Scan barcode
mariahistryingtoread's review against another edition
1.0
TW: Two characters commit suicide, one with a knife and one with poison; I discuss both at length at the end of the review.
Absolutely everything I said in my The Belles review can be applied to its sequel. I debated even writing a longer review as it would have been a whole lot easier to simply post a link to that and be done with the whole thing. Alas, I am nothing if not methodical.
Exactly like the first book, the first half is merely stalling for time. Rather than make more events to keep the story consistent pacing wise, Clayton opts to have the characters wile away, doing nothing whilst she withholds all serious plot points until she's ready to allow them to unfurl at which point it's far too little too late.
Their entire plan for revolution isn't even a plan. It's an outline. Find Charlotte is a goal, not an actionable procedure. Though the last book ends with Camille finding Edel who, if you remember, had been on the run for months at that point, it turns out Edel knows absolutely nothing more than Camille does. In fact Camille somehow knows more than Edel does. She totally missed the opportunity to start the story off with a bang by having Edel already be in the employ of the Iron Ladies. Instead the resistance mentioned in the synopsis doesn't even appear until 60% of the way in. 60% into what turned out to be a duology.
It was bad enough when I thought there were going to be three books, but finding out that the next book, if there even is one, is only going to take place in universe, not follow along the story we've seen so far was mind boggling. All that time flitting from safe house to safe house with no discernible way to achieve our goals was such a massive time suck. The fact that it wasn't done to leave room for the next book made the reading experience 1000x worse. Like all that page time wasted, and there wasn't even a purpose behind it? The answer really was just...poor writing? My mind was blown.
It takes more than 40% of the book to meet one single person - the fashion minister. And when I say 'it takes' you may be thinking in the interim they're working towards getting to him. Absolutely not. All they really have to do is smuggle onto a boat and then glamor themselves into a meeting. While there's a bit of shuffling around and hiding it is all hairography. If you pay attention there is no reason it needed to take as much page time as it did to do what is ultimately a fairly simple task. They have 7 days to find Charlotte and I swear half of it is sitting or sleeping on a boat.
The fashion minister essentially solves all their problems in the middle of the story. They have no money. He gives it to them. They have no way to get to their sister Valerie. He gets them into the tea house. They don't know where Charlotte is or even where to start looking. He knows what island she’s hiding on. They need to get to said island. He arranges passage.
There never is a point when they have to actually rely on their own wits or efforts. I don’t feel Camille or Edel for that matter are particularly clever or capable. Camille is especially ineffectual considering she’s supposed to be the key to unraveling Sophia’s web. She offers no new insights, inspires no new characters, and drives none of the story forward meaningfully. It always feels as if everything is happening to her rather than her doing anything; a poor choice in character direction when she is meant to be the last major opposition to Sophia’s reign.
This is related to worldbuilding being surface deep. Sophia is a cartoon villain not even appearing for a majority of the book. You hear about all her exploits, however, it never is anything that actually affects the story right now. Most of it is purely theoretical or hurts only her inner circle since she's not allowed to implement a lot of things until she's officially queen in 7 days. So a lot of it is only bogeyman fear mongering. The more secondhand tales I heard of her supposed atrocities the more disinterested I became.
Take her marked increase in cost for beauty treatments. This world uses its own currency system so I already don't know how much anything costs in comparison to the real world. Telling me that the rate is spiking means I know intellectually things are getting bad. Having people getting carted off to the new prison for not being beautiful enough despite the inability to pay being outside of their hands, or our ragtag group getting robbed blind by people they helped because circumstances are so dire or Camille secretly doing beauty treatments for the poor who had gone gray as an act of defiance would have shown me as well as emotionally invested me in the situation. As it was I did not care all that much because it always felt like these were things happening to other people far away who I didn’t care about.
The universe didn’t feel real on a practical level. We only ever were concerned about what happened to the super rich people or the super poor people. The everyday struggles of the average person was never explored. I have no idea how this society functions on a technical level which is a shame given how the middle class is often the backbone of any social movement. It made the revolution feel too small. Am I to believe that the Iron Ladies who seem to be only a few or so years old, numbering maybe 40 at most, are the sole pushback against the tightening beauty restrictions in the kingdom? There are hundreds of thousands of people in this kingdom. 40 insurgents is unbelievably, unrealistically low. Which brings me to my next point: where are the men in this equation?
In general women are held to a higher standard when it comes to looks as the world is deeply patriarchal. The problem is that Clayton has not taken into account the fact that the world she has created does not or rather should not function that way based on what she has told us. All people are held to certain aesthetic standards, only women are regularly prosecuted severely for it is true for us out in the real world.
It is not true in a world where nearly every aspect of society is dictated and upheld by women. Clayton’s attempt to create a feminist fight for the right to be ‘ugly’ runs counter to the matriarchal society she has crafted. Most of the cast, main or otherwise, are women. Women run essentially all major leadership positions. The only one run by a man is the fashion minister which still gave me pause because he’s a gay man which was giving me very ‘a gay man is equal to a woman’ vibes. The beauty standards are set forth directly by a woman - the queen. Men are an aside outside of three I can count off right now: the aforementioned fashion minister, Remy, and Auguste.
My point in bringing this up is that it’s a small indication of how messy the themes are. In our society beauty is based heavily on white, European conventions that originate from cisgender male ideas of attractiveness. Men use it as another way of forcing women to conform to their narrow definition of womanhood.
In the Belles!verse run primarily by women these standards come entirely from the women. Why would they create such high standards for themselves if they are the ones in power? In our world, men have warped it so that changing underwear more than once a week makes a man God’s gift to personal hygiene. In the Belles!verse why would women choose to police themselves so strictly with no higher/other authority governing them?
Here’s a common thought experiment for women when considering the scope of beauty standards: if you were raised disconnected from all of modern society would you still feel the desire to put on makeup? Or shave your legs? This isn’t to discount individual choice to do these things, it’s that these decisions do not exist in a vacuum. The reason women feel compelled to do these things is because they have been conditioned to view otherwise as unattractive. But, unattractive to who exactly? The fake man made up in your head? Therefore, even if you do say, pluck your eyebrows because you think furry eyebrows are unbecoming, if you look at it from a broader level you likely feel furry eyebrows are unbecoming at least in part due to women being socially punished for having thick ones. That’s not to say you should psychoanalyze all your choices, it’s just important to consider if you’re doing something because you genuinely want to or because you’ve fallen into the trap subconsciously.
Or look at teeth. In the US straight, white teeth are in vogue. In the UK having white or straight teeth isn’t a big deal. But, if you were to move from the UK to the US, your self esteem might take a hit because suddenly you’re unattractive for something that your entire life no one has ever commented on. No one is immune to social conditioning.
But social conditioning comes from somewhere. So while it makes sense that the women all feel the need to pursue more beauty work as a means of maintaining the status quo, it does not make any sense to me that historically they would have created such trappings in the first place. It's not that men don't police one another too - hello toxic masculinity - it’s more that in a women led society the default being to care more about appearances is far too close to 'women are biologically predisposed to vanity' rhetoric.
Now, let's say that this is merely a reflection of the fact that beauty is social currency and therefore, it is only logical that women in charge over time would continue to elevate its significance: this still leaves no explanation for why men are not held to the same or similar standards. If beauty is that important then it stands to reason there would be plenty of men fighting for extraneous beauty work the same as women. Yet, at every turn it’s made clear that men are not nearly as interested in it or seem perfectly content to languish in their lesser position because of it. Since men are equivalent to women in status in the Belles!verse it makes no sense that men are content to be considered less than considering women are constantly rallying against these restrictions in the real world. If men do have a problem with it, Clayton has written in absolutely no evidence to indicate as such. Men have no bearing on this society at all and you're supposed to just go with it.
Think of it this way, if women did not exist or were largely missing that would still have a major impact on culture as that lack of presence has influence. The absence of men not affecting anything is not realistic.
Plus the fundamental reason people get beauty treatments isn't even to feed their ego it’s because to be gray is painful. All the extra commentary about the pursuit of beauty is moot when you consider the fact that to be gray is inherently not an option for a majority of people from the get go. The Iron Ladies themselves even acknowledge that it’s not an easy decision. If I choose not to put on a full face of makeup it’s fairly easy to do seeing as I know it won’t kill me if I don’t.
The only reason men don’t have similar expectations levied on them is because the book is trying to use our patriarchal framework for a fantasy setting that is completely removed from our own. It doesn’t matter in fantasy normally because the default is to assume that it functions similarly to our own universe unless stated otherwise. Seriously, think about it: how often do you question sexism in something like A Song of Wraith and Ruins or Caraval even though it doesn’t technically need to exist since it’s supposed to be fantasy? It’s just an easy way of expanding the universe without effort on the author’s part since the reader can fill in the blanks. I’m not opposed to women being both oppressor and oppressed: you just have to explain to me how.
There were so many little things that continued to pile up the more I read.
Glamor is supposed to be this fancy new skill that the Belles were never intended to work as it is forbidden for Belles to change their own faces. It takes a lot out of the girls - namely Camille - as it takes time they don’t have to upkeep. Except they’re able to use it whenever necessary, however long they need to and it never fails at an inopportune moment.
Sophia, in her increasing paranoia, begins to roll out new inventive ways of monitoring the public. When they visit the fashion minister, who assuredly would have spyware watching him all the time due to events from the Belles, they launch into an explanation about why they’re there to see him. He has the good sense to tell them to wait to make sure none of his staff are listening in since he can’t trust all of them any more. But, then all they do afterwards is whisper? If Sophia is sending out fancy spyware wouldn’t it be able to pick up on whispering?
Continuing on the topic of Sophia, later in the book Camille glamors herself to sneak into the castle. On her first night she seeks out Remy who has been captured for treason. She breaks him out of custody and hides him in her room. In that same night she also manages to go see Arabella - Queen Celeste’s Belle from the first book - who is being used as a test subject for Sophia’s perverted experiments. Arabella commits suicide using this special potion Camille had made to kill the magic in their blood as a last resort if they couldn’t stop Sophia. Upon doing this, Camille devolves into screams of agony before her friend forces her back to her room.
One, If Sophia is as paranoid as Clayton says she is there's no way she wouldn't immediately suspect the new reptile trader who arrived literally that same day of having a hand in breaking out her prized prisoner or ‘killing’ her prized Belle. At this juncture in the book guests entering the palace have reached a standstill, and there is literally only one heavily guarded entrance inside.
Two, as previously mentioned Sophia's reach is apparently so far you can't mention her name even outside the kingdom because she's been installing spies and spyware everywhere. I'm intended to believe such a character wouldn’t have cameras or camera equivalent devices installed in Remy's dungeons or Arabella's room?
Three, even ignoring the camera thing, the palace is super heavily guarded yet after Camille screams in Arabella's rooms no one came looking at all AND there wasn't a search initiated until the morning afterwards. How did nobody hear or notice until hours later? They don’t do patrols every hour or something? Plus they don’t even question the ‘new reptile trader’ to see if she heard anything? Before she goes to see Arabella Camille is almost caught sneaking around due to Sophia’s teacup elephant following her in the halls whilst making noise. All the guards that chased her/the elephant down at that moment went where exactly?
The usage of Amber, Camille’s favorite sister, is maddening. She’s presented at the beginning to be a bit of a brat who can’t be trusted. Edel sees it. It’s implied Remy also sees it. Camille doesn’t because she’s set up to be blind to Amber’s faults as evidenced by events in the first book. Camille spends the entire book hoping to save all of her sisters and feels guilty about Amber as Amber is kidnapped very early on.
Come to find out, Amber actually sold them out. She arranged her own kidnapping and wanted to be the Favorite to Sophia again all along. In the same conversation we find Amber’s betrayal out, Sophia kills her so I guess Camille can’t be upset with her any more? The fact that Amber has clearly been helping Sophia carry out her nefarious deeds consensually (up until very recently) is swept under the rug. All for a hamfisted parallel with Princess Charlotte so that the narrative can justify not killing Sophia for her crimes. Since, Sophia is still Princess Charlotte’s sister like how Amber, regardless of her betrayal, was still Camille’s.
Except that doesn't work because it happened too close together. Plus, it was painfully obvious Amber was a traitor the entire time so I was itching for a real villain reveal. I wanted Camille to get some much needed character development from this deceit. Instead, she learned nothing at all. She mourned Amber the same as if Amber had done nothing wrong which if I was one of her other sisters I would have been majorly insulted by. She constantly says that she loves all her sisters the same, even pushes back against Edel telling her that they all saw her obvious favoritism, only to love Amber best after this girl helped Sophia begin experimenting on BABIES? There’s not even a redemption arc. Camille just doesn’t care. I get family is complicated, and I don’t expect her to just stop loving Amber, but to not even have her be conflicted?
Speaking of sisters, there were too many. Camille simply could not prove to me she cared about so many peripheral characters in depth. I couldn’t recall what they looked like or what their names even were. I had no idea what their personalities were. Camille couldn’t even muster up enough memories for all of them to make me feel like they were close.
It’s difficult to flesh out a large cast so I have sympathy for Clayton. But, that makes me wonder why she added so many if it would be so difficult to keep track of them. She didn’t even seem interested in them herself seeing as she didn’t bother updating us on any of them aside from Edel in the epilogue. The book would have benefited from being dual or multi POV.
Suicide is used as a convenient plot device. The characters that commit suicide don't matter and it felt really exploitative to use something so emotionally charged so casually with little consideration paid to the actual emotional blowback from said act. As a reader I cared more about the idea of suicide as I'm aware of how awful their respective situations must have been for them to seek it out vs the actual characters in front of me committing suicide because the characters are just tools not three dimensional human beings. I don't care about Arabella or Valerie and don't feel sad that they as individuals are now lost. I only care that life has been lost, period. Clayton relies entirely on my empathy to bridge the gap rather than using her writing to develop the characters so it'll come naturally. The sole reason these two characters commit suicide is to provide manufactured obstacles to something the main character wants to do.
Believe me, I could go on, but I've run out of space so I’ll leave it here: Don’t read this book.
Absolutely everything I said in my The Belles review can be applied to its sequel. I debated even writing a longer review as it would have been a whole lot easier to simply post a link to that and be done with the whole thing. Alas, I am nothing if not methodical.
Exactly like the first book, the first half is merely stalling for time. Rather than make more events to keep the story consistent pacing wise, Clayton opts to have the characters wile away, doing nothing whilst she withholds all serious plot points until she's ready to allow them to unfurl at which point it's far too little too late.
Their entire plan for revolution isn't even a plan. It's an outline. Find Charlotte is a goal, not an actionable procedure. Though the last book ends with Camille finding Edel who, if you remember, had been on the run for months at that point, it turns out Edel knows absolutely nothing more than Camille does. In fact Camille somehow knows more than Edel does. She totally missed the opportunity to start the story off with a bang by having Edel already be in the employ of the Iron Ladies. Instead the resistance mentioned in the synopsis doesn't even appear until 60% of the way in. 60% into what turned out to be a duology.
It was bad enough when I thought there were going to be three books, but finding out that the next book, if there even is one, is only going to take place in universe, not follow along the story we've seen so far was mind boggling. All that time flitting from safe house to safe house with no discernible way to achieve our goals was such a massive time suck. The fact that it wasn't done to leave room for the next book made the reading experience 1000x worse. Like all that page time wasted, and there wasn't even a purpose behind it? The answer really was just...poor writing? My mind was blown.
It takes more than 40% of the book to meet one single person - the fashion minister. And when I say 'it takes' you may be thinking in the interim they're working towards getting to him. Absolutely not. All they really have to do is smuggle onto a boat and then glamor themselves into a meeting. While there's a bit of shuffling around and hiding it is all hairography. If you pay attention there is no reason it needed to take as much page time as it did to do what is ultimately a fairly simple task. They have 7 days to find Charlotte and I swear half of it is sitting or sleeping on a boat.
The fashion minister essentially solves all their problems in the middle of the story. They have no money. He gives it to them. They have no way to get to their sister Valerie. He gets them into the tea house. They don't know where Charlotte is or even where to start looking. He knows what island she’s hiding on. They need to get to said island. He arranges passage.
There never is a point when they have to actually rely on their own wits or efforts. I don’t feel Camille or Edel for that matter are particularly clever or capable. Camille is especially ineffectual considering she’s supposed to be the key to unraveling Sophia’s web. She offers no new insights, inspires no new characters, and drives none of the story forward meaningfully. It always feels as if everything is happening to her rather than her doing anything; a poor choice in character direction when she is meant to be the last major opposition to Sophia’s reign.
This is related to worldbuilding being surface deep. Sophia is a cartoon villain not even appearing for a majority of the book. You hear about all her exploits, however, it never is anything that actually affects the story right now. Most of it is purely theoretical or hurts only her inner circle since she's not allowed to implement a lot of things until she's officially queen in 7 days. So a lot of it is only bogeyman fear mongering. The more secondhand tales I heard of her supposed atrocities the more disinterested I became.
Take her marked increase in cost for beauty treatments. This world uses its own currency system so I already don't know how much anything costs in comparison to the real world. Telling me that the rate is spiking means I know intellectually things are getting bad. Having people getting carted off to the new prison for not being beautiful enough despite the inability to pay being outside of their hands, or our ragtag group getting robbed blind by people they helped because circumstances are so dire or Camille secretly doing beauty treatments for the poor who had gone gray as an act of defiance would have shown me as well as emotionally invested me in the situation. As it was I did not care all that much because it always felt like these were things happening to other people far away who I didn’t care about.
The universe didn’t feel real on a practical level. We only ever were concerned about what happened to the super rich people or the super poor people. The everyday struggles of the average person was never explored. I have no idea how this society functions on a technical level which is a shame given how the middle class is often the backbone of any social movement. It made the revolution feel too small. Am I to believe that the Iron Ladies who seem to be only a few or so years old, numbering maybe 40 at most, are the sole pushback against the tightening beauty restrictions in the kingdom? There are hundreds of thousands of people in this kingdom. 40 insurgents is unbelievably, unrealistically low. Which brings me to my next point: where are the men in this equation?
In general women are held to a higher standard when it comes to looks as the world is deeply patriarchal. The problem is that Clayton has not taken into account the fact that the world she has created does not or rather should not function that way based on what she has told us. All people are held to certain aesthetic standards, only women are regularly prosecuted severely for it is true for us out in the real world.
It is not true in a world where nearly every aspect of society is dictated and upheld by women. Clayton’s attempt to create a feminist fight for the right to be ‘ugly’ runs counter to the matriarchal society she has crafted. Most of the cast, main or otherwise, are women. Women run essentially all major leadership positions. The only one run by a man is the fashion minister which still gave me pause because he’s a gay man which was giving me very ‘a gay man is equal to a woman’ vibes. The beauty standards are set forth directly by a woman - the queen. Men are an aside outside of three I can count off right now: the aforementioned fashion minister, Remy, and Auguste.
My point in bringing this up is that it’s a small indication of how messy the themes are. In our society beauty is based heavily on white, European conventions that originate from cisgender male ideas of attractiveness. Men use it as another way of forcing women to conform to their narrow definition of womanhood.
In the Belles!verse run primarily by women these standards come entirely from the women. Why would they create such high standards for themselves if they are the ones in power? In our world, men have warped it so that changing underwear more than once a week makes a man God’s gift to personal hygiene. In the Belles!verse why would women choose to police themselves so strictly with no higher/other authority governing them?
Here’s a common thought experiment for women when considering the scope of beauty standards: if you were raised disconnected from all of modern society would you still feel the desire to put on makeup? Or shave your legs? This isn’t to discount individual choice to do these things, it’s that these decisions do not exist in a vacuum. The reason women feel compelled to do these things is because they have been conditioned to view otherwise as unattractive. But, unattractive to who exactly? The fake man made up in your head? Therefore, even if you do say, pluck your eyebrows because you think furry eyebrows are unbecoming, if you look at it from a broader level you likely feel furry eyebrows are unbecoming at least in part due to women being socially punished for having thick ones. That’s not to say you should psychoanalyze all your choices, it’s just important to consider if you’re doing something because you genuinely want to or because you’ve fallen into the trap subconsciously.
Or look at teeth. In the US straight, white teeth are in vogue. In the UK having white or straight teeth isn’t a big deal. But, if you were to move from the UK to the US, your self esteem might take a hit because suddenly you’re unattractive for something that your entire life no one has ever commented on. No one is immune to social conditioning.
But social conditioning comes from somewhere. So while it makes sense that the women all feel the need to pursue more beauty work as a means of maintaining the status quo, it does not make any sense to me that historically they would have created such trappings in the first place. It's not that men don't police one another too - hello toxic masculinity - it’s more that in a women led society the default being to care more about appearances is far too close to 'women are biologically predisposed to vanity' rhetoric.
Now, let's say that this is merely a reflection of the fact that beauty is social currency and therefore, it is only logical that women in charge over time would continue to elevate its significance: this still leaves no explanation for why men are not held to the same or similar standards. If beauty is that important then it stands to reason there would be plenty of men fighting for extraneous beauty work the same as women. Yet, at every turn it’s made clear that men are not nearly as interested in it or seem perfectly content to languish in their lesser position because of it. Since men are equivalent to women in status in the Belles!verse it makes no sense that men are content to be considered less than considering women are constantly rallying against these restrictions in the real world. If men do have a problem with it, Clayton has written in absolutely no evidence to indicate as such. Men have no bearing on this society at all and you're supposed to just go with it.
Think of it this way, if women did not exist or were largely missing that would still have a major impact on culture as that lack of presence has influence. The absence of men not affecting anything is not realistic.
Plus the fundamental reason people get beauty treatments isn't even to feed their ego it’s because to be gray is painful. All the extra commentary about the pursuit of beauty is moot when you consider the fact that to be gray is inherently not an option for a majority of people from the get go. The Iron Ladies themselves even acknowledge that it’s not an easy decision. If I choose not to put on a full face of makeup it’s fairly easy to do seeing as I know it won’t kill me if I don’t.
The only reason men don’t have similar expectations levied on them is because the book is trying to use our patriarchal framework for a fantasy setting that is completely removed from our own. It doesn’t matter in fantasy normally because the default is to assume that it functions similarly to our own universe unless stated otherwise. Seriously, think about it: how often do you question sexism in something like A Song of Wraith and Ruins or Caraval even though it doesn’t technically need to exist since it’s supposed to be fantasy? It’s just an easy way of expanding the universe without effort on the author’s part since the reader can fill in the blanks. I’m not opposed to women being both oppressor and oppressed: you just have to explain to me how.
There were so many little things that continued to pile up the more I read.
Glamor is supposed to be this fancy new skill that the Belles were never intended to work as it is forbidden for Belles to change their own faces. It takes a lot out of the girls - namely Camille - as it takes time they don’t have to upkeep. Except they’re able to use it whenever necessary, however long they need to and it never fails at an inopportune moment.
Sophia, in her increasing paranoia, begins to roll out new inventive ways of monitoring the public. When they visit the fashion minister, who assuredly would have spyware watching him all the time due to events from the Belles, they launch into an explanation about why they’re there to see him. He has the good sense to tell them to wait to make sure none of his staff are listening in since he can’t trust all of them any more. But, then all they do afterwards is whisper? If Sophia is sending out fancy spyware wouldn’t it be able to pick up on whispering?
Continuing on the topic of Sophia, later in the book Camille glamors herself to sneak into the castle. On her first night she seeks out Remy who has been captured for treason. She breaks him out of custody and hides him in her room. In that same night she also manages to go see Arabella - Queen Celeste’s Belle from the first book - who is being used as a test subject for Sophia’s perverted experiments. Arabella commits suicide using this special potion Camille had made to kill the magic in their blood as a last resort if they couldn’t stop Sophia. Upon doing this, Camille devolves into screams of agony before her friend forces her back to her room.
One, If Sophia is as paranoid as Clayton says she is there's no way she wouldn't immediately suspect the new reptile trader who arrived literally that same day of having a hand in breaking out her prized prisoner or ‘killing’ her prized Belle. At this juncture in the book guests entering the palace have reached a standstill, and there is literally only one heavily guarded entrance inside.
Two, as previously mentioned Sophia's reach is apparently so far you can't mention her name even outside the kingdom because she's been installing spies and spyware everywhere. I'm intended to believe such a character wouldn’t have cameras or camera equivalent devices installed in Remy's dungeons or Arabella's room?
Three, even ignoring the camera thing, the palace is super heavily guarded yet after Camille screams in Arabella's rooms no one came looking at all AND there wasn't a search initiated until the morning afterwards. How did nobody hear or notice until hours later? They don’t do patrols every hour or something? Plus they don’t even question the ‘new reptile trader’ to see if she heard anything? Before she goes to see Arabella Camille is almost caught sneaking around due to Sophia’s teacup elephant following her in the halls whilst making noise. All the guards that chased her/the elephant down at that moment went where exactly?
The usage of Amber, Camille’s favorite sister, is maddening. She’s presented at the beginning to be a bit of a brat who can’t be trusted. Edel sees it. It’s implied Remy also sees it. Camille doesn’t because she’s set up to be blind to Amber’s faults as evidenced by events in the first book. Camille spends the entire book hoping to save all of her sisters and feels guilty about Amber as Amber is kidnapped very early on.
Come to find out, Amber actually sold them out. She arranged her own kidnapping and wanted to be the Favorite to Sophia again all along. In the same conversation we find Amber’s betrayal out, Sophia kills her so I guess Camille can’t be upset with her any more? The fact that Amber has clearly been helping Sophia carry out her nefarious deeds consensually (up until very recently) is swept under the rug. All for a hamfisted parallel with Princess Charlotte so that the narrative can justify not killing Sophia for her crimes. Since, Sophia is still Princess Charlotte’s sister like how Amber, regardless of her betrayal, was still Camille’s.
Except that doesn't work because it happened too close together. Plus, it was painfully obvious Amber was a traitor the entire time so I was itching for a real villain reveal. I wanted Camille to get some much needed character development from this deceit. Instead, she learned nothing at all. She mourned Amber the same as if Amber had done nothing wrong which if I was one of her other sisters I would have been majorly insulted by. She constantly says that she loves all her sisters the same, even pushes back against Edel telling her that they all saw her obvious favoritism, only to love Amber best after this girl helped Sophia begin experimenting on BABIES? There’s not even a redemption arc. Camille just doesn’t care. I get family is complicated, and I don’t expect her to just stop loving Amber, but to not even have her be conflicted?
Speaking of sisters, there were too many. Camille simply could not prove to me she cared about so many peripheral characters in depth. I couldn’t recall what they looked like or what their names even were. I had no idea what their personalities were. Camille couldn’t even muster up enough memories for all of them to make me feel like they were close.
It’s difficult to flesh out a large cast so I have sympathy for Clayton. But, that makes me wonder why she added so many if it would be so difficult to keep track of them. She didn’t even seem interested in them herself seeing as she didn’t bother updating us on any of them aside from Edel in the epilogue. The book would have benefited from being dual or multi POV.
Suicide is used as a convenient plot device. The characters that commit suicide don't matter and it felt really exploitative to use something so emotionally charged so casually with little consideration paid to the actual emotional blowback from said act. As a reader I cared more about the idea of suicide as I'm aware of how awful their respective situations must have been for them to seek it out vs the actual characters in front of me committing suicide because the characters are just tools not three dimensional human beings. I don't care about Arabella or Valerie and don't feel sad that they as individuals are now lost. I only care that life has been lost, period. Clayton relies entirely on my empathy to bridge the gap rather than using her writing to develop the characters so it'll come naturally. The sole reason these two characters commit suicide is to provide manufactured obstacles to something the main character wants to do.
Believe me, I could go on, but I've run out of space so I’ll leave it here: Don’t read this book.
roannasylver's review against another edition
4.0
Still 4 stars (because beautiful and emotionally devastating writing) but not quite as high a 4 stars as the first one... I’m still formulating thoughts, but either the plot kind of got a bit disjointed in the last 1/3 or so, or I did (which is more than possible; brainfog is very real).
Like a couple people died and I’m not sure exactly... why. Or about some other peoples’ motivations, which kind of seemed to make turns that didn’t make much sense to me - BUT, again, all of this could just be my own brain-fail. As spoons decline, so do braincells. Also it looks like there’s going to be a third book so I’m assuming a lot of this will be answered! Looking forward to that!
Like a couple people died and I’m not sure exactly... why. Or about some other peoples’ motivations, which kind of seemed to make turns that didn’t make much sense to me - BUT, again, all of this could just be my own brain-fail. As spoons decline, so do braincells. Also it looks like there’s going to be a third book so I’m assuming a lot of this will be answered! Looking forward to that!
akookieforyou's review against another edition
2.0
As much as it saddens me, I must say how disappointed I am with this sequel. It feels inferior to book one in almost every way possible. The Belles took an overused plot idea (futuristic/alternate reality dystopian world, where one special person starts a revolution), and added a super unique and fascinating twist to it. I love the fact that the world of this series is so beautiful on the outside, while harboring some dark and twisted mysteries underneath. And it's very upsetting that this book went down the typical route that all sequels of this genre go down, making everything annoying and just plain boring. The romance was blander than Raisin Bran, the side characters gave me a headache, and the ending was over too quick. Overall, this was a big struggle to finish, and I'm not sure if I'll bother with any more books set in this world.
nervesofscared's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
dragonwriter's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
After defying Sophia and waking Princess Charlotte, Camellia, Amber, and Remy are on the run to avoid her wrath. Sophia is quick to take advantage of their departure, declare her mother and sister dead, and schedule her coronation in seven days, effectively securing the throne. The Belles and Remy meet up with Edel in the Spice Isles and try to plan how to put the still-living Charlotte on the throne. While they plot and plan, they learn new things about the Belles, including new abilities and new allies, but Edel suspects that Amber has been corrupted by her time in Sophia’s court. As the coronation gets closer, Sophia closes in, picking off Camellia’s allies one by one, while making stricter and harsher beauty laws. Desperate to save her sisters and her home, Camellia makes a reckless gamble and moves to face off with the mad Queen of Orleans.
Sophia made an excellent villain, and the narrator did a wonderful job of portraying her cruel simpering. Camellia really suffers in this book, losing her sisters one by one until she’s all alone and only has to rely on herself, but I like how she faces Sophia alone at the end. The little dragons were an adorable addition to the group, and I loved them! But Edel annoyed the crap out of me! I was more or less happy when she was captured and I didn’t have to put up with her anymore. Amber’s further betrayal seemed a little strange to me, but her ambition was always strong and powerful, so it does play to her character. And I KNEW that August would get a redemption, though I’m glad Camellia didn’t fully forgive him and had her happy ending with Remy. Overall, I enjoyed this book, but since book 3 is about Edel, I’m skipping it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Body shaming, and Suicide
Minor: Slavery
izzys_internet_bookshelf's review against another edition
3.0
3.5/5
I really liked this book. I feel like it did a great job closing the story but I can't wait to see what's next for the characters.
I really liked this book. I feel like it did a great job closing the story but I can't wait to see what's next for the characters.
honeybeeg's review against another edition
4.0
This is a fun story. With a complex world, unpredictable characters, and adventure it stays interesting page after page. Again, I couldn’t set this book down and devoured it as quickly as I could. A great sequel to the first novel and I throughly enjoyed the continuation of the adventure.
maryadaley's review against another edition
4.0
This book perfectly wrapped up the chaotic storyline of “The Belles” while also raising plenty of its own questions about politics, norms, and beauty
therealbel's review against another edition
3.0
I loved the first book in this series. This one felt... less meaty... it wasn’t bad it just wasn’t excellent... :/
laura_cs's review against another edition
5.0
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The Everlasting Rose is a brilliant follow-up to The Belles!
After narrowly escaping with her life along with her sister, Amber, and former palace guard, Remy, and reuniting with Edel, Camille is still not out of danger as Princess Sophia gets closer and closer to the throne--and completely enslaving the Belles. Old friends make appearances, and lead to new allies in the goal of making sure that Sophia never becomes queen and that the newly reawakened Charlotte is rightfully crowned instead.
Dhonielle Clayton's prose is phenomenal with lush descriptions, intriguing characters, and many, many twists and turns. Readers of the first book, The Belles, will be satisfied with the ending but also somewhat devastated at the loss of more books about this unique, vivid world and amazing cast.
As a side note, this duology also contains a power-hungry and devious villain who is perhaps one of the most terrifying to ever exist. So, recommending this duology to readers who enjoy horror would not be a mistake.
The Everlasting Rose is a brilliant follow-up to The Belles!
After narrowly escaping with her life along with her sister, Amber, and former palace guard, Remy, and reuniting with Edel, Camille is still not out of danger as Princess Sophia gets closer and closer to the throne--and completely enslaving the Belles. Old friends make appearances, and lead to new allies in the goal of making sure that Sophia never becomes queen and that the newly reawakened Charlotte is rightfully crowned instead.
Dhonielle Clayton's prose is phenomenal with lush descriptions, intriguing characters, and many, many twists and turns. Readers of the first book, The Belles, will be satisfied with the ending but also somewhat devastated at the loss of more books about this unique, vivid world and amazing cast.
As a side note, this duology also contains a power-hungry and devious villain who is perhaps one of the most terrifying to ever exist. So, recommending this duology to readers who enjoy horror would not be a mistake.