the label.  A couple of pages later the heroine dropped out of her daydream and into an auto body shop. She was daydreaming this stuff.

That made way more sense. Haven’t you done that? I’ve done that. Drifted off in my head to fanfic-land. My fantasies aren’t half that cliché-full. At least, I hope not.

Kat, on the other hand, has an unfortunate tendency to daydream so deeply, to travel so far into Katland, as her friends fondly call it, that she wrecks her car. Over and over.

On her way out of the body shop, she runs a red light and dings a big red pickup truck. His fender is dented. Her Mini needs a tow. Her insurance company is not amused. The scruffy but yummy guy driving the pickup takes off without so much as a word.

Kat finally admits that her trips to Katland while driving are hazardous to her health as well as her wallet. She puts her car in storage and starts taking the bus. In Los Angeles!

Kat is dreaming of, not just Mr. Right, but Prince Charming. She’s a career woman working her way up the ladder, but she still thinks she wants to be rescued.

The Cinderella Blues is all about the frogs she kisses along the way. And not only are they froggy, but swampy and muddy into the bargain. Ribbit!

But Kat has a fairy godmother. And some terrific friends to help her along the way. Including remind her that she doesn’t need Prince Charming to rescue her. She’s more than capable of rescuing herself.

All Kat needs is to get her head out of the clouds and figure out what it is she really wants. She can make her own dreams come true. And if she rescues herself, she’ll have a chance at a real happy ending, with a real man, not a fairy-tale prince.

But also not a frog.

I give The Cinderella Blues 4 stars for doing a terrific job of lamp shading the Cinderella trope, standing it on its head, dancing a jig with it, and still bringing home the happy ending.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

6 thoughts on “Review: The Cinderella Blues by Obren Bokich

  1. “Kat, on the other hand, has an unfortunate tendency to daydream so deeply, to travel so far into Katland, as her friends fondly call it, that she wrecks her car. Over and over.”

    This may be the very definition of Too Stupid Too Live. How many lives has she ruined while zoning out behind the wheel?

    Financially destroyed a single mother who’s insurance lapsed when you turned left on a red light right into her minivan? Traumatized a toddler by running over their puppy? Hospitalized a teenager whose abusive parents didn’t believe that the accident wasn’t the newbie driver’s fault?

    1. She is smart enough to put her car in storage in chapter one. Although becoming a bus rider in LA may or may not be smarter, at least she won’t take anyone else with her when she goes.

      Her daydreams are incredibly cheesy. Maybe not cheese, maybe Velveeta, ersatz cheese. The worst of 80s, maybe 70s romance fiction.

      I was having enough fun with the story that I overlooked the logic flaw. When the story opens, she hasn’t harmed anyone but herself and her Mini Cooper, however often. And she mothballs the car until she solves her problem.

      1. Have you noticed we get significantly fewer comments for largely positive reviews? I find this interesting. People interact with the snark, but tune out the glee.

        If I were still in college I’d be developing a hypothesis and experiment to study this phenomenon.

        1. I think it has to be clever snark. Or a really nasty panning that people can sink their teeth into. And rip with gleeful abandon.

          Your hypothesis may be somewhere in the neighborhood of why people rubberneck to watch and auto accident. They want to see the blood on the highway. Without becoming part of the carnage.

          Vicarious thrill. Or schadenfreude.

    1. The worst part is that I’ve done it. But Chicago rush hour doesn’t actually rush, it crawls so slow that people used to read their newspapers. Back when they read newspapers. LOL
      I may have sympathized a bit too much. But I never had an accident, either.

Comments are closed.