The Beautiful Ones

This is not a book I would have normally picked up. I'm not typically a fan of romance, of historical fiction (even the alternate universe kind that this one is), and stories about manners and etiquette often bore me. And yet, The Beautiful Ones was the most enjoyable read I've had in ages. I became so emotionally invested, that by the time the climax arrived I was stamping my feet with excitement and trying not to startle the other people sitting by the pool where I was reading.

Which is interesting considering that The Beautiful Ones is an emotionally powerful song strung together with quiet, understated notes. This is not a story about love at first sight, its not about two people immediately swept away by everlasting love. Its about two people who are inextricably connected, but have a remarkable amount of growing to do before they can love each other in the right way. Hector is a driven theater performer consumed with an infatuation with a woman who he was engaged to years ago, and seizes an opportunity to get close to her again by courting her husband's young cousin, Antonina. In the process he realizes what a foolish thing he is doing, and that Antonina, a young woman who is in many ways the polar opposite of the object of his obsession, has a value and beauty all her own.

I don't think I've related to two characters on opposite sides of a situation as I have with Hector and Nina. I know exactly what Hector means when he describes what its like to be so consumed with the idea of a person that it becomes a part of who you are. I was startled when I saw Nina doing the same thing I did when I was trying to rid someone from my mind - repeating their name habitually in an attempt to make the sound mean something else. These are two very honestly-written characters. They are distinct, flawed and endearing but also deeply relatable, and the same can be said for the story's antagonist.

Throughout the book Hector's once-love, Valerie, evolves from a complex woman forced to make a terrible decision, to an outright wrath-inducing villain. This isn't a simple case of pitting two women against each other - one shallow, vain and superficial while the other is more “real”- but rather the ugliness of a system that uses women as bartering chips and the choices a person is left with when they are a part of it. Because for all of Valerie's fury and pettiness, she had a choice. She had many choices - she could have taken the risk and waited for Hector, she could have decided to care for the husband her family chose for her instead of resenting him for not being the man she turned away, she could have supported other women so that they could have more options and more happiness than she was allowed. She did none of the those things, instead she boiled herself in anger and self-hatred until the only thing she had to offer anyone was bitterness. By the end of the book, Valerie is easy to hate, but she's also easy to understand, which makes her all the more effective as a villain.

Oh right, and then there's that business about telekinesis. There's also the fact that even though this setting looks a hell of a lot like 19th-century France, its not actually France and this isn't our world. It's a world where you can go to the theater and watch a man actually levitate things with his mind, and no one talks about Paris but rather Loisail. Ultimately, the science fiction of The Beautiful Ones is much like the pretty gowns that the women wear, and Nina's love for insects and the natural world - it adds flavor and detail to the story, and does have a role in the climax and in Nina's growth as a character, but its far from the central focus. This treatment takes the story from science fiction to magical realism. Not the same unruly, unpredictable magical realism that defined the genre, but rather in the idea that magic is intensely, mundanely normal. Neither Hector or Nina's abilities are ever viewed as a threat, merely a curiosity. Hector can levitate himself on mirrors and turn a glass full of water over in the air, but still no one thinks “Hm, maybe I shouldn't start a fight with this guy.”

Instead, the presence of telekinesis serves as a way to connect our main characters, but also as a means of illustrating the limitations of the upper class. To the aristocracy of this setting the only things that matter are money and appearances. Love, happiness, even personal growth and satisfaction are useless sentiments, so its no wonder that there's little place for superpowers. Their only issue with Nina's use of her ability is that it will drive suitors away, but otherwise no one considers that they shouldn't back a woman into a corner when she can break all the windows in the house with her mind. Clearly, no one in this universe has seen Carrie. For these people, it never occurs to them that someone from a lower class or disenfranchised group could ever have power over them. It's a brilliant, perplexing and absolutely wonderful take on genre fiction. All that said, I still wish Nina had given Valerie at least one telekinetic smack in the mouth.

I loved this book. The Beautiful Ones carries you confidently and easily through an emotional arc that is satisfying and exciting, despite its mostly calm waters. Its most thrilling and climactic moments have a way of sneaking up on you, so I wouldn't recommend this to someone looking for a fantastical roller coaster. Rather, its for anyone looking to be swept off their feet in a way that you don't even realize your feet are leaving the ground.