For me this book is a thinker. I had to let it sink in to determine what I wanted to say. This book took me a bit to read. I was always enjoying it, but it got repetitive and annoying. So much of this books is about being beautiful. About the lengths someone will go to attain the perfect image in the mirror. How beauty can be used as a boon, a bargaining chip, and even a weapon. I kept waiting for someone to realize that beauty is only skin deep and it’s what's on the inside that counts. This idea can be seen between the lines of what is going on, but at the same time, it never really is there. It’s this concept that really got on my nerves. As a fat girl, I applaud the main character Camellia wanting to bring curves back into style, however this book delves into more than just size. It talks skin color, proportions, healthy bodies (for example nostrils must be sufficiently large enough to actually breath through), and even the natural progression of aging.
This book is a fantasy that doesn’t feel like a fantasy. But it also doesn’t feel like a teen drama. In ways it reminds me of Rapunzel and Flowers in the Attic without the incest. A “treasured” commodity hidden away in a tower who has been raised to appease certain people, only to find out that not everything is hunky dory, and you life may be forever changed. Camillia was born and raised to be a Belle. Her greatest ambition is to be the Favorite, live at court, and service the queen. She has been raised to make people beautiful. Only Belles are born beautiful. Most people are born as gray wrinkly lumps, but the Arcana held in a Belles blood can change the way people look. It was a blessing from the Goddess of Beauty. But as the saying goes, power corrupts, and when beauty is power, the world seems so shallow, and unattainable.
Camillia is just one of 7 Belles this year. Each Belle is stationed at a tea house to make people beautiful. But the tea houses are strange. There are cryings in the night, and way more customers than one person can handle. Plus, the political intrigue at court, with back stabbing, and a queen of hearts yelling off with their heads. There is a soldier, and few past belles, and even a sleeping beauty.
The world building is very interesting. The use of balloons for a postal service, the arcana, but it’s the part Hunger Games Capitol, part Disneyland feel of the location that is intriguing. I do have lots of questions about the world building, that I would normally call holes, but I have a filling these holes are going to be filled in the following books of the series. You see, this book ends abruptly. Not on a cliffhanger so much, but as a …. I thought that part would come at the center of the book…. Kind of way.
For me the biggest thing I think about when considering the rating I shall give a novel is, has the author not only made me invest my time, but made me curious enough to see how the story will continue. In this case she has. The sequel is out today, and I will be picking it up on my lunch break.
This book is a fantasy that doesn’t feel like a fantasy. But it also doesn’t feel like a teen drama. In ways it reminds me of Rapunzel and Flowers in the Attic without the incest. A “treasured” commodity hidden away in a tower who has been raised to appease certain people, only to find out that not everything is hunky dory, and you life may be forever changed. Camillia was born and raised to be a Belle. Her greatest ambition is to be the Favorite, live at court, and service the queen. She has been raised to make people beautiful. Only Belles are born beautiful. Most people are born as gray wrinkly lumps, but the Arcana held in a Belles blood can change the way people look. It was a blessing from the Goddess of Beauty. But as the saying goes, power corrupts, and when beauty is power, the world seems so shallow, and unattainable.
Camillia is just one of 7 Belles this year. Each Belle is stationed at a tea house to make people beautiful. But the tea houses are strange. There are cryings in the night, and way more customers than one person can handle. Plus, the political intrigue at court, with back stabbing, and a queen of hearts yelling off with their heads. There is a soldier, and few past belles, and even a sleeping beauty.
The world building is very interesting. The use of balloons for a postal service, the arcana, but it’s the part Hunger Games Capitol, part Disneyland feel of the location that is intriguing. I do have lots of questions about the world building, that I would normally call holes, but I have a filling these holes are going to be filled in the following books of the series. You see, this book ends abruptly. Not on a cliffhanger so much, but as a …. I thought that part would come at the center of the book…. Kind of way.
For me the biggest thing I think about when considering the rating I shall give a novel is, has the author not only made me invest my time, but made me curious enough to see how the story will continue. In this case she has. The sequel is out today, and I will be picking it up on my lunch break.