The Belles (The Belles #1) by Dhonielle Clayton
Genres: Fantasy (YA)
Pages: 448
Goodreads
Camellia Beauregard is a Belle. In the opulent world of Orléans, Belles are revered, for they control Beauty, and Beauty is a commodity coveted above all else. In Orléans, the people are born gray, they are born damned, and only with the help of a Belle and her talents can they transform and be made beautiful.
But it’s not enough for Camellia to be just a Belle. She wants to be the favorite—the Belle chosen by the Queen of Orléans to live in the royal palace, to tend to the royal family and their court, to be recognized as the most talented Belle in the land. But once Camellia and her Belle sisters arrive at court, it becomes clear that being the favorite is not everything she always dreamed it would be. Behind the gilded palace walls live dark secrets, and Camellia soon learns that the very essence of her existence is a lie—that her powers are far greater, and could be more dangerous, than she ever imagined. And when the queen asks Camellia to risk her own life and help the ailing princess by using Belle powers in unintended ways, Camellia now faces an impossible decision.
With the future of Orléans and its people at stake, Camellia must decide—save herself and her sisters and the way of the Belles—or resuscitate the princess, risk her own life, and change the ways of her world forever.
WHAT I LIKED
The concept of beauty. This book is literally about beauty standards and the extremes people will go to to achieve what society deems “beautiful”. It also touches on how those standards can constantly change. One moment short hair is in style, the next long hair is. While we have plastic surgery, makeup, diets, hair cuts, etc, The Belles has, well, the Belles to perform these tasks.
This was a great parallel to the real world and I think that’s what this book did well. It makes you question our obsession with beauty and what we even find beautiful.
But that’s where what I liked basically ended. So….
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
Let me start with the writing because this is very subjective and you might enjoy it. Clayton’s writing is very descriptive. For me, this became distracting to the point that I would sometimes skip paragraphs because I knew they were just complicated descriptions of what the world looked like. You might like that, I didn’t.
Which brings me to the world building – for all the descriptions of the world, the world building itself was severely lacking. For example, in this world they had phones and mailing balloons that navigated on their own when you put in coordinates, yet they told time by the use of hourglass. This was odd to me and was never explained. In general, it was very Hunger Game Capitol-esque with the bright colors and weird hairdo’s but it was all very hard for me to imagine.
The last thing that I didn’t like was the plot itself. While it was a good build up for a possibly decent book 2, it was dull to read. This is for two reasons:
- First, most of the book is full of beauty treatments. Yes, I said I enjoyed the concept of beauty standards in this, but it was like the people had no other interests or hobbies. Everything was centered around beauty – the politics (if you can call it that), the conversations, the laws, the social events – it was all about beauty and beauty treatments. I think the focus on beauty treatments themselves could have been toned down a little and it still would have the same impact.
- Second, by the time something actually happened, it was nearly the end of the book and it ended up feeling very rushed.
Overall, this book is somewhere in the middle for my rating. If it didn’t question beauty standards and what we are willing to do to reach a society-accepted level of beauty, I would probably rate this lower. However, because that theme is present, I boosted it a little. It’s not a terrible book and I’m sure many of you would like it – it just wasn’t my style.
Have you read this? Thoughts?
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| Overall: | 2.5 / 5 |
4 Comments
Yes yes YES, all of this! I found the descriptions way too overpowering and skimmed several sections because I was waiting for something to happen. And this book held the potential to be amazing, so I’m curious to see how the sequel is handled, if the writing will be the same, with the same central focuses. Or if the story will shift in another direction.
I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy this Molly! I personally have no interest to read this as I am over dystopian genre in general, but the idea really seems unique. I hate it when the writing style is too descriptive, yet they basically add nothing to the story or world building. I hope your next read would be better! <3
I was pondering whether or not to buy this last night, and now I’m glad I decided to hold out for the library line to die down.
I haven’t read this one yet, but I’ve been reading lots of positive AND negative reviews for it, so I’m a bit wary. I’m only sometimes okay with super descriptive paragraphs–it depends on the flow of the whole story. This one seems a bit overbearing though?? Sorry it was a bit disappointing, Molly!
– Aimee @ Aimee, Always