Rebel Angels (Gemma Doyle, Book Two) by Libba Bray

Rebel Angels (Gemma Doyle, Book Two) 
by Libba Bray


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Rebel Angels is the second book in the Gemma Doyle Trilogy. This book picks up as book one ends, with Gemma destroying the runes in the realms. The first of the book is Katrik, and his being called back to London by the Rakshana. They give him orders to watch Gemma and have her find the Temple in the realms and bind the magic to the Temple.

After having not been in the realms for two months, when the girls finally do go back, they are surprised to find Pippa there. They had assumed that she had crossed over the river when her body died, but she told them that she was told she didn't have to cross over, she could stay in the realms, although Gemma's mother told her that anyone who didn't cross over would become corrupted, Felicity and Ann don't want to believe that, they want to have Pip back with them and be all together again.

Since we have now hit the Christmas holidays, everyone will be heading home, except Ann who will stay at Spence, until Felicity comes up with the "brilliant" idea to pass Ann off as a long lost niece of a distant Russia Duke and cousin to the Czar himself. Gemma isn't sure this will work, but there is not stopping Fee once she has an idea in her head, and well, maybe that can be a good thing at times. Ann will get to see society and how it really works and may it will shatter her fantasies of it all.

At Gemma's house, nothing is going the way it should be. Grandmama is dour. Tom feels neglected and like he has to do everything and yet nothing he does is good enough for his father, and their father is broken and addicted to laudanum or opium. And for Gemma, the visions are getting worse and nothing is making sense, she can't find the temple and she doesn't understand what they mean.

Then on top of all that we have your regular Victorian Society Snobbery storyline. Who is invited to what balls and who isn't, who sits with who at the opera and who is invited into what Gentleman's club. Also tucked into the story in the off paragraphs in a little blurb here and there about the workers movement, this is very late in the year 1895, and so when the ladies are about town you will hear talk of the workers movement, the factory fire, taking up money for the families. So many layers of story.

View all my reviews

A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, Book One) by Libba Bray

A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, Book One) 
by Libba Bray


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

All Gemma wants is to get out of India and go to boarding school in England, and she can't understand why her mother refuses to let her go, even her grandmother still lives in England. When strange events on the streets of India one day lead to Gemma seeing visions, her mother's death, her father's unraveling and the family's sudden move back to England she finally gets her wish.

Spence Academy for Young Girls is not what Gemma was expecting, but maybe it is just what she needs. Her roommate is not the type of girl Gemma would have picked as a friend, but maybe there is a reason they are together. When the most beautiful and the most popular girls end up befriending Gemma, first as a joke then as a new club, they all discover secrets of Spence Academy.

Author Libba Bray takes the reader back in time, but gives us girls that fight the status quo of their time. They want more than to be seen and not heard. They are discovering more about themselves and learning right, wrong and the grey areas in between. There is power, strength and so much more in this story that these girls are just scratching the surface of, and the whole way learning so much about life and friendship.

This is a great young adult, teen read. It is even a great parent read. Even better, a teen and parent read and then talk about together! There are discussion questions in the back of the book, so it is already set up for a book club or classroom, or even parent/child discussion. I personally love to read books my kids are reading and then talk with them about those books, question them and challenge them to see more than the surface meanings of the book, find what is hidden in that second and third levels that the author want to get through.

View all my reviews