Hello, I run a vampire book review page on Instagram and these are my thoughts on the book from that perspective:
I am so excited for this new resurgence of Vamp books, especially in YA. It seems like every ten years we get a bunch, then we get knock offs of the popular ones, then our culture gets fatigued, only for vampires to rise again a decade later.
The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh is part of this next wave. I was particularly interested in it because the protagonist Celine is a mixed-race woman navigating 19th century New Orleans. She is also a dressmaker and as someone who sews myself I always like reading about historical applications of the trade. On that note, there was a lot of corset complaining that really bothered me. If Celine works in clothing, she would know that the structured underwear was critical for comfortably supporting the weight of the garments she is wearing. This comes up a lot in historical fiction and I am over it. Authors, stop complaining about corsets.
The story revolves around a sort of who-dunnit murder mystery and Celine is involved because she is a suspect. People around her are dying, and she is very afraid of her own dark past coming to light.
The Vampire element is a little bit awkward to me, but there is a sequel that I am looking forward to and my hope is that it was laying the groundwork for a more in-depth mythology.
I really liked the female comradery, discussions about race, and gender and how these elements enable or restrict how a character must navigate despite their personalities or true wants.
I am so excited for this new resurgence of Vamp books, especially in YA. It seems like every ten years we get a bunch, then we get knock offs of the popular ones, then our culture gets fatigued, only for vampires to rise again a decade later.
The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh is part of this next wave. I was particularly interested in it because the protagonist Celine is a mixed-race woman navigating 19th century New Orleans. She is also a dressmaker and as someone who sews myself I always like reading about historical applications of the trade. On that note, there was a lot of corset complaining that really bothered me. If Celine works in clothing, she would know that the structured underwear was critical for comfortably supporting the weight of the garments she is wearing. This comes up a lot in historical fiction and I am over it. Authors, stop complaining about corsets.
The story revolves around a sort of who-dunnit murder mystery and Celine is involved because she is a suspect. People around her are dying, and she is very afraid of her own dark past coming to light.
The Vampire element is a little bit awkward to me, but there is a sequel that I am looking forward to and my hope is that it was laying the groundwork for a more in-depth mythology.
I really liked the female comradery, discussions about race, and gender and how these elements enable or restrict how a character must navigate despite their personalities or true wants.