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TITLE: Belle Epoque
AUTHOR: Elizabeth Ross
GENRE: YA Historical Fiction
PUBLISHED: 2013, Delacorte BFYR; Hardcover, 336 pages
Maud Pichon is destitute and in need of a means to support herself in the glittering metropolis of Paris. When she answers an ad posted by the Durandeau Agency, she isn’t shocked to find out that her new employer is in the business of selling ways to enhance beauty; after all, beauty is a prime Parisian commodity. What does shock her is the fact that the agency’s aim is to enhance beauty by contrasting it with ugliness. Plain girls like Maud are hired out to clients in need of a foil — someone whose unremarkable appearance will make their own best qualities look even better by comparison.
There were several factors that made Belle Epoque unique for me — things that helped it stand out from the piles and piles of new YA releases this summer. I can’t help but appreciate the ways in which this book pleasantly surprised me. Set against a vividly realized late-1800′s Paris (during the eponymous “beautiful era”), Maud’s story calls to question the meaning of beauty, but also the power of friendship to bring people together despite the differences between them.
This is kind of sad, but I read so much YA these days that I’ve started to become just a wee bit paranoid. When I start a new book, every last one of my bookish senses is in overdrive, trying to sniff out potential love triangles and other such horrible YA pitfalls. I’m happy to say that my paranoia proved unfounded here. A love triangle might have been possible, but never came to be. And the plot was wide open for the author to maneuver us all into a sickening mess of too much romance and too little substance. Maud is a vulnerable, impressionable character from the very first page who was at high risk for falling into all of the typical traps authors like to set for their YA heroines. But you know what? This time, there were no traps to spring.
Mother Nature is not democratic. Look at the orchid compared with the dandelion: one exotic and rare, the other a common weed… And so with beauty. Some have an advantage, some a cross to bear. Some just fade into the background, forever plain and obscure — invisible, inconsequential.
Such is the role of a repoussoir, and when Maud Pichon finds herself in this unusual line of employment, it’s a difficult and humiliating position indeed. The main purpose of a repoussoir is to repel. They are hired by rich women and girls so that their ugliness will make the client’s beauty shine twice as bright. It’s the kind of job that leaves your self esteem in tatters on the floor, and Maud has enough problems as it is. She ran away from her tiny village and domineering father, arriving in Paris with nothing to her name. She has no choice but to work, and this is the work she’s found. Honestly, I felt pretty terrible for Maud in the beginning. I can’t even imagine having to take up this profession. While she wasn’t the kind of heroine that immediately snagged my attention, the spark in her eventually caught fire and I ended up identifying with her determination to be independent. But she was definitely a flawed character, and I don’t think I would have liked her if not for her friendship with Isabelle.
Unlikely friendships always make me happy. I love it when two people from completely different backgrounds, with all the odds against them, still manage to connect with one another in a meaningful way. When Maud is hired by the wealthy, beautiful and ambitious Countess to serve as her debutante daughter’s foil during the Season, I didn’t really know what to expect. Isabelle was cold and a bit stereotypically rebellious to start out with, while Maud was this blank slate that I had only the most shallow impressions of. But when they’re together, Maud and Isabelle really came through as characters. Each girl’s personality peeled back in layers, and I was so glad to see that there was more to them than what I saw on the surface. Maud was originally hired to reflect Isabelle’s light and make her even more alluring, but actually it became an even exchange. Maud set a part of Isabelle free, so that she could be her true self. In turn, Isabelle helped Maud realize what she wanted to be and who she was. Their friendship went deeper than appearances and societal expectations. I really loved that the book focused on these two girls and the bond they shared.
I have to say, though, that there was this stretch of storyline that just infuriated me to the point that it affected my enjoyment of the book. To put it plainly, there’s a point when Maud morphs into this complete and utter douchebag and all I wanted to do was deck her one for good measure. I mean, she was TERRIBLE. I absolutely loathed her and I hated what happened to her character during those chapters. My opinion of her took such a drastic downturn that I actually cheered when it all came back to bite her in the ass. You’re probably not supposed to cheer when the protagonist suffers for her mistakes, but boy did Maud deserve it. And I kind of felt like she recovered from it all too easily, in the end. I wanted more lasting consequences. (I sound just like a strict schoolteacher right now hahaha.) I’m not saying I didn’t want a happy ending, but I really felt like Maud’s actions and general awfulness deserved heavier consequences. I realize that this had to happen for character development… and yet it still bugged me. Not to the point that I severely downrated the book or anything, because that would’ve been unfair of me, but enough that my enthusiasm dimmed a bit.
RATING: 4/5
Belle Epoque explores the implications of beauty and the many ways in which someone can be beautiful — or the opposite. It was refreshing to read a YA novel that didn’t constantly inundate me with sappy romantic conflicts and shallow characters. In fact, this is a book where friendship takes precedence over romance, and it’s even more admirable because it features a positive, supportive friendship between two girls who discover that they have more in common than anyone might have guessed. It’s a book with a lot of commentary on how much in life is based on, and affected by, appearances. The historical setting is brilliantly rendered, and while Maud was not my favorite protagonist ever, her friendship with Isabelle made up for it. I highly recommend this for anyone looking for a YA read that defies expectations.