Title: The Belles
(The Belles #1)
Author: Dhonielle Clayton
Age Category/Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Publication Date: February 6th, 2018
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
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.
Buy Link: Amazon
3.5 “Beautiful
World” Stars
If I were to rate this book based solely on world
building, I’d give it five stars. That’s how much I enjoyed Orléans and its
beauty-obsessed society. In all honesty, all the stars I’m giving this book are
for the stunning world this author created.
In The Belles,
we have a society that resembles a little The Capitol from The Hunger Games, since everyone is willing
to go to extremes to ensure they’re “beautiful”. For that, they have the help of the magical
Belles, a group of girls “born” with powers to turn the citizens of Orléans
from their gray-self they’re born to beautiful beings.
In ways, the book creates a parallel with our world
that is shocking and disturbing. Maybe it’s just me, but I found it easy to see
our society getting as far as the characters in this story do in order to obtain
the so-called beautiful look they want. It’s even easier to understand how they
change that said ideal look from one day to the next. If everyone had the
chance to change how they looked whenever they pleased, wouldn’t most people do
it? Look at the numbers for the plastic surgery industry and you’ll find an answer
to that question.
Speaking of which, I absolutely loved the fact that
the beauty procedures done by the Belles weren’t pain-free. In fact, the Belles
had to give their clients a special tea in order to take some of the pain away.
This attention to detail was one of the things that made the Belle-world and
the Belles themselves both intriguing and relatable. So, yes, I believe the
author deserves high praise for world building.
The writing was also good. I’ve seen people complain
about the heavy descriptions, and I agree it was a bit much, but I’m willing to
overlook that because of the theme of the book. Since this is a story about
beauty, detailed descriptions were expected.
Now, even though I loved the world, I can’t say the
same about the characters. Of all of them, I can only name two characters I was
still rooting for by the end of the book, and none of them is the protagonist.
In fact, Camellia was most definitely not my kind of
heroine. Introduced as this adventurous, rule-breaking Belle, I felt like Camellia
only put those traits to use for selfish reasons. Selfish is the first word I’d
use to describe her.
In the beginning of the story, I admired Camellia’s
drive to become the Queen’s favorite (a Belle chosen to serve the royals), but her
actions after the first announcement left a bad taste in my mouth. And she wasn’t
the only one misbehaving. Amber was just as bad. Look, I get that they were
competitive girls and they were fighting for the same title, but they were also
raised as sisters. If Camellia’s words were to be believed, they were also best
friends. I didn’t see any of that, to be honest. All I saw were two selfish
girls putting their competition and desire to be the best ahead of their
sisterhood, each other’s safety and other people’s lives.
The worst thing about this was that they didn’t overcome part of
this rivalry/selfishness until the last few pages. And I say “part” because I still feel there wasn’t
nearly enough character growth when it came to both Camellia and Amber. They
did horrible things because they wanted to prove their worth, and the lengths that
they had to go to realize that they’ve gone too far just made me dislike them
even more.
Here's also where I touch on a sensitive subject: the book was problematic in its treatment of gay characters. Spoilers will prevent me from getting into details, but I'd heard the rumors before I read and I have to agree.
Here's also where I touch on a sensitive subject: the book was problematic in its treatment of gay characters. Spoilers will prevent me from getting into details, but I'd heard the rumors before I read and I have to agree.
My biggest problem with the book, though, was Camellia's lack
of agency. This book is long—maybe too long—and it felt like most of it was
spent in the beauty rooms. Camellia lost herself in the beauty treatments and
ignored the clear signs that things around her were truly bad.
People warned her of the dangers of getting involved
in the villain’s web of lies, but Camellia was too busy showing the villain her
abilities (including ones she should’ve kept hidden) to pay attention to the
warnings. It took the Queen coming to her and revealing a secret for Camellia
to finally come to her senses. And even when she did, it took her forever and
ever to do something about it. I want to keep this spoiler-free, so I can’t go
into detail, but Camellia waited until the last few pages to finally use her
powers to do that something that was crucial to the safety of the rest of her people.
And since she waited that long, her actions didn’t have the impact they needed.
She also went on and on about how she missed and
worried about her sisters, but she waited until almost the end to go check on
one of them. When she did, she found something incredibly troubling. What did
she do? Nothing of importance. She heard a few excuses and swallowed them, then
moved on to another beauty appointment.
Even if I take the selfishness out of Camellia’s shows
of independency and rebellion, they were mostly followed by silly actions that
made me roll my eyes.
After the first time Camellia tried to go against the
villain, she thought it was okay to eat food the villain brought to her room
right after that, even though she’d been alerted to how poison was becoming common
in the castle. Really, girl? Really?
By the way, what happened to Camellia’s favorite
servant, Bree? Did Camellia seriously do nothing to save the girl who was
accused of a crime she didn’t commit? I know things got chaotic soon after
that, but she could’ve used the time she spent flirting with August to try to
free Bree.
Speaking of August… That romance just didn’t do it for
me at all. In fact, I was way more interested in Camellia’s friendship with
Rémy than that boring romance. It also didn’t help that it felt insta-love and
insta-trust. I mean, Camellia knew nothing about this boy that showed up out of
nowhere and was suddenly interested in her, but she thought, “Oh, Let me start
spilling well-kept Belle secrets to this complete stranger just because he’s
cute.”
Camellia wasn’t even the only one who acted silly. The
whole mystery with the Queen’s eldest daughter had the most predictable and lackluster
outcome. I’m sorry, but how did no one realize what was happening? I mean…
So, yeah, unfortunately I had a lot of problems with the characters and
some of plot choices, but the experience wasn’t exactly negative. I loved the world and I'm always here for more diverse fantasy with stunning covers!!! Look at that cover. So pretty!
Despite my
reservations and the time it took me to finish it, I read all of it and I was
excited when the two characters I truly liked were finally in the same room in
the last page. If they play a bigger part on the sequel, then I think we have all the right elements for a better book.
*If you liked this review (or not), if you read the book (or not), come say hello and leave your comments bellow.
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