THE FORCE OF SUCH BEAUTY by Barbara Bourland - CrimeReads 'Best Books of the Year So Far'

CrimeReads | July 21, 2022

Barbara Bourland, The Force of Such Beauty (Dutton)

This is a fascinating novel about bodies, the way we use them, and the way we break them. It’s one of several works to come out this year concerned with the appropriation of female beauty by powerful men, and examines a harsh choice in the lives of women dubbed desirable by the patriarchal state: do you participate, or do you say no? But let’s backtrack here: what’s this book actually about? It’s about an olympic athlete failed by the same body that propelled her to success, who finds herself falling in love with the heir apparent of a small kingdom suspiciously similar to Monaco or Luxembourg, then falling under the sway of his powerful mother and ministers. She soon realizes her new life is just as regimented, and affords just as few choices, as her time training as an elite runner. Barbara Bourland is skilled at finding the noir in the everyday, and illustrating the mechanisms of control that keep us in our place.

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