Cinder & Ella (Kellywood Book 3)

As a book nerd, I was immediately grabbed by the summary: every-day girl is IM buddies with a movie star and doesn’t know it. They ‘met’ when he read her blog post about their favorite book, The Cinder Chronicles. Over the next 3 years, they become best friends even though they’ve never met. He’s texting with her when her life is destroyed by a horrible accident which kills her Mama and leaves her with 70% of her body burned and unable to walk. After being in a medically-endured coma for 3weeks, she spends months in the hospital, enduring surgery after surgery and fighting to be able to walk again.Things get harder when she gets out of the hospital: she moves to LA to live with the man who walked out on her when she was 8. He has the picture-perfect model wife and her beautiful, blonde twin daughters. Ella is half-Chilean, with golden brown skin and brilliant blue eyes. To make matters worse, her father has packed up her things, but didn’t take some of her most important: author-signed books that she and Mama had collected, with a picture of them and the author in each one.Adjusting to her new life is hard. The older of the twins encourages their school the bully her, there’s always tension at home, and she has no friends, save Cinder/Brian. Brian, as I mentioned, is a movie star. When she finally writes him to apologize for dropping off the face of the earth, he can’t believe it. When she didn’t answer his texts, he thought maybe she was mad. But when she didn’t blog, he knew something was wrong. That and never answering emails made him believe she was dead. So he’s overjoyed. They begin their correspondence and even start talking on the phone. Each is worried what the other will do if they find out the truth: he’s mega-star Brian Oliver, pretending to be engaged to his costar, and she’s Ellamara Rodriguez, a woman who is disfigured and disgusting to looks at.Reading this book was wonderful. The chapters tell the story from either Ella’s or Cinder’s perspective. This gives us a chance to get to know and care about them both, and for us to root for their happily ever after. I *felt* Ella’s pain with her: pain as she adjusts to living with her father, pain from the ridicule at school, pain over her bumps with Cinder that inevitably happen. I’m not sure how many times I cried, but it was more than a few times. That may not sound like an endorsement, but it is. The book isn’t maudlin or depressing. I’m not someone who likes those types of reads and this is one of my favorite books I read all year, finished on the last day of the second decade of the 21st century. The book is realistic in its depiction of its characters and their conflict (no 2D characters here). No one is painted as the bad guy; even stepwitch sister Ana gets treated with empathy rather that painting her with the villain brush. This is story about loss and finding your way through it and I’m glad that it doesn’t rush things or drag. I’m eager to start the next book.Also recommend the audiobook. While sometimes I read something sounding a different way, the female narrator did a great job of differentiating the characters as well as making the male voices believable.

I couldn't believe it when I saw how many 5 star reviews Cinder & Ella had and now I know why because this NA book was amazing. This is a sweet and not your usual fairy tale. It is a story of indescribable friendship, intense love, showing strength in the face of tragedy, and the acceptance of disabilities. This is my first book by Kelly Oram and it will not be my last.Brian aka Cinder is a famous, closest bookworm, and famous Hollywood actor. He "meets" Ella, online 3 years ago through her book blog. The banter between them is adorable. Brian keeps his identity secret because he doesn't want to pull her into his crazy world and because he loves that she treats him as Brian and not a star. I loved loved loved Brian. He was so romantic. He had his strengths, be he also had his flaws. Ella is a strong character who has been through so much. She lost her mom in an accident and moved across country with her father, and man who left her when she was 8 years-old, and his family. Ella is left with a limp and scars, something that she was learning to deal with. I enjoyed watching her evolve as a character - trying to embrace her new reality - dealing with bullying at school, not so great family dynamics, making friends, etc. The two of them are so good together, but it was a long journey to get to their HEA. I also really enjoyed the secondary characters in the book - even Ana. This is book 1 in the Cinder and Ella duet, but it does not end in a cliffhanger. Book 2, Happily Ever After has already been released.*This book does touch upon bullying and mental health issues of suicide and depression.

I absolutely loved this story!!! Ella and Cinder/Brian are fantastic! We get to see so much growth for them while also seeing and feeling them stay true to themselves. They both have to grow in different ways and there are definitely some growing pains. Ella has been on a horrific accident and is in the middle of her long road to full recovery. She will never be the same and she has to come to grips with what that means moving forward. She is soo strong and is dealing with bullies due to her burn scars and doing her best to survive and not antagonize the situation more. She is also thrown into a completely new environment with people that pretty much strangers and they feel hostile at that. Her one person that she has left is her internet friend, who is her best friend. And she hasn’t had that since her accident until she finally reached back out. There connection is truly the best support system for both of them. They both are completely themselves, their normal selves with each other. Brian is famous and he knows that most, if not all, the people around him are not his real friends. He puts on a persona with all of them because he doesn’t feel like he can be himself. Ella coming back into his life, awakens his heart again and he is ready to make some of those harder decisions in order to be more himself to the world but every time he tries he gets blocked. I loved watching these two come into their own and figuring out how to be together. I loved the secondary characters as well and I am sooo glad there is a second book as I want more of Ella and Brian actually getting to be together.

Wow, I don't know where to start.... Right well first of all I would like to point out that I have read many many books from various genres and Authors. I also have not left a review before but I just had to after reading about Cinder and Ella. I honestly sobbed through a few of the scenes because they were so heart wrenching. Ella had been through so much and still had a lot more to go through. The bullying from school peers and the home situation was horrifying and painful. Ella is such a strong character who yes did have a time where she was in a very dark place but pulled herself out just enough to get over that threshold so she could try and put her pieces back together. I was happy that we finally got the back story about her parents separation and that the problems with her Dad and step mum were out and being dealt with in a healthy way. I still don't like Ana even though she changed (a little bit) towards the end.With Cinder I loved his sense of humour and his sweet personality. I was frustrated with him in regards to how he let the viper rule over his life but am glad he had his come to Jesus moment and realised that you can sacrifice everything for the one person who matters the most and you won't let anything get in the way. Anyway I absolutely loved Cinder & Ella, this is my first book from this author so I can definitely say that you have gained another faithful reader. Thank you for this wonderful love story.Sorry for any spelling mistakes. 😊😊

I am a very big fan of Kelly Oram and like many of her other books, especially the series about Jamie Baker, so thought i would tried this one out and i loved it. Not because the characters were sweet or funny, or because i was very close to the storyline, but simply because it evoked so much emotion for me. The relationship between Ella and her Dad was so heartbreaking and it made me want to scream most of the time i was reading. I don't understand how Ella could stand it. There was so much pain within this book that you don't find in many others and the characters were slightly more realistic. They all had flaws but no one was incredibly messed up considering what they had all been through. What Ella had planned to do, and i'm not going to spoil it for anyone, was logical to her considering her situation. Furthermore the ending between the parents and Ella was far more fitting then any other books i have read except for maybe Pushing The Limits which had the same type of clashes between parents and children. However, the reason i gave it 4 stars and not 5 was that there was almost too much pain for me. I wanted to feel but the emotion i felt for these characters was so much that it almost brought me to tears, This was an incredible book but i would not want to read it again because there was simply too much emotional pain in it for me.

I really enjoyed this book, it was a great take on the classic fairy-tale! It was also very emotional, I had tears in my eyes at many points in the book. Ella was recovering from a terrible tragedy that left scars, both physical and emotional, on her. She was being badly treated at the school her father made her go to and at home by her stepsisters.Of course her step-family weren't evil nor did they all treat her badly, her step-mother did try to help her but there were misunderstandings that didn't become clear until the end but Ella never hated her step-mother. She also became very close to one of her step-sisters after a heart to heart that cleared up some issues between them. The other step-sister I have hope for becoming friends with Ella, even if they never become close. The other step-sister feels threatened by Ella but at the end had been signed up for therapy so maybe she'll work out her issues with Ella and stop being so nasty!I also really liked Cinder! He was in the public eye so he had to put on a persona and had no one he could really trust or confide in except for Ella who had no idea who he really was! I loved the banter between them online and when they finally spoke on the phone. I also loved how much they genuinely cared about each other. I would love to have another story with them to see how things progress for Ella and Cinder!

I brought this book on the back of loving the Jamie Baker series by Kelly Oram. And I am glad I did. This book is brilliant, funny and romantic. I loved both the main characters. Both were well written, both were people I would have liked to spend time with.I loved the way she avoided the obvious cliche of making the step family all cruel. The way the family acted towards Ella was more natural and understandable. It added to the story rather than becoming a crutch for pushing Ella towards Cinder.There were not obvious grammatical or spelling flaws. No continuity errors etc. As I expect from Kelly. I will be looking forwards to buy other books by this author.

Where do I even start?! This story is tragically beautiful! I cant even begin to imagine going through what Ella went through (yes i no its fiction, but while your reading it is REAL!) I wanted to cry for her, i hurt for her and honestly? They was a few people i would have gladly punched for her! I also laughed out loud so many times at Ella's and Cinder/Brian's banter, I got some strange looks! Im a sucker for a love story and this was beautifully written and portrayed. Ella is a strong, beautiful women who deserved every ounce of happiness that came her way.I loved the relationship Ella built with Juliette and Vivian, also i loved that Vivian was so open about her dads and how Rob, Ella, Juliette ect was so accepting of the fact that she had gay parents.At first, i really didn't like Ana, but grew to understand how she was feeling and would love to read the story from her point of view or even a follow in story for Ana.I honestly could not recommend this book enough!