Rebel Angels by Libba Bray

Rebel Angels by Libba Bray

Date Started: February 20, 2009 Date Finished:February 22, 2009

Summary: Rebel Angels picks up right where the last novel left off. It's been two months since Pippa died and the girls, Ann, Felicity, and Gemma are preparing for Christmas. Felicity invites Ann to her home in London, making up an elaborate lie of Ann coming from royalty. Gemma is suspicious of the new teacher, Miss McCleethy, the teacher she believes is Circe. Gemma is courting Simon Middleton, much to Kartik's chagrin. When the girls travel back to the realms, they meet Pippa, but she has changed. Gemma must find the temple and seal the magic from falling into the wrong hands. However, she is deceived and must deal with the consequences of her actions, as always.

Likes: I like Gemma's narrative voice. I keep forgetting this story is in present tense. I like the scenes with Gemma and Kartik, they are very sweet without being overly mushy and horribly riddled with useless adverbs and the like. The parts with Simon were interesting as well. The story has a lot of twists and turns, the kind that you can kind of predict after a certain point in the story. The author does a good job of keeping suspense and has given her characters even more flaws and rounding out their backstory. I like that magic doesn't solve any of their problems, at least not permanently. The girls see it as a quick fix, but it's not and they eventually learn that they have to take responsibility for their actions. The author manages, once again, to create well rounded characters with flaws and bad sides. Once again, Gemma is coerced by her friends into doing something that she knows is the wrong thing. This is one of Gemma's flaws. I was going to say that Gemma doesn't have any flaws, but she does and ultimately it's her mistakes that cause the greatest problems. I admire the author for her rawness and her honesty. She doesn't hold back on the details, she has just enough where the reader can get a feel of what is happening, but not too much where it becomes gorey and gross. For example, when Pippa was turning into the creature, the reader gets enough detail to know what she did, but it's not like blood and guts were flying everywhere. There was more Kartik in this one, so that was a plus. He's a cool love interest and fully rounded (way better than that Cullen guy) which makes it interesting to read, especially when the cultures clash.

Dislikes: Certain parts were really creepy, especially learning about Felicity and her dad and what the Poppy Warrior (lol, that's like an oxymoron. A warrior of a little flower, but then again, I think it's a metaphor for the opium that Gemma's dad is addicted to, but still, lol) said to her. I admire the author for her honesty, but that part was just really really creepy. The scene with the dad at the opium house was sad too.

Overall: I liked it. I don't know whether I liked it more than the first one. I guess I'll have to read the third one and try to figure out which one is my favorite.