The 60-second answer

What is Finding Cinderella about?

Finding Cinderella Book Summary — Colleen Hoover’s novella follows Daniel, Holder’s best friend, and Six, Sky’s best friend. A year after Daniel shares an anonymous encounter with a girl in a dark maintenance room, he meets Six and falls quickly in love without realizing how the two stories intersect. The compact romance belongs to the Hopeless world and ends by revealing a pregnancy and adoption that later drive Finding Perfect.

AuthorColleen Hoover
First published2013
Series / formatHopeless #3
Page count176 · 2014 Atria paperback
GenreNew adult · Contemporary romance · Novella

Main characters

Daniel Wesley
The narrator, whose joking manner conceals how deeply the anonymous encounter affected him.
Six Jacobs
Sky’s best friend, newly returned from an exchange year in Italy.
Dean Holder
Daniel’s friend and Six’s protective informal gatekeeper.
Sky
Six’s closest friend and the link joining the couple’s social circle.
Val
Daniel’s former girlfriend, whose relationship clarifies what he does not want.
The adopted child
The consequence of Daniel and Six’s hidden first meeting and the bridge to Finding Perfect.

Spoiler-free plot summary

Daniel meets a crying girl in a pitch-dark school room. Because neither can see the other and both want escape from ordinary identities, they invent a one-hour relationship with no names and no promised future.

A year later, Daniel meets Six after her return from Italy. Their humor and directness create an immediate relationship, but neither connects the present romance with the anonymous encounter. Six also carries a private grief from her time abroad.

The novella moves quickly, but its apparent fairy-tale pattern is deliberately tested. Finding the right person does not erase the consequences of what happened before recognition.

Why this novella belongs in the Hopeless reading order

Finding Cinderella shifts the focus away from Sky and Holder while using their friendships to extend the same world.

Before

Read Hopeless first

The novella assumes the established friendships and spoils the original couple’s outcome.

Here

Daniel and Six

A secondary pair becomes the center, with identity and memory again driving the romance.

After

Finding Perfect

The later novella resolves the adoption thread left emotionally open here.

Content note

Before revealing the full plot

The full summary discusses teen sex, pregnancy, childbirth, closed adoption, grief and depression.

Major spoilers from here

Ready for the complete plot?

The next section identifies the anonymous Cinderella and explains the child Six placed for adoption.

Frequently asked questions

Is Finding Cinderella a full novel?

No. It is a novella; the cited paperback includes extra material and an epilogue.

Can you read Finding Cinderella first?

It is understandable alone, but Hopeless first gives the relationships and avoids series spoilers.

Who is Cinderella in the story?

Six is the anonymous girl Daniel met in the dark.

What should you read after Finding Cinderella?

Read All Your Perfects before Finding Perfect if you want the adoption crossover to have its full context.

Editorial note

Sources & copyright note

This page is an independent, original summary and analysis. It does not reproduce the novel’s chapters or dialogue. Book metadata, series order, age guidance and the spoiler-free premise were checked against official author and publisher pages; plot details should be checked against a lawfully obtained copy before publication.

Last source review: August 9, 2026. Page counts and ISBNs vary by edition. Finding Cinderella and its characters remain the copyright of their respective rights holders.

Explore related guides

Continue through the connected series or compare this plot with another spoiler-aware Colleen Hoover summary.

Hopeless summary All Your Perfects summary Finding Perfect summary