Belle Révolte

This book is probably a good read for someone who doesn’t mind a lot of talking without a lot of action.

Fabulous YA fantasy, with diverse characters, deep worldbuilding, and a fantastic plot. I enjoyed this one a lot!

I loved the wonderful characters and their struggle for justice in this magical world whose power games are not dissimilar to our own.

Emilie des Marais is the daughter of one of the ruling families. She wants to be a physician, but women are seldom allowed that role in society because they are too delicate, and her mother is more opposed to it than anyone else. Emilies mother expects her daughter to learn the feminine arts. Annette Bouche, the daughter of a man who works with his hands, and she wants to train in magic, but people in her class cannot get into the schools that teach it. Unbeknownst to Annette she bears a striking resemblance to Emilie. Emilie recognizes the similarities the moment she lays eyes on Emilie. She conspires with Annette to switch lives.

Millers storyline held such great promise, two strong women characters, a diverse society, injustices galore, but unfortunately, she didnt deliver on its promise. Instead the story bogged down in the many, many details Miller thought it necessary to disclose to the reader on more than one occasion. Then, too, she doesnt adequately explain how someone like Annette could so easily become the privileged daughter of a ruling family and no one, not even those of her class attending school with her, even noticed.

The writing was adequate, and the two main characters were underdeveloped in such a way that it was hard to root for either of them to succeed. This book is a noir fantasy and deals with alienation issues (which abound).

As fantasy goes in todays world, this book is underwritten, underplotted, and little character development took place. However, if you are a hard-core YA fantasy fan, you might enjoy this outing.

My thanks to Sourcebook and Edelweiss for an eARC.

As many of you know, I LOVED Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller, so I was incredibly honored that Sourcebooks Fire sent me a physical copy of the Belle Rvolte ARC in exchange for an honest review! This book looked like everything I could want. I love fantasy & the blurb sounded terrific! Unfortunately, this book didn’t live up to the hype I built in my head. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed it, but it wasn’t nearly as amazing as I hoped it would be.

Starting off, the writing style just seemed wonky in areas. It almost felt like there were more words than necessary in each sentence. The unnecessary words were incredibly distracting at times. This got better by the end of the book, but I’m not sure if it was better because I was engrossed in the story or because the sentences became more concise.

Something else that felt off with me was the lack of differences between the two main characters. Emilie des Marais and Annette Boucher were too similar. Emilie is noble, while Annette is a commoner. I have never read a book where a noble and a commoner sounded the exact same. The words used, the sentence structure, etc. were all the same. There were times where I had to go back and see whose point of view I was reading. Even though the characters voices sounded the same, I really enjoyed the two main characters and the side characters. I liked seeing the relationships between all of the characters, and it was fun to see them grow.

Though I found some things that I just didn’t enjoy, I found other things that I loved! The magic structure in the story was fascinating. I enjoyed the focus on sacrifice and how using magic would wear the body down. The system made sense in my head, and it was interesting to see how the world adjusted to the magic system.

Just like the magic structure, I thoroughly enjoyed the plot. There was something fun and exciting about the story. After the first 20% of the book, I was hooked. The story itself was quick-paced and kept me on the edge of my seat. The politics that were present were frustratingly good, and I enjoyed how much the story grabbed me. All in all, this book has its faults, but the plot and magic truly made up for it. This will be perfect for teens looking for two (a little too similar) kick-ass women who want to make the world a better place.

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