Cinder & Ella By Kelly Oram [Review]

RELEASE DATE:  August 15, 2014
AUTHOR: Kelly Oram
GENRE:Young-Adult, Contemporary, Romance.
PUBLISHER: Bluefields
SUMMARY: It’s been almost a year since eighteen-year-old Ella Rodriguez was in a car accident that left her crippled, scarred, and without a mother. After a very difficult recovery, she’s been uprooted across the country and forced into the custody of a father that abandoned her when she was a young child. If Ella wants to escape her father’s home and her awful new stepfamily, she must convince her doctors that she’s capable, both physically and emotionally, of living on her own. The problem is, she’s not ready yet. The only way she can think of to start healing is by reconnecting with the one person left in the world who’s ever meant anything to her—her anonymous Internet best friend, Cinder.
…
Hollywood sensation Brian Oliver has a reputation for being trouble. There’s major buzz around his performance in his upcoming film The Druid Prince, but his management team says he won’t make the transition from teen heartthrob to serious A-list actor unless he can prove he’s left his wild days behind and become a mature adult. In order to douse the flames on Brian’s bad-boy reputation, his management stages a fake engagement for him to his co-star Kaylee. Brian isn’t thrilled with the arrangement—or his fake fiancée—but decides he’ll suffer through it if it means he’ll get an Oscar nomination. Then a surprise email from an old Internet friend changes everything.

MY REVIEW: 

This book is an emotional roller-coaster ride. I love reading Kelly Oram’s books because she  writes such great YA contemporary novels which are really fun to read. I expected Cinder & Ella to be a cute and fluffy contemporary read like her other books but it turned out to be something much more than that. It is a modern retelling of Cinderella but it isn’t entirely depicted on the classic tale because there are some changes to the story which I really liked. It was a beautiful story where family plays a major part in it and I really enjoyed the characters, writing and the plot. It is a book that heavily deals with family relationships, friendship, and love.

Ella Rodriguez used to live a happy life with her mother and friends in Boston but a tragic car accident turns her life upside down. Her mother died on the accident but luckily Ella has survived leaving her scarred and crippled forever. Before the accident, Ella used to be a blogger who blogs about books and movies. After eight months of therapy and rehab, she moves to L.A to live with her father who left her and her mother when she was only 8 years old, and she also has to deal with her new step-sisters and a step-mother. Ella feels like a thorn in the happy family and didn’t want to stay with them but the doctors thinks she isn’t capable enough of living on her own. Now she just needs to convince the doctors that she is emotionally and physically strong enough to face the world. The first step is try to reconnect with her online best friend named Cinder who is the only closest person left in her life. Ella and Cinder always share their troubles and always love to banter about their favorite book series called The Cinder Chronicles through her blog and also by online chatting. Despite not knowing each other’s real identities, they are best friends who share everything about their life. Now after a year, she’s in L.A, a place where Cinder lives and she emails him everything about her accident except her disability and scars which was left as secret because she’s afraid of loosing him too.

Ella is really a strong character. It was sad to see how many hard struggles she has gone through due to her disability and I felt quite angry with how awfully she was treated and bullied at the school. She was really an admirable character who fought really hard to stay strong and never crumble down before them. Brian aka Cinder is definitely not what I had expected. Being a teenage heartthrob, I expected him to be having a smug and arrogant personality but turns out he was very sweet, fun and adorable character. I really enjoyed Cinder and Ella’s relationship. They both don’t know about each other’s identities but they developed a deep bond of  friendship by sharing each others troubles through online chatting but they didn’t realized it would slowly become to much more than that . The way they feel about each other is totally adorable and sweet. As for the supporting characters, I liked Juliette, Vivienne and Rob. Juliette might not be the greatest step-sister but her twin Anastasia is the perfect evil step-sister who I’d love to hate.

The plot was well written and beautiful. It was written so emotionally that’ll definitely tug at your heart strings. Some parts may seem a bit cheesy but I think it was perfectly alright with the plot. The story moved in a fast pace but there are some parts that felt dragged a bit. The writing was great, as always and I quite easily flowed through it. I’m glad that the plot was narrated in both Ella’s and Brian’s POV. There are so many character development at the end and I pretty much loved how the story was finally concluded with an happily ever after kiss just like a fairytale.

Overall, it was beautiful, emotional and romantic read. I immensely enjoyed reading it and I highly recommend this book to all the readers who love reading sweet contemporary romance and modern fairytale retellings.

MY RATING:  [4/5 Stars]

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