Cindy always had a fascination with shoes, because she can bond over them with other people, in ways she can't always do when it comes to clothing, since she's a plus sized woman. She has a good eye for shoe design, but she never managed to chase her dreams ambitiously, since after her parents died, Cindy went into a creative slump, trying to process her grief and the trajectory her life is going to take, a life without her mom and dad. She lost her mom first, during middle school, and her dad eventually moved on to marry another woman, who happens to be a powerful socialite and a reality TV show producer. After her dad's passing, her stepmom became her sole parent figure, and with a twist of fate, Cindy finds herself plunged into one of the reality TV shows she's producing, a show called Before Midnight where several women compete for the heart of a male suitor, and the victor not only gets to leave the show with this prince charming, but with $100,000 in her pocket.Little does Cindy know, that the mysterious suitor she will be competing for isn't the stranger she thought he would be after all...

We follow Cindy's adventures in this reality TV show and her interactions with the other contestants. This is a light, airy and humorous book that gives the reader exactly what they expect. It's a safe read as long as you know that this is the type of story you expect, an entertaining love story set in the modern 21st century social media and reality TV show culture. We get to see firsthand how fabricated and superficial reality TV show settings are,with scandalous scenes and jaw dropping moments being purposely pushed onto the narrative to keep those ratings high. We get to see how people's lives on reality TV isn't so "real" after all,and how the show runners tend to rig the competition and act as puppet masters, only giving the contestants the illusion that they're actually in control of what goes on.

Our main character Cindy is pretty forward and outspoken, especially when it comes to people disrespecting her physique. She's not afraid to call out big fashion designers on their failure to accommodate women her size, and even tweaking some already existing designs to suit her body. The romance part here wasn't really that unique, and we got all the typical tropes and feel-good moments between the two lovers. Since this is a Cinderella retelling, one would expect to see the typical "evil" stepmother and stepdaughters, but pleasantly enough, they were actually Cindy's allies in this story, and seeing how they had Cindy's back throughout the story was heartwarming and a nice trope subversion.

This book was entertaining to read. I can't say it impacted me in a profound way, but it was a fun page turner. I wish the drama between the contestants was a little bit more intense, since one would expect very "catty" and "dramatic" moments between the contestants, as we usually see on reality TV show, but I personally found it to be pretty watered down, and the main "mean-girl" of the story, Addison, wasn't that much of an intimidating presence. I also wish the characters were a bit more fleshed out and interesting. We only focus on a small amount of contestants, the rest mainly being static background noise, and the ones we focus on don't have that much of unique character voices to them.

I'm giving this a 3.5 star rating. It was decent and fun to read but I felt like it could have went a bit deeper. It fits neatly with most cliches and it was a refreshing read. I do recommend it if you're into a safe, feel-good and entertaining story.




 “Choose what makes you happy. Things, places, people. Only choose the ones that bring that delight to you. Don’t be a hostage to duty or obligation. I didn’t carry you and birth you and raise you to waste your precious life on anything except unbridled joy. Choose joy.”