This is the completion of the trilogy that began with The Belles, which sounds like a standard "Everyone is ugly and beauty is controlled by the government" dystopia, but it really isn't. It feels more like a lost novel by Tanith Lee with lots of fairytale motifs and canon FF. It's decadent, immersive, and I highly recommend it

The second two books are also very good and worth reading, though I do think the first is the best. They don't answer all the questions that were raised by the first book, but they do answer some of them. They also go in some unexpected and interesting directions.

Worldbuilding spoilers: Read more... )

What Clayton is interested in, particularly in the second two books, is how the Bells are exploited, forms of enslavement and resistance, and how people deal with an unjust society. There are still plenty of gorgeous dress descriptions and teacup pets, don't worry.

The second book has an author's note at the end that is pretty jaw-dropping. Don't miss it. The third book has a new narrator, which is fun, and is a bit of a mythic take on the Hunger Games. The end felt a little rushed and oddly paced but the final outcome is satisfying.

Clayton is now on my "buy anything she writes" list. She has an interesting, original voice and set of concerns, and her books are compulsively page-turny and just a pleasure to read.

he has a new book out, a middle grade fantasy, which I will read shortly.






In the city of Orleans, everyone is born gray-skinned, red-eyed, and wrinkly, except for a handful of girls known as Belles. Through a combination of magical or advanced-tech tools and magic or mutant powers, the Belles have the ability to mold the gray people into beauties of any kind, though their work must be re-done on a monthly basis and is very painful.

Unsurprisingly, this creates a beauty-obsessed society and high demand for Belle services. One Belle is appointed the favorite, to serve at court; others are sent to teahouses. But what happens to the old Belles? And if you can make people beautiful, you can do other things to them as well…

The worldbuilding is very vivid. Is this a plausible-to-reality world that has the economics worked out? No. Is this a compelling vision of world that makes sense in its own fever-dream terms? Yes. Teacup pets like kitten-size lions and bears are popular, messages are sent by color-coded balloons, and fairy-tale motifs abound. In terms of atmosphere more than prose style, it’s much more reminiscent of Tanith Lee than of its more obvious inspiration, Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies. I love setups in which it might be magic or might be advanced tech or might be both, and The Belles is all-in with that. Beauty standards are not white-centric, which is nice.

As far as I was concerned, the heroine and her specific story were just a window into the world, and I enjoyed the book on that basis. I have a fondness for this sort of candy-colored decadence. There’s an obligatory heterosexual love triangle but it’s perfunctory, which on the plus side means it doesn’t take up much space. Most of the relationships are between women and girls.

I suspect that this story could have been told as easily and well in one book as the two or more it will actually be, but I’m there for the sequel nonetheless. Bring on the teacup dragons!

Content notes: sexual assault, description of animal cruelty, mild-to-moderate body horror, death of a lesbian character (other lesbian or bi women survive), tabloid headline about a trans person transitioning via Belle that wasn’t negative about it but some readers were offended by how it was phrased.

Plot speculation: Read more... )

Spot the fairy tale reference! We have the magic mirror from Snow White, the sleeping princess from Sleeping Beauty, and more that I forget now.

The Belles



And the sequel:

The Everlasting Rose (Belles, The Book 2)
.

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