Book Reviews

REVIEW: The Belles (The Belles #1) – Dhonielle Clayton

April 14, 2019 /

A book of beauty.  Of magic and glitter and color.

A book of monsters.  Of cruelty and pain and darkness.

This is The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton.

The Belles hits pretty much all of my checklist points for a book I will love.  Unique world, interesting magical structures, dynamic characters, and minimal romance.  Let’s dig in.

I absolutely loved the world created in this book.  The juxtaposition between the superficial sparkling beauty and the underlying foundation of cruelty and monochromatic suffering felt compelling and almost too real.  A society where people will do anything to be beautiful, where the natural human shape is reviled, where wealth and status are flaunted through the access to modifying all aspects of your appearance?

Totally doesn’t sound familiar at all!

Thit novel takes the concept of unrealistic beauty standards to the next level.  I loved, and was completely unprepared for, just how gruesome the “beauty treatments” were.  The narration doesn’t shy away from the horror of stretching muscle and reshaping bones. By the end you find out just how dangerous the treatments can be.  Are you willing to risk your life to be beautiful?

I only wish we could have gotten more of the world, though it does sound like the geography will be expanding in the sequel.

Now, on to the characters.  This was an area, unfortunately, that was rather hit or miss for me.  Camellia, or magical narrator, had flashes of being that dynamic heroine that makes me obsessed.  She is one of a handful a generation born a Belle, a girl born with beauty and the power to shape beauty in others.  She’s competitive, sometimes petty, and driven, which can push her past what is right. While being a purveyor of beauty in a gray and desolate world could lead her to be the worst of them all, her internal monologue often shows her wishing she could get people to love their natural selves more.

That being said, most of the story sees Camellia running through the same mental circles over and over again.  Every time I thought there was character growth, it was reverted two chapters later. I hold out hope for more sustained character growth through the remainder of the series, though!

Some of the minor or side characters, like her bodyguard Remy, are dynamic and delightful.  I truly cannot wait to learn more about him in the next book.

The romance fell a bit flat, but I didn’t really mind that too much as I’m not a huge fan of romantic subplots.  I feel like the same could have been accomplished if the romance had been a friendship connection.

As most other reviews I’ve read have mentioned, the pacing was a bit off.  There was a large and unnecessary plot point in the beginning that slowed down the plot.  Those 50 pages would have been better used by digging deeper into the characters and the magical conventions of the world.

All in all, this was a compelling four star read and I will definitely pick up the sequal as soon as I can.

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