Book Review: Change of a Dress

Book: Change of a Dress (Cinderella Cleaners book #1) by Maya Gold

Rating: 3 stars

Review:

This is a fun and light re-telling of Cinderella that's filled with a lot of wacky and improbable things.

In this story, 13 year old Diana Donato from New Jersey loves the theater whether it's being in plays or attending ones on Broadway. But unfortunately, she is needed at her father's dry cleaning business Cinderella Cleaners and will have to work there after school. That's not her only problem, she also will not be able to audition for her school's rendition of Our Town, which is her favorite play.

She can thank her evil stepmother Fay for her new life since it was Fay's suggestion that she work at the dry cleaner. So instead of hanging out with her friends, she's now getting to know the employees at the dry cleaners and one in particular Cat was quickly becoming her friend.

One day while she was checking out one of the garments hanging up in the store, she found a pair of front row seat tickets for the opening night of the new Broadway play Angel. Not only that but VIP tickets for an after party. Starring in the play is her favorite actor Adam Kessler, who she would love to see.

Diana tried to track down the ticket holder but they were out of town and would miss the play. She had the crazy idea to use the tickets and Cat agreed. They cooked up a plan that also included another employee Nelson who created two one of a kind dresses for them. Nelson was pretty much the fairy god mother in this story because not only did he supply them with beautiful dresses but also had them traveling in a limo. Diana was planning on leaving out the house as if she was going to attend her school play but instead head down to Broadway.

As excited as Diana and Cat were about all of this, Diana soon found her plans being dashed. Her evil stepmother wanted her to stay home and watch her stepsisters. Figuring no way out of this scenario, Diana relinquished her dream of seeing the play that is until another work friend Elise stepped in to help by offering to babysit.

Diana and Cat were finally in Manhattan heading to the play, they had an amazing night from the red carpet to sitting in the front row. It was a dream come true but just as Diana was having a great time at the after party and getting know Adam Kessler, the real ticket holder showed up. Is everything ruined?

This was a cute little story that certainly has Diana deal with all the consequences and responsibilities for her actions. But something I didn't like about this story was that the father was so clueless in regards to how harsh his new wife was to his daughter. She treated her daughters as if they were little princesses but treated Diana as if she was nothing more than a scullery maid. Near the end of the book he did say that he noticed his wife's behavior towards Diana but he obviously did nothing about it, instead he told her she needed to work harder at being nicer to Fay. That made no sense at all. I'm really surprised that the author didn't at least have the father say he plans to speak to Fay about the situation.

I enjoyed this and it did leave me interested in reading the second book.