The Force of Such Beauty
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The Force of Such Beauty by Barbara Bourland
"This is not your grandma's fairy tale... Brilliant." -The Washington Post"The Force of Such Beauty grips with the strength of an Olympian and holds it with the endurance of a marathoner ... to an ending that actually caught my breath, not once, but twice in quick succession."-The Associated Press
One sunny afternoon in an idyllic kingdom by the sea, a princess named Caroline pretends to sleep. When her keepers strike up a card game, Caroline sneaks into her maid's car, turns the key, and drives right out of the palace. Alone for the first time in years, she gets on the next flight-only to land in the waiting arms of her guards. As she's forcibly escorted back to her marble prison, something in Caroline breaks for good. It's not her first failed attempt, and it won't be her last. Caroline suspects that she'll never escape. But she might find a way to be free.
Barbara Bourland's stunning third novel, a phantasmagorical fable of love and marriage, is her most ambitious and inventive book to date. Inspired by the alleged escape attempts of real-life princesses, The Force of Such Beauty is both the story of an idealistic young woman trapped by a corrupt promise, and a deeply moving reminder that power structures around the world ultimately rest on the subjugation of women's bodies.
"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?...Bourland is skilled at finding the noir in the everyday, and illustrating the mechanisms of control that keep us in our place."-Crime Reads, Best Books of the Year (So Far)
Barbara Bourland is the author of the critically acclaimed I'll Eat When I'm Dead, a Refinery29 Best Book of 2017 and an Irish Independent Book of the Year. People called I'll Eat When I'm Dead delectable. Wednesday Martin, bestselling author of Primates of Park Avenue and Untrue, deemed it a deft, smart, and hilarious debut. Kirkus noted that death by beauty was never so much fun, and the book was featured in Fortune, Us Weekly, and the New York Post, among others. I'll Eat When I'm Dead is now available in paperback, and is forthcoming in Hebrew from Matar Press in Israel. Bourland is a former freelance writer and web producer for titles at Conde Nast and Hearst, among others. She lives in Baltimore with her husband and dog. Her second novel, Fake Like Me, is forthcoming in June 2019 from Grand Central Publishing in North America and from riverrun abroad. Fake Like Me was written with support from The Wassaic Project in Wassaic, NY, where Bourland was a resident over the winter of 2017-2018.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780593329351 |
| ISBN 10 | 059332935X |
| Title | The Force of Such Beauty |
| Author | Barbara Bourland |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Penguin Putnam Inc |
| Year published | 2023-05-09 |
| Number of pages | 400 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |