Ha Yut Ying makes a strange discovery while hiding from invading Japanese soldiers – she turns completely invisible. Her mother warns her never to reveal her secret to anyone. Yut Ying is sent from the dangerous mainland to Hong Kong to live with her estranged father and his second wife – her glamourous stepmother. Yut Ying is manipulated by her stepmother into becoming the family’s servant and clothing worker at the family’s factory, stamping out her dreams of becoming a famous singer. She finds comfort in her sweet half-sister Lily, and Tommy, the son of a rich factory owner. Yut Ying’s joy and ambition is diminished over time by forbidden love and betrayals. After all she endures, Yut Ying finds it easier to disappear, and not just by turning invisible, but by leaving China…
When Marigold sees her mother vanish right in front of her, she is determined to uncover her secret of why. This causes strain between them, from childhood to adulthood, in addition to the normal tension between a mother and daughter over their interests – her mother disapproves of Marigold’s constant studying and desire to become a doctor. When her mother’s disappearances become more frequent and dangerous, Marigold is determined to save her. However, in order to do so, she must travel back to Hong Kong and face the murky secrets of a past that Yut Ying would rather forget.
Fishbone Cinderella was a really interesting retelling of the Chinese variant of Cinderella, Ye Xian. In this variant, the bones of a magical fish enables Ye Xian to go to the ball, where she accidentally leaves behind a magical golden shoe. This book is an imagining of what would happen to the descendants of Ye Xian. I love how the story mostly focuses on the Eastern version, but references the Western version repeatedly throughout the narrative – something that matches well with the settings of the 1940s Hong Kong and 1960s San Francisco, where Western culture was influencing Eastern, and vice versa. I really enjoyed the setting and learning about this fascinating period of history in Hong Kong and China. Yut Ying definitely embodies the kind-hearted character of Cinderella. Even when she becomes somewhat disillusioned due to constant betrayals and heartbreak, she retains most of her good nature. Marigold was a really sweet character as well, and I wish we got to spend more time with her. I loved the theme of mother and daughter relationships and dealing with the consequences of generational trauma. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fantasy and family sagas!
Fishbone Cinderella comes out July 28, 2026. Add it to your tbr if it sounds like something you’d be interested in!
I reckon if you play the first few notes of this movie’s opening score, almost every girl who grew up during the early 2000s would immediately start either humming along or start twirling around. There aren’t many movie adaptations of the 12 Dancing Princesses – in fact, I think this movie might be the only one! But how well does it retell the Grimm fairytale? What does it include and what does it change? Let’s find out!
I’ll be running polls on Instagram to determine what movie I should review next, so be sure to check my stories if you want to help me decide. Also, if you have any movie suggestions, please let me know!
NOTE: For these reviews I will be summarising the plot of the movie, then delving into how the story has been adapted and retold from the source material, before giving my final thoughts.
The Plot
Genevieve is the seventh of 12 princesses who, despite having their own special interests and individual talents, share a love of dancing. They live together with their widowed father, King Randolph, in a castle. Unknown to the princesses themselves, some people consider their hobbies and interests ‘unladylike’ and they are deemed ‘not proper princesses’. King Randolph, concerned about his daughters’ reputations and welfare, invites his cousin, Duchess Rowena to the castle to instruct them on how to be ‘proper’. The Duchess is strict and bans all colour, music, and fun activities that the princesses’ enjoy, trying to break the princesses’ confidence and individuality.
On the youngest sisters’ – the triplets’ Janessa, Kathleen & Lacey – birthday, their older sisters gift them a copy of their late mother Queen Isabella’s favourite story. In the story, a princess finds a magical land that can be accessed via a secret portal and dances her heart out for three magical nights until the land vanishes. Genevieve realises that the tiles on the floor match with the flowers on the cover of the books their mother gave them. Dancing on each tile in sequence, eldest to youngest, makes the portal open into the same magical land as the story. They too dance the whole night away in the magical land, where gilded flowers can grant their wishes, statues of handsome princes can be brought to life to be their dance partners, and water has healing properties.
The following day, all the princesses are exhausted, and their new dancing shoes have been completely worn through. Duchess Rowena finds this suspicious, and wonders if the princesses have been out dancing with suitors – something which would ruin her plans to keep them under her control. King Randolph falls suddenly and mysteriously ill, so Genevieve sends for the doctor and asks that the royal cobbler, Derek, when he comes to deliver the princesses more dancing shoes, to investigate a man she saw talking to Duchess Rowena. That night, the princesses return to the magical land to dance ballet, whilst Derek pursues the suspicious man Genevieve saw, who turns out to be a local apothecary. Derek pieces together that Rowena is slowly poisoning King Randolph and heads back to the castle to warn the princesses.
Again, in the morning, all the princesses are sleepy. Duchess Rowena refuses to believe that the princesses spent the night dancing away in a magical pavilion – the truth that she forces out of the youngest sisters – so she decides to treat them like common maids, rather than princesses, forcing them to do chores across the castle. Genevieve and Lacey plan to go visit their father at the end of the day to wish him goodnight, unfortunately overhearing Duchess Rowena prompt King Randolph into saying his daughters are twelve burdens. They don’t go in, and so then don’t hear King Randolph state that his daughters could never be burdens, but the best part of his life. All the princesses are heartbroken about this, believing that the worry they cause their father must be the reason he’s so sick. They decide to leave for the magical land forever, where they can be a burden to no one. When Duchess Rowena comes into the princesses’ bedroom in the morning, the room is empty and princesses gone.
Upon learning that the princesses have vanished, Derek breaks into the palace and searches their bedroom, opening the portal and heading down into the magical land. Brutus, Rowena’s pet monkey, sees Derek open the portal and leads Duchess Rowena through into the magical land. Initially astonished that the princesses were telling the truth, Duchess Rowena steals some of the wish-granting flowers and heads back to castle to fetch Desmond while the princesses are still down there.
The princesses immediately decide to return home upon learning that their father is being poisoned, but the magical land suddenly starts to disappear around them – Desmond is smashing up the tiles of the portal in their bedroom, preventing them from leaving. Genevieve can’t believe that this magical land would trap them forever and wishes to know the way out. The gilded flowers reveal that there is another portal, but Genevieve and Derek must dance together in order for it to open. They do, and the princesses dance into the sky and out of the magical land, arriving at their mother’s dance pavilion in the castle grounds.
King Randolph is now dying and Duchess Rowena has been declared Queen while he has been taken ill, since the princesses are nowhere to be found. Using their unique talents, they distract the guards that are surrounding the castle and head towards their father’s chambers. Duchess Rowena tries to use the wish-granting flowers to stop Genevieve, but instead curses herself to dance forever and ever and ever. Desmond tries to help Duchess Rowena but becomes trapped by the spell as well, and together they dance off into distance, leaving the kingdom for good. Lacey uses the water she took from the magical land to heal their father. King Randolph reaffirms his unconditional love for his daughters, realising they never needed to be ‘proper princesses’. Genevieve and Derek then get married and all the princesses dance happily together at their wedding.
References to the source material
The most obvious reference to the source material is the princesses’ shoes being found to be completely worn out every morning after they spend the whole night dancing. In the fairytale though, the princesses sneaking out to dance goes on for years, wearing out hundreds of shoes in the process. In the movie, they only sneak out for three nights – probably due to movie plot time constraints. It makes sense for the worn out shoes to be ballet shoes, because pointe shoes can wear out very fast, some ballerinas having to replace their shoes every few weeks or even days.
In the Grimm fairytale, it is a soldier-come-gardener who comes to solve the riddle with the help of magical herbs that make him invisible, enabling him to follow the princesses at night. In the Barbie movie, it is Derek the cobbler that discovers the princesses’ secret magical kingdom. Having Derek be a cobbler makes perfect sense given the princesses’ love for dancing and the fact they are wearing through their dancing shoes.
The magical portal in the floor is also a nice nod to the original, since the princesses in the fairytale disappear through a tunnel into the magical realm to dance and then travel in boats to an island to dance. Dancing in a sequence in order to open the portal was a nice touch.
The golden wish-granting flowers in the magical kingdom (that mostly take playlist requests from the princesses lol) are a combination of the trees being made of silver and gold and the magical herbs in the original. The golden statues that come to life to dance with the princesses are a reference to the fact they spend the nights dancing with princes – this is also referenced by Duchess Rowena when she learns they have been out dancing.
A major change to the fairytale is that the plot is made much more family friendly, suitable for the audience who would be watching it. There are no princes being invited to solve the riddle or beheadings ordered by the king when they do not solve it. The princesses are also slightly malicious in the fairytale, not caring about the fate of the princes who come to solve the mystery of their shoes, going so far as to drug their princes’ drinks to keep their nighttime revels secret. In order for the story to still have an antagonist, they add Duchess Rowena and her plot to assassinate the king and take over the kingdom for herself. Still a nefarious plot but a lot less violent and bloody than the original.
Final thoughts
Barbie in the Twelve Dancing Princesses is one of my favourite Barbie movies. It’s just so magical! With any twelve dancing princesses’ adaptation, it is difficult to give all the sisters a bit of the spotlight. Genevieve is the main character of course, but the sisters do have their own personalities and their hobbies too. The motto of this movie is also I think a good message for children and fits well with the movie’s themes of embracing differences and working together. Also, not mentioned in the rest of the review, but the beef between Genevieve’s cat Twyla, the Duchess’ monkey Brutus, and Derek’s Felix the parrot is genuinely cute and entertaining, not just for a very young audience. The dancing is really good as well, especially considering there is no official ballet for this fairytale, unlike the Swan Lake and the Nutcracker Barbie adaptations. There’s a behind the scenes video for the making of the dance choreography that I would highly recommend watching!
Have you watched Barbie in the Twelve Dancing Princesses? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments below!
“The old witch in the woods was gone, and the young witch had very powerful shoes to fill.”
Many years ago, a little girl called Gretel was traded by her greedy father to an old witch in the woods for a powerful spell. Her brother Hans, who was supposed to be traded with her and who promised to help her escape, instead leaves her to her fate. Gretel embraces her new life as the witch’s apprentice, changing her name to Miria. She converses with anyone who comes into the forest asking the witch for help or who stumbles through the woods, like a young noblewoman like Lady Adaline, with whom she fell in love two years ago. Now, she has just learnt that Lady Adaline is due to be married – to her brother Hans, who left her behind all those years ago. Her father has now used the old witch’s spell that he traded Miria for to bring wealth and power, sparing little thought to the daughter he gave away. Miria resolves to prevent this wedding as well as finally take vengeance on those who traded her away like she was nothing all those years ago. But beyond the safety of the woods, the world is more complicated than Miria can imagine… and very suspicious of witches…
This was a really interesting retelling of Hansel and Gretel. What if Gretel became the witch’s apprentice and then became the witch herself? The book starts off like the fairytale does, with the little brother and sister travelling through the woods to find the witch’s house, leaving a trail in their wake to find their way back. However, the witch is not evil and does not wish to eat Miria but train her as an apprentice. I like the theme of how girls are treated as expendable, a waste of resources – I thought that was a nice hark back to the original fairytale, where Hansel and Gretel were left in the woods in order that their father and stepmother would have more money to spend on food. This theme also leans well into the feminist themes of the book – how people are afraid of women in power and the ways in which women who have it are mistreated, as well as the power of female rage. The stepmother’s wickedness – being the one to persuade the children’s father to leave them in the woods – is made even more wicked in the book, but not as wicked as the father is. Adaline and Miria’s romance is really wholesome, their banter was cute, and I love how they bonded over being outcasts from society – Miria a witch trying to help a community that is afraid of witches and Adaline a noble lady wanting to be more than sold off on the marriage market. If you’re looking for a cozy sapphic fantasy romance that also examines a classic fairytale through a more feminist lens, I would highly recommend this book!
Witch of the Shadow Wood just came out this month! Have you read it yet or plan to read it? Let me know in the comments below!
The Grimm Librarian 
