Do any girls out there remember Ella Enchanted? I liked the movie with Ann Hathaway but I didn't know that there was a book until I was a teenager. I finished another book last night written by the same author, Gail Carson Levine, called "Fairest."
It's sometimes a little hard to keep up on because the people are a made up...nationality, the Ayorthians whom live in a land where everyone loves to sing, and there are many characters with creative names but I give it an A+ for uniqueness and creativity.
It's a fantasy fairytale story much like Ella Enchanted, about a 15 year old girl named Aza who wants to be beautiful. Aza thinks she may have been born part ogre because shes unnaturally tall and bulky and not very attractive, but in this story most ogres can sing magnificently. She learns in the end that in reality she's part gnome, and royalty. Aza was adopted as an infant by a kind couple and the greatest respect she has in the kingdom is because she's an incredible singer. It's kind of along the lines with Snow White in some ways because Aza eventually is forced to become the lady in waiting for a beautiful young Queen who is obsessively jealous about competition. Aza is threatened by the queen to become her lady in waiting mainly because of the fact that she has a beautiful voice, and she can "illuse" as Aza calls it. Meaning she can throw her voice all over the room and make it sound like it's coming from the lips of another person. The Queen discovers her talent and makes her "illuse" during every party because she wants everyone to believe she also has the most beautiful voice of all.
The Queen has a magic hand mirror with an evil spirit inside it. Aza discovers that the mirror can show a beautiful version of yourself by looking at it. The Queen had once also been...not really ugly, but flawed and she made a pact with the spirit in the mirror to become the fairest.
It's cool because Aza discovers the potions that the Queen had used to become beautiful and she becomes beautiful for awhile.
