The Comfort of a Reread

One of the things that has made my 12 Classics challenge difficult is that I'm a comfort re-reader. I re-read for other reasons, of course, but this is the main reason that my books have broken spines and food-stained pages. When things get rough in my life, I turn to my old favorites to cheer myself up and inspire myself to continue living and writing for another day. So this year after finishing Anna Karenina, when I lost my job, had live with my parents for a month, got ready to move away from my hometown, and almost lost my unborn baby I was in a pretty low place. I needed to read something that I was sure would give me a happy ending.

So of course I read Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. It is without a doubt my absolute favorite book of all time.

I was 14 when I first read it, and was shortly after gifted an autographed copy by my little brother who won it in an accelerated reader contest. Since then, I've read it once or twice a year, every single year. Eleanor is among my top choices of baby girl names. After all, what girl wouldn't want to be named after a protagonist who meets such debilitating (though humorous) obstacles with such dignified, defiant courage?

The premise and plot are both simple; it's a Cinderella (get why she's called Ella?) retelling in which the main character must obey any command given to her. In the very first chapter she explains that if someone told her to chop off her own head, she would have to do it. Yikes. The book is her journey to break the curse of obedience.

There are a lot of reasons I like this book. I like fairy tales, I like strong female leads, and I like hero journey stories. But I think that part of  the reason it rang so close to my heart was that simple theme of obedience. As a high school honor student, athlete, and role model to two younger brothers, I was under lots of demands. My Myers Briggs is INFJ and I've always been very hard on myself, so I worked hard to meet all of the demands made by others and myself, so sometimes it felt like Ella and I shared the same curse. I felt that if she could overcome it and find true love and happiness...then I could too.

I'm not in high school anymore. I'm grown up and married and have my college degree. I've accomplished a hell of a lot for only being only 24 years old, and I still have a lot to look forward to. Which makes me wonder, why is Ella Enchanted still my favorite book? Is it nostalgia? Is it just because I still enjoy fairy tales and female leads and hero journeys? Or is it because now when I can see myself as the Ella of the ending--victorious, happy, and in love? Probably it's a little bit of all of that, plus the fact that sometimes you just need to read something and know that there is going to be a happy ending.