Second Quarter Outside Reading Book Review

Rebel Angels by Libba Bray. Delacorte Press, 2005 Genre: Historical fiction Rebel Angels, the sequel to Bray's first novel A Great and Terrible Beauty, picks up where the story left off, with Gemma, Felicity, and Ann all at Spence Academy for girls, a few months after Pippa's death. Its Christmastime now, and the girls are going to London to celebrate with their families and all of the interesting new people that they meet, such as Simon Middeton and Ms. McCleethy, the newest addition to the Spence faculty who Gemma doesnt trust in the slightest because of her possible connection to the realms and her latest visions. The girls also run into Ms. Moore, their former teacher who seems to know more than she is tellin about the realms and the Order. As always, Kartik is following Gemma on order from the Rakshana, and their relationship as friends has the potential to turn into something more, leaving Gemma caught between him and Simon, her official courter. Now, to make matters worse, the mgic that Gemma unleashed by smashing the Runes is loose in the realms, and Gemma has to figure out how to bind it before something else does. "The sumptuous companion to the New York Times bestseller A Great and Terrible Beauty teems with Victorian chills and thrills." Book jacket Rebel Angels is written in much the same manner as Bray's previous novel, as a very discriptive and intriguing style, with the constant allure of scandal on every page. You can see the conflicts between Gemma and Ms. Moore, Ms. McCleethy, her friends at times, Kartik, Simon, and even coping with her father's ever-changing addictions. Bray continuously shows the reader that many of the social and emotional problems that we face today are not specific to only this generation, and that they were present long before many percieved them to be in existance. Through Gemma's eyes, we see the world as a sometimes cruel and ironic place, but somehow she can always manage to be able to take charge in tough spots and have the confidence to know that a better time is coming. "Ms. Moore. Ms. Moore is Circe. She has found the Temple. I have failed. I have lost everything." (509) After reading the second part of this trilogy, although the writing style and suspense have been very abundant, I can honestly say that the topic has started to become slightly redundant. I felt like everything that was happening to the girls was turning out too complicated or too intricate to be realistic, even if there hadn't been the prescence of a parallel universe with our own. I have just been noticing that there are several books and series of books that all have some connection to magic or fictional creatures of some sort, and I just feel like I'm getting tired of fantasy, and want to return to actual events or even possible events and not complete fiction.