Rebel Angels

Rebel Angels

By Libba Bray (548 pages)

Published by Ember

Bookish rating: 4.25

I adored the first book in Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle trilogy, A Great and Terrible Beauty (read it! read it! read it!), so after a suitable time had passed (I like to stretch out trilogies and stories that I’m enthralled with), I started this second book, Rebel Angels.

Set at an English boarding school and in London during Christmastime in the 1890s, Gemma and her fabulously well-drawn friends, seek the temple that will allow her to bind the magic of the realms (an “other” world that Gemma can cross into at will). Did I mention there’s some hocus pocus? There is. The backstory is too complicated for me to fully explain, but suffice it to say that the realism of London, the girliness of Spence Academy, the wit of the girls, the occasional ball and pretty dress, and the magic of the realms makes for an engrossing, fun, and very satisfying read.

The books in this trilogy are the sorts of the books that remind you why you love reading so much.

Although you do indeed need to read the first book to make much sense of Rebel Angels, this second novel mercifully dodges the sophomore slump that ruins so many series or trilogies. Sure, it’s a transition book to get us to the (800-plus-page) final book, but the novel is genuinely good in its own right.

Confession: I don’t think I’ll manage to wait a “suitable time period” to tackle the third and final Gemma Doyle book.

Recommended, obviously.