Bound by Donna Jo Napoli is a fairy tale about a girl named Xing Xing who lives in ancient China who's mother and father have passed away and is left with her stepmother and stepsister who treat her like a slave. She cannot marry because she has no parents to approve.

When you hear Cinderella story you think a happy story that's made for 6 year olds and older, this book has extremely graphic sequences that include: raccoon brains, severed toes, and more. But then again its still a Cinderella story and has most of the attributes, just no fairies.

With crazy plot twists this book will keep you reading this for hours. Throughout you will find little typos like he instead of she (or vice versa) were it needed to be she but wasn't.

The theme is poverty to riches or changes in luck. Stepmother makes a living off of selling Xing Xings fathers pots, they eat fruits they grow in their garden or whatever appears.

The story has most of the attributes of a Cinderella story (evil stepmothers, dead parents, poverty, changes in luck, etc.), but manages to have its own originality. The book is exiting, sad, happy, and has a few typos, I would give it four out of five.