A Reader's Guide to Books and Reviews

Title: The Wicked Ones

Series: Dark Ascension #1

Author: Robin Benway

Genre: Disney, Fairytales, Retellings, Romance, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult

Date Started: February 25th, 2023

Date Finished: February 26th, 2023

Status: Finished

Rating: 4.8/5

Sypnosis: "Blood is blood...and one way or another, we all bleed."

Drizella and Anastasia only know one thing for certain: they will never end up like their mother, Lady Tremaine. When their father left them as young girls, he took what was left of their family’s fortune and their mother’s dignity with him. A few years and one deceased stepfather later, the only version of Lady Tremaine that Drizella and Anastasia know is a bitter and cruel head of house. Anastasia and Drizella have promised themselves—and each other—that they'll be different. They'll find love, see the world, and never let their hearts go cold.

But both sisters are all too aware of what it can mean when cast into disfavor with their mother, and fueled by Lady Tremaine’s tendencies to pit the daughters against one another, Drizella and Anastasia are locked into a complicated waltz of tenuous sisterhood. On the cusp of the royal debut party—their one chance to impress the Prince and live up to their mother’s expectations—the sisters at last get a glimpse of what life could be like outside of Lady Tremaine’s intentions: Drizella discovering a love of science and Anastasia sparking a secret romance. But never underestimate the power a mother whose greatest talents lie in manipulation, and the sisters may learn that even the cruelest of hearts can spill blood.

This first book in the new Disney Villains Dark Ascension series by National Book Award-winning author Robin Benway explores the complex sibling rivalry between the two wicked stepsisters from Cinderella that turned them into the characters we know today.


Review: "Instead she got..." Anatasia's voice trails off as she raises her hands and then lets them fall into her lap. "Us."

This book was a gut-wrenching retelling of Cinderella but this is from the view of the two "ugly stepsisters - Anastasia and Drizella. Both girls are always poorly mistreated by their mother, Lady Tremaine, and expected to marry into rich families so that they can take care of her. She does not see them as her children but as a means necessary to elevate them into higher society. She even punishes them if they even step out of line just a bit. The girls are forced to be everything Lady Tremaine wants them to be - proper, young women who are meant to fall in line and treat their stepsister, Ella, like household help.

There are glimpses that we do see where they treat Ella better and there are moments where they have no choice in the matter. They could try in secret to do so but they fear their mother. Their mother whose husband ran away in the middle of the night taking everything with him including her wedding ring. Then, turning to marry Ella's father with the hopes of turning her life around, only to lose him in death.

I felt sorry for the girls. They do everything asked of them and yet Lady Tremaine is emotionless. There is no love for either of them as she sees both children as nothing more than charms meant to be sold off. The girls only see other as their salvation in this home and rely heavily on each other, but when their fortunes begin to change - meeting both Dominic and Madame Lambert. These two offer a chance to change their lives, but things end up backfiring and both are now at the mercy of their own mother.

This book was an interesting take on Cinderella taking the point-of-view from Ella herself to the two sisters. We see a different side of them and how their mother has impacted much of their lives. Their personalities are forced to bit by Lady Tremaine's whims and desire rather than those of the girls and it hits you - these girls have never had their own thought or decision because of her.

Now, how you will view the two girls will be possible of sympathy and sorrow. I won't lie but I did shed some tears during my reading. I cannot wait for the next book in this series.