The Friday 56: The Belles

The Friday 56 is a weekly blog meme hosted by Freda’s Voice. Join us every Friday and share an excerpt from a book you’ve been reading.

Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader.
*Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grab you.
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post here in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url. It’s that simple.

**Be sure to leave a link to your Friday 56 post in the comments!**

“With his love, Beauty birthed all the children of Orleans and spent her days making them look perfect and unique from one another. But she started spending more time with them, leaving her beloved in the sky alone for long spells of time. He called her home, but she was busy tending to their children. She’s always tell him, ‘Soon, I’ll come.’ She lost track of time. So finally, he sent storms and rain and lightning down in anger. The land flooded. Many died.”

Dhonielle Clayton’s The Belles utilizes the dystopian trope to comment on society’s obsession with beauty. Clayton’s writing draws the reader into this beautiful world and very carefully peels back its lovely facade, to reveal the ugliness hidden underneath. You can check out my review for this one here. Cover is linked to Goodreads.

From the Goodreads Synopsis:

      “Camellia Beauregard is a Belle. In the opulent world of Orléans, Belles are revered, for they control Beauty, and Beauty is a commodity coveted above all else. In Orléans, the people are born gray, they are born damned, and only with the help of a Belle and her talents can they transform and be made beautiful.
      But it’s not enough for Camellia to be just a Belle. She wants to be the favorite—the Belle chosen by the Queen of Orléans to live in the royal palace, to tend to the royal family and their court, to be recognized as the most talented Belle in the land. But once Camellia and her Belle sisters arrive at court, it becomes clear that being the favorite is not everything she always dreamed it would be. Behind the gilded palace walls live dark secrets, and Camellia soon learns that the very essence of her existence is a lie—that her powers are far greater, and could be more dangerous, than she ever imagined. And when the queen asks Camellia to risk her own life and help the ailing princess by using Belle powers in unintended ways, Camellia now faces an impossible decision.
      With the future of Orléans and its people at stake, Camellia must decide—save herself and her sisters and the way of the Belles—or resuscitate the princess, risk her own life, and change the ways of her world forever.”