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drgnlv 's review for:
The Belles
by Dhonielle Clayton
Overall, this book was pretty solid. I was not hugely entertained by it, though it did have its good moments, particularly in the middle. The beginning is slow to build and the ending has a slap-dash feel, as if the author was more concerned with constantly increasing the stakes than with telling a story that made sense. The absolute worst part of the book, which knocked that second star off for me, is .
This book has a villain who is clearly unhinged and yet also apparently so powerful that no one can say "No" to her. This leads to the "good" characters doing bad things which they blame the villain for constantly. They take no responsibility over what they're doing. Before we even get the first scene with the villain punishing someone for disobeying, we have the main character doing awful things because she was "forced" to do it. I.e. she was told to and then she did it. >:( The main character is powerful. The villain has no power EXCEPT WHAT PEOPLE GIVE HER. Not once in the whole book was I convinced that the villain was actually a force to be reckoned with. She was just a spoiled child who people needed to say "No" to more often. Or honestly just locked up or something. Not even the Queen, the fricken ruler of the country, did a single thing to stop the villain at all. Since the villain was inherently powerless, everything the protagonist did to please her was, to my mind, the protagonist's fault. Yet the protagonist never saw it this way and so the story comes out like a poor-me for someone complicit in crimes. A real-world comparison would be like Nazi soldiers who put women and children into gas chambers because they were told to, and then we're supposed to feel bad for the Nazi's, not the women and children.
The reason I am not giving this book an even lower rating is because it had a beautiful magic system, world, and depiction of court intrigue. I think the larger story about the Belles was inventive and original. If it didn't have this poor-me mentality with it or the rushing at the end, it would have been a really good book, so I don't want to ignore that. I may or may not read the next book in the series, depending on what it is about. I definitely want to see some personal responsibility and remorse from the main character in the next book.
Spoiler
how the main character literally kills a person (and possibly allows another one to die?) but is only distraught over the ramifications of the murder, rather than the action itself. She blames Sophia for "forcing" her to kill someone and does not even appear sad about it for more than maybe a second. To make it worse, the character is at least bisexual, though we only see her with a woman in the story, hence all the comments about the problematic #killyourgays trope in this book. The fact that the main character actually takes no responsibility for what she's done and we're meant to hate Sophia for what happened instead, makes the whole situation extremely ickyThis book has a villain who is clearly unhinged and yet also apparently so powerful that no one can say "No" to her. This leads to the "good" characters doing bad things which they blame the villain for constantly. They take no responsibility over what they're doing. Before we even get the first scene with the villain punishing someone for disobeying, we have the main character doing awful things because she was "forced" to do it. I.e. she was told to and then she did it. >:( The main character is powerful. The villain has no power EXCEPT WHAT PEOPLE GIVE HER. Not once in the whole book was I convinced that the villain was actually a force to be reckoned with. She was just a spoiled child who people needed to say "No" to more often. Or honestly just locked up or something. Not even the Queen, the fricken ruler of the country, did a single thing to stop the villain at all. Since the villain was inherently powerless, everything the protagonist did to please her was, to my mind, the protagonist's fault. Yet the protagonist never saw it this way and so the story comes out like a poor-me for someone complicit in crimes. A real-world comparison would be like Nazi soldiers who put women and children into gas chambers because they were told to, and then we're supposed to feel bad for the Nazi's, not the women and children.
The reason I am not giving this book an even lower rating is because it had a beautiful magic system, world, and depiction of court intrigue. I think the larger story about the Belles was inventive and original. If it didn't have this poor-me mentality with it or the rushing at the end, it would have been a really good book, so I don't want to ignore that. I may or may not read the next book in the series, depending on what it is about. I definitely want to see some personal responsibility and remorse from the main character in the next book.