The story is a retelling of Cinderella featuring various mythical creatures including fairies, elves, ogres, gnomes, and giants.

[1] In 2006, Levine went on to write Fairest, a retelling of the story of Snow White, set in the same world as Ella Enchanted.

It was directed by Tommy O'Haver and stars Anne Hathaway and Hugh Dancy as Ella and Prince Charmont, respectively.

The film received mostly mixed reviews, and was heavily criticized for its changes to the source material and addition of new characters.

Levine stated that the film is "so different from the book that it's hard to compare them" and suggested "regarding the movie as a separate creative act".

At the wake, she is introduced to Dame Olga and her terrible daughters, Hattie and illiterate Olive - but at the time, feels no special significance to this encounter.

She is given the command not to run away, so she is trapped, and stays up all night practicing Ogrese in hopes of using on the ogres their own weapon of hypnotic speech.

Ella learns that ungrateful recipients of Lucinda's gifts often end up as squirrels and decides to use an alias when talking to her.

She decides they could never be together and writes a letter addressed from Hattie to mislead him into thinking she has run off with a rich earl.

Ella begs her to remove her curse, now that she knows how terrible it truly is, but Lucinda vows that she will no longer perform acts of big magic.

At the first ball, she dances with Char, who still wants to be with Ella after a chance meeting with Areida made him question the letter he received.

Unlike in the original Cinderella story, Ella takes no revenge on her stepmother and stepsisters beyond not inviting them to the royal wedding.

As noted by Levine, the plot element of Ella being cursed with obedience fills a logical flaw in the original Cinderella story, explaining why she had to obey her stepmother and stepsisters.

[3] In 2012, it was ranked number 85 on a list of the top 100 children's novels published by School Library Journal.