Rebel Angels by Libba Bray

 Christmas has finally arrived and Gemma Doyle can't wait to get away from Spence Academy. Gemma is eager to spend time with her friends in London and see her family. Before she can even ring in the New Year though, Gemma and her friends are facing a new danger threatening the Realms. At the same time, Gemma has seemed to catch the eye of the charming Simon Middleton.

I read this series out of order- opps. So Rebel Angels is actually the first book in the Gemma Doyle trilogy I read and I really enjoyed it. I considered giving this book 4 stars but decided on 3.

Rebel Angels is much more entertaining than the first book in this series.

The characters in this book are also so much better! Considering the time period, Gemma has a lot of spunk. She is very stubborn and has zero self-control. That last part does get annoying at times. Gemma is maybe too stubborn though. She does the opposite of everything people tell her to do and most of the time, it ends badly.

Felicity and Ann got a huge personality upgrade. Some interesting things were revealed about Felicity and I liked getting to see she had some self-control.

I feel a little bad for Ann. In the first book, she was a bit dull, but she was treated terribly in this book! The amount of fat-shaming is horrendous. She spends all her time pouting over the fact she's not beautiful. AND WHAT DO HER "FRIENDS" DO?

I like that Libba Bray still tries to add feminism to this historical fiction book and still managed to keep things in the time period. I loved that Gemma didn't let men push her over. She stood up for herself.

I really liked Simon at first. He was so sweet and charming. In the end, though, he reminds me a lot of that dude Eliza was engaged to in Alex and Eliza.

Like the first book, there weren't any interesting plot twists. There would have been if the synopsis didn't spoil anything though. I'm not sure if my lack of surprise might come from not having read A Great and Terrible Beauty first.

Though this book was pretty good, the plot could have used some work. Everything happened in the last hundred pages. The beginning and middle of the book were just spent pointing fingers.

Page count: 548 pages

Published: December 26, 2006

Genre: fantasy, historical fiction

Series: Gemma Doyle book 2

My rating: 3 stars

Trigger warnings: almost rape

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Also by Libba Bray:

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