FABULOUS World Building!

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THE BELLES is an incredibly lush and socially relevant fantasy story that brings themes of harmful beauty stereotypes, sexual harrasment/assault, patriarchy, politics and so many more to the forefront of YA literature in an intensely readable format. Clayton's world-building is exquisite - one of the best words I can use to describe her descriptions is "sumptuous", but that doesn't convey the dark side of this story well enough.

The author's note at the end of the book explaining the motivation for this story made me tear up - don't skip it!

Required purchase for libraries serving teens and required reading for any adults like me who want to smash the beauty standards in our world once and for all!

Thanks to BookishFirst for this early finished copy!