“Didn’t you know, darlin’?” he drawled. “All the best saints are sinners.”
Renée Ahdieh, The Beautiful
Having absolutely loved this book, I was surprised, even shocked, at the numerous bad reviews on Goodreads. I’m honestly baffled, and I’m here in defense of The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh.
The Beautiful is what Twilight might have been if it had been written by a competent author, if Bella had a personality, and if Edward wasn’t an abusive creep. I unapologetically loathe Twilight, and it’s colored my feelings about the whole vampire genre. So when I picked up The Beautiful, I didn’t have high hopes. Mostly I just wanted something a little different, and I thought I’d give it a try. I definitely didn’t expect to love it the way I did. I devoured it.
Renée Ahdieh had me with this sentence from the first chapter –
“Night had seeped through the water, like a dark stain across organza.”
I remember thinking what a vivid description that was. I could see the lowering of the sun, the shadows spreading across the water. What’s more, we find out later that Celine, our protagonist, previously worked for one of the best dressmakers in Paris. That beautiful description of a stained organza is the kind of thing that would make sense to someone familiar with fabrics. Right away, we’re getting insight into the way Celine thinks.
Description is one of this novel’s strong points. The author paints a world with her words, and I found myself vividly imagining the New Orleans of Ahdieh’s fantasy. From the smell of beignets from a boulangerie to the trembling bougainvillea on a shuttered terrace, the author really brought New Orleans to life for me.
Additionally, I found the characters to be multi-layered, interesting, and likable. The trouble with YA novels is that the young women are often one-dimensional, thinking only about and existing only for their romantic partner. (I’m looking at you, Bella Swan, you bland, miserable waif.) In Celine Rousseau, we have a protagonist who, sure, has a love story, but also has her own stuff going on outside of her relationship. In this novel, we see Celine come to appreciate her mixed heritage, something she’d been taught to be ashamed of and to hide. We sit with her as she ponders sin, guilt, remorse, and absolution. We join her in coming to terms with the events that led to her fleeing Paris for New Orleans. On top of that, Celine has a skill set as a dressmaker that is valued and marketable. She sometimes accepts help from others, but she certainly doesn’t need anyone to make her way for her. She’s portrayed as competent, intelligent, and level-headed, even in the face of challenging circumstances, and she exercises a tremendous amount of agency.
Similarly, Bastien is a solid character in his own right, separate from his relationship with Celine. And he gets bonus points for not being a misogynist. One of the first things that draws Celine to him is the fact that he treats her as an equal. During their first meeting. he swears in front of her, and she ponders the fact that her father had always told her that curse words weren’t meant for female ears. But here’s a young man who curses in her presence, just as he would if she were a man. She’s appalled, but she also appreciates the fact that he doesn’t treat her with kid gloves. Throughout the novel, Bastien recognizes Celine’s strength and competence. He fights with her, he threatens her, but he never condescends to her or orders her around.
This is, in my opinion, what makes their relationship work. Because the author gives Celine and Bastien stories separate from one another, I am able to see why they like each other. Sometimes YA authors write about the protagonists as though they’re The Lover from Shakespeare’s The Seven Ages of a Man. (“And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eyebrow.”) We read about their feelings of love, usually ad nauseam, but we’re left completely clueless about what they actually like about one another, aside from their mutual physical attraction. Ahdieh doesn’t make that mistake with Celine and Bastien. They spend enough time together that we’re able to see clearly why they’re drawn to one another.
There are a pair of scenes that stick out to me as demonstrating this pretty well. Don’t worry, there’s nothing super important in these scenes, so no real spoilers here. In the beginning, Celine is sitting with her friends Pippa and Annabelle at a booth selling items they’ve made. One of the girls laments the fact that they’ve worked the whole day and haven’t sold much. Celine jokes that maybe they should try making their money at night. It’s a bawdy joke, and innocent Annabelle doesn’t get it, but it shows us that Celine has kind of a raunchy sense of humor. In a later scene, Celine meets Bastien, and they’re bantering. She poses the question “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” and Bastien remarks that the rooster must have come first. Celine is simultaneously surprised and delighted by the off-color joke, and gives a genuine laugh. These two scenes set us up to see Celine and Bastien as a pair. They’re both a little rough around the edges, with the same sense of irreverent humor. Ahdieh does this several times throughout the book, and it lends a lot of credibility to the relationship.
The world-building itself left a little to be desired. I feel like Ahdieh will need to explain a lot in the sequel, The Damned. There were definitely things that needed elaboration. Things that I still have questions about. But overall, I was satisfied with the answers I got, and I’m confident that more will be explained in The Damned.
I enjoyed the ending simply because it surprised me. Throughout the novel, there is a string of murders, with Celine as the thread that apparently links the victims together. She spends the whole novel trying to lure the murderer out of the shadows so she can confront him, and I spent the novel pretty confident I knew who the murderer was. It seemed obvious, but I was completely wrong. I love being caught off guard. The ending tied up most of the loose ends, but it left me with several more questions that I’m dying to have answered.
I also really appreciated the diversity of Ahdieh’s characters. New Orleans, as a southern port city, was a multi-ethnic and multi-racial place in the late 1800’s. But the author also doesn’t portray New Orleans as some sort of colorblind, post-racial utopia. There are several tense, racially charged scenes, specifically one in which some local boys are reluctant to do business with Bastien because he keeps company with people of various races. He lets them know, in no uncertain terms, that their racist sentiments are unwelcome, especially as he, himself, is of mixed heritage. Similarly, Arjun confronts several British characters with their ingrained imperialist attitudes, challenges their claims that they don’t benefit from a racial hierarchy, and chafes at the restrictions placed on him because he is Indian. I was glad that Ahdieh didn’t shy away from addressing the very real issue of race relations, even though it wasn’t the focus of her story.
There was just so much meat here, along with a truly fun story. I’m annoyed that my library doesn’t have The Damned yet, but considering it was just published at the beginning of July, I suppose I’ll have to cut them some slack. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on it as soon as I can.
Happy Reading!
