Belle Epoque by Elizabeth Ross (review)

Determined that there's more in her future than merely becoming the butcher's wife, Maude Pichon leaves her French village for the glitter of 1880s Paris. She quickly runs through the money she pilfered from her father, and when her job as a laundress proves intolerable, she stumbles into a position with the Durandeau Agency, which hires plain or ugly women to accompany well-to-do women on social engagements, augmenting the clients' beauty with the proximity of the repoussoir's homeliness. Maude is hired by Countess Dubern to make her daughter Isabelle shine in her debut season and, should the pair form an actual friendship, to pressure Isabelle into marrying the aristocrat of the mother's choice. What the Countess cannot control, however, is her daughter's determination to gain admission to the Sorbonne, and Maude's gradual alliance with Isabelle against her mother's schemes. Here Ross transforms an Émile Zola short story into a novel whose themes of external and internal beauty and the commoditization of friendship have much to offer a contemporary YA audience. There's enough flirtation and match-making to tantalize romance fans, but ultimately it is the story of Isabelle and Maude, sans love interests, that carries the day. This is prime book-club fare, and most honest participants will have to confess to occasionally confirming their own allure with a sidelong glance at someone less favored. (But no names, please.)