Kate Allen is trying hard to live her dream in New York City, but there are a couple inhibiting factors. For one, getting any kind of job as a girl in 1945 is challenging, and for two, her mom would much rather she became a model or an actress than a department store window designer. Even if her mother were okay with Kate's desire, the head designer, Mr. G, doesn't hire woman decorators, which is another wrench in the system. Kate's too determined to go down without a fight, though.
Luckily for Kate, she lands a couple of breaks. As the war progresses, more and more boys enlist in the Army, leaving an open position on the window decorating team. A couple of long-lost relatives from Poland also appear around this time, bringing old family secrets and traditions along with them.
Uncle Adalbert and Aunt Elsie were looking for Katja, Kate's grandmother, but she died about two years ago. All they have is one trunk, so Kate's mom lets them stay at the apartment for a while. Kate's sure something important must be in the trunk, but when Elsie opens it, it's empty.
Well, at first.
As Elsie and Adalbert spill more of the family history, Kate's caught between disbelief and wonder. They claim that Kate's family are the Keepers of Cinderella's dresses - the rag gown she wore as a servant, the ball gown she wore when she met the prince, and her wedding gown. What's more, the dresses are magical, because they amplify feelings and promote truth.
Of course, there's a catch: the families of the evil stepsisters are after the dresses - always have been, always will be. And they're likely to come after Kate, Adalbert, and Elsie if they're located, especially since Cinderella's descendants are back in Europe. Thus, the dresses must remain hidden and a secret to all outsiders.
So Kate puts them on display in the store window after suggesting they do a Cinderella theme for spring. (Really.) She doesn't plan on it at first, but none of the dresses the store has look good enough to be the central focus of the display, and she doesn't want to disappoint Mr. G, or make him regret hiring a girl.
What happens when the stepsisters' families come after the dresses? Will there be a fairy-tale ending? That's not my place to tell.
What is my place to tell is how much I enjoyed this novel. Cinderella's Dress fuses fairy-tale elements with something not entirely modern but still relatable, and both worlds feel realistic and well-crafted. I feel like it's even a more plausible story because of the setting. Sure, Kate is suspicious that Aunt Elsie might just be a little senile, but she's won over easily by their stories with not much proof behind them. Today we're so cynical thanks to Internet hoaxes and crazy conspiracy theories that a modern Kate may not ever have believed her family until it was too late, and wouldn't that be a boring story?
(I'm not trying to say we need to be more trusting or that people back then never thought about being conned, btw. I just think that plot device works better in a more historical setting, in my opinion.)
I also like how the Cinderella story isn't the English one, but the Polish. It adds a little cultural flair to this book, and tells a slightly different version of a familiar fairy tale. The glass slippers, for example, are much less important than the dresses in this novel. (In fact, it's likely the slippers never existed at all for this "real" Cinderella, but I won't spoil beyond that.) There's just enough that's changed in this novel that it feels interesting and somewhat new to me.
The characters are great, too. I admit I wasn't crazy about Johnny, the love interest, at first, but even he grew on me as the story went on. (It helps that he wasn't as much of a jerk as he made himself out to be at the beginning.) Everyone seems to genuinely care about everyone else (minus the stepsisters' families, naturally), and I just wanted to hop into the book and become part of it myself.
Overall, Cinderella's Dress feels like a fairy tale about a fairy tale. It's full of love, fear, and tough decisions, and at the end of the day, the good guys win. We could always use a little more of that, don't you think? Five stars.
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