The Bellybuttons

History

Format

Characters

Central characters

• Jenny is a redhead who dresses herself in glamorous and revealing clothes, which she generally acquires by stealing. She thinks that the world revolves around her and her looks. She is also not too bright, often turning to reference material to find answers to even the simplest questions. She also considers pets to be more fashion accessories than living beings. Unlike Vicky, Jenny isn't necessarily mean on purpose. It's more likely she simply doesn't realize she's hurting others. Her shallowness, pride, and obsession with looks, which stems from her mother's high standards, later causes her to face some life-changing decisions. Despite her glamour, Jenny lives with an impoverished family in a —her mother is an alcoholic; her father's whereabouts are unknown; and so Jenny and her two younger siblings are left to look after themselves. Throughout the books she gets several boyfriends - John John, Fred, Jean Franky, and most recently Hugo, who, unlike the former three, is neither athletic nor attractive, but is the only one Jenny has truly loved.
• Vicky is an affluent black brunette. She is supposedly less attractive than Jenny, but all the more spiteful and narcissistic. Where Jenny lacks in intelligence, Vicky lacks in compassion. However, this comes as no surprise once we get to know Vicky's family; her father is a successful bilingual businessman and a cheat, her mother a liar and a golddigger, and her older sister a spoiled bully. In her family of narcissists, Vicky is at the bottom of the hierarchy, as she still hasn't learned to speak English fluently, even after spending almost every Summer at English camp, where she got bullied for her weight and hair. This emotional neglect from her abusive family and rejection by her surroundings left Vicky deeply scarred. In later volumes, she gets sent to the camp once again, this time along with the daughter of their new neighbors, the rebellious Mégane. At first she only hangs out with Mégane for her attractive brother James, who she has nothing in common with but wants to date for his wealth and status, as this would finally put her above her sister. But eventually, Vicky comes to realize it isn't James who she loves, but Mégane. However, for fear of being rejected by her parents again she denies and hides her feelings towards her.
• Karine is a very tall, thin, blonde girl who's often the foil in Jenny and Vicky's jokes. She's very kind, smart, and hardworking, albeit naive and easily exploitable. Jenny and Vicky often ask her to do their homework for them, even going as far as guilt-tripping Karine into doing it, when she first refuses. During the first book Karine finds herself a boyfriend, Dan, who Jenny and Vicky try to steal or at least keep away from her, in fear of losing her as their punching bag. Dan actively tries to convince Karine of her friends' toxic behavior, but is mostly unsuccessful. After the events of book 4 that were exceptionally cruel to her, and with the help of her new boyfriend Albin, Karine drastically changes her look; dyeing her hair black and switching to a more-fashionable black colour scheme. And with her looks she changes her personality, gaining self-esteem and assertiveness. She also joins Albin's group as the lead singer, and later temporarily takes over. She devotes most of her free time to the band, which quickly grows in popularity, supposedly to compensate for all the time she spent living in Jenny and Vicky's shadows. Under Albin's influence she refuses to give the people who hurt her a second chance, such as Dan. She rejects whatever Dan tries to make up for his mistakes, but later it's revealed she still has feelings for him. This causes her relationship with Albin to hit a rough patch, which she tries to fix during volume 7. That's when she learns what Albin's been really doing to girls like her and their relationship possibly ends that time for good.

  Supporting characters

• Dan is Karine's boyfriend in the first three volumes, who along with Karine is a target of Jenny and Vicky's schemes, as they attempt to woo Dan away from Karine and more towards them. This of course isn't necessarily because the girls would want Dan for themselves, instead they do it because they don't want Karine to have any other friends besides them, especially not someone who realizes the girls treat Karine badly and might cut the ties between them. In attempt to show Karine there are better girls to be friends with, Dan turns to Mélanie. This sets off a series of events after which Dan is left confused and alone. With Karine getting a new boyfriend, Albin, and changing radically, Dan desperately tries to make things go back to how they were. He can't accept Karine's transformation and tries to prove Albin's intentions aren't as pure as he pretends they are. However, he's only right for all the wrong reasons and never manages to back his claims convincingly enough. After Albin manipulates Karine into a selfish act on Dan's expense, he gives up on trying and decides to go live with his father in New York.
• John John is a male motorcyclist who Jenny and Vicky are obsessed with; he is rumored not to know how to read, which is later debunked as he indeed does know how to read and write, albeit with extreme spelling errors, but chooses to pretend he can't to be able to stay at school longer. He is never seen without his motorcyclist helmet on. And for a good reason—John John is a Siamese twin, with part of his twin's head fused onto his own. Jenny and Vicky don't know the truth, but Karine does, as John John has decided to show her. She then tries to convince him to come clean, which he refuses and leaves the town for good.
• Murphy is a geekish, teenage boy, not treated well by puberty: his face is plagued with a bad case of acne, he talks with a hoarse voice, and he always threatens suicide when he doesn't get his way—usually in the form of going out with Karine, who is too nice and naive to know he's guilt-tripping her. He's quite selfish and perverted, often harassing Jenny and Vicky and blackmailing them into kissing him. He's also a very good student, excelling both at Math and English, which Vicky uses to her advantage and has him do her English homework for her. However, Murphy never does anything just from the goodness of his heart and uses this opportunity as a way to blackmail Vicky again.
• Mélanie is a blonde who devotes her life to charitable work and eco-activism. She seems to be kind at first but later we learn she is even more manipulative than Jenny and Vicky combined. She successfully woos Dan into joining her on a study trip to Africa to help building a well there and the two get together. Originally, it was Karine who was supposed to come along, but Mélanie had an eye on Dan and decided to steal him for herself. Later she keeps on silently tormenting Karine, who is desperate to explain her side of the argument, while hiding her true motives so well that nobody ever notices. And when the truth is close to being revealed she even goes so far as poisoning herself and framing Karine for it. Eventually though, with the help of Vicky and Jenny, Karine manages to prove Mélanie framed her and shows Dan what really happened, ridding herself of Mélanie once and for all. She then comes back again in later volumes, this time only playing a small part in the plot.
• Albin was originally an albino street musician who played original, personalised songs on his guitar. Following Karine's breakup with Dan, Albin becomes her new boyfriend and gets rewritten to be the leader of a four-member band named "Albin and the Albinos". He "helps" Karine get her life back together, turning her from a shy girl into a confident woman. He is also far more dedicated than Dan to cut Vicky out of Karine's life, going so far as to threaten her, which he denies in Karine's presence. Later Dan and Vicky, who don't approve of Albin, discover, that he used to be nicknamed "Le démon blanc", as he was accused in the past, perhaps wrongly, of the murder of his classmates in a fire at a cottage one winter. Two of the survivors of the fire heard Albin say "Je vais faire un monde meilleur" ; however, Albin and the survivor, who later became a member of Albin's band, said that it wasn't true. Vicky then gets targeted by a serial killer and the main suspect is Albin, as Mélanie, who was pushed of a bridge by said killer, reveals, that the murderer used the phrase "I'm making the world a better place." Albin is eventually cleared of the accusations and the real culprit is caught. In the last volume we discover that Albin's turning Karine into a confident goth was no coincidence, but rather a habit Albin has, and that Karine was #12 on his list of "victims". This further damages the two's relationship, which was already very fragile after it turned out Karine still loved Dan.
• Mégane is a rebellious daughter of a wealthy family that moves into the house next to Vicky's. She is defiant, wears bold, punk clothes and talks back at her parents, which Vicky admires. She gets sent to the same camp as Vicky, where the two bond over being the only two teenage girls there. Mégane playfully teases Vicky, calling her "Barbie", which invigorates her, but she puts up with it to get closer to Mégane's brother, James. One night at the camp the two girls go for a dip in the river and Mégane ends up kissing Vicky, who rejects her, denying her feelings. Their friendship ends there and Vicky continues to pursue James. Mégane tries to convince her a few more times before easing down and joining Karine's band, befriending her in the meantime.
• James is Mégane's older brother. He's blond, tall, attractive, and dresses in a sophisticated fashion that matches his status. Vicky and her sister Rebecca compete over which of them will date him and despite Rebecca getting a head start, Vicky is the one eventually succeeding, using her mother's most valuable tool - lying. She pretends to share the same interests as him and James falls for it. Dating him gets consecutively more difficult as Vicky realizes who her heart's truly pining for.
• Jean Franky is Jenny's attractive boyfriend in volumes 6 and 7. He is as hot as he is stupid, possibly taking over Jenny's spot as the dullest character. He never wears a shirt, not even to high-end restaurant, constantly showing off his six-pack. His and Jenny's relationship is based on shallowness and pride and that makes Jenny deeply unhappy, however much she tries to deny it. After Jenny falls in love with Hugo, Jean Franky serves merely as her public boyfriend.
• Hugo was first introduced in volume 4 as the school's vice president and best friend of Fred, the school's president, and gets a much larger role in volumes 6 and 7. He's an overweight blond with a heart of gold and a loving, caring family. He was originally only attracted to Jenny for her looks, but after learning about Jenny's family situation and realizing there's so much more to Jenny than the eye meets, he truly falls in love with her. Jenny falls in love with him, too, but to keep her reputation she demands seeing him in secret. At first Hugo is fine with it, but later it begins to wear him down and he confronts Jenny in public. Unfortunately for both of them, Jenny's ego is stronger than her love for him.

  Awards

Other languages

Volumes

English

• The Bellybuttons: 1 - Who Do You Think You Are? May 2009
• The Bellybuttons: 2 - It's Ugly Out There! Feb. 2010
• The Bellybuttons: 3 - The Bonds of Friendship Feb. 2011
• The Bellybuttons: 4 - Clash of the Beauties

  French

• Les Nombrils: 1 - Pour qui tu te prends ?
• Les Nombrils: 2 - Sale temps pour les moches
• Les Nombrils: 3 - Les liens de l'amitié
• Les Nombrils: 4 - Duel de belles
• Les Nombrils: Jeunes belles et vaches
• Les Nombrils: 5 - Un couple d'enfer Available as a traditional album and as a three-part series:
• *Les Nombrils: 5, 1^er partie - Noir cauchemar
• *Les Nombrils: 5, 2^e partie - Rouge enfer
• *Les Nombrils: 5, 3^e partie - Blanc albinos
• Les Nombrils: 6 - Une été trop mortel!
• Les Nombrils: 7 - Un bonheur presque parfait
• Les Nombrils: 8 - Ex, drogue et rock'n'roll !