Belles (review)

Since her mother died a few years ago, fifteen-year-old Izzie and her grandmother have been taking care of each other; and Izzie feels loved and supported in their close-knit beachside town despite their lack of ready cash. When Grams' declining health forces Izzie's social worker to place Izzie with an estranged uncle, however, Izzie suddenly has a new life in a ritzy nearby neighborhood, and since her uncle is running for office, Izzie is publicly painted as a poster child of her uncle's charity, a Cinderella story of rags to riches. While the mean girls (including her cousin, Mira) at her posh new school are sweet to her face, they do everything they can to keep her at arm's length; then Brayden, the queen bee's long-time boyfriend, becomes interested in Izzie, and the gloves come off and the girls move into active sabotage mode. Izzie is a well-developed, sympathetic character; she's a stalwart survivor, keeping a level head despite her sudden immersion in a scene where you never wear the same $700 dress twice. Mira is also well drawn as a conflicted teen who has been ensnared too early into the social drama of the politically well-connected, and who as a result can't quite figure out how to be moral, loyal, and savvy all at the same time. Calonita does a masterful job of depicting the conflict of worlds between the classes, showing them both at their best and worst, though she does lean a little on the side of the boardwalk crowd rather than the country clubbers. Fans of Sarah Dessen and Abby McDonald will enjoy the enveloping realism of the emotions and the scene-setting as Izzie and Mira work out what it means to be friends as well as family.