In author Dhonielle Clayton’s debut solo novel, the line between the beautiful and the grotesque is sometimes stark and bright, and sometimes blurry and muddied.
The Belles is set in a fictional kingdom called Orléans. Its name and its map – an archipelago with a large, curved main island – give a glimpse of its blending of French Quarter and Japanese Geisha trappings, which are carried throughout the details of the story. The city and its inhabitants glitter and glimmer through the words on the page – that is, when their grey underpinnings aren’t oozing through the coverings.
In Orléans, most people are born grey-skinned, red-eyed, and filled with despondency and self-loathing. Only the Belles – including our protagonist, Camellia – are born with naturally colorful and beautiful appearances, as well as the ability to bestow those colors on others. Their cities are decadent, their fashions extravagant, and their pain tolerances in pursuit of their beauty treatments are intensely disturbing.
The sumptuous descriptions serve as the most perfect backdrop imaginable for the book’s most obvious theme, which is the lengths to which people will go in pursuit of beauty. More subtle but unmistakable are the references to slavery and the power differential between the Belles and those whom they serve – stolen childhoods and secret writing codes between the Belles were among the most obvious (and least spoilery), but there were plenty of others. This added depth and gravitas to the main theme, and entwined with it so tightly that I can’t imagine the book without it.
I was riveted by the story and the worldbuilding from start to finish. I hovered over Camellia’s shoulder as she explored the secret corners of her world, finding new horrors to cast into the light at every turn. The pacing, at times, lagged, and I was a little let down by the lack of resolution at the end – this is definitely the first in a series, and it lacks its own sense of closure. But the prose and the world were so wonderful that I hardly noticed either of those issues until well after I’d finished it and begun pining for the next in the series.
I can’t wait to find out what lies in store for Camellia and her fellow Belles.
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
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