Reading Response #2: Rebel Angels

     Rebel Angels is the second book of a riveting trilogy started with A Great and Terrible Beauty. As the books progress, Gemma's life changes dramatically; what she used to know proves to be all wrong. Fantasy is real and she is living two separate lives between reality and another dimension.

     The book starts out around Christmas time in London. The year is 1896. Gemma Doyle is excited to finally spend a holiday from Spence Academy, but this holiday might not be a very pleasant one. Gemma has to care for her sick father. However, her plans for the holidays also include a handsome Lord Denby, who has intentions of wooing Gemma. As Gemma enjoys time with her father, her visions intensify. These visions include three girls dressed in white. All Gemma knows is that something bad must have happened to these girls because she gets an eerie feeling when they are around. The only solution is to go back to the realms and find out.

     When Gemma, Felicity, and Ann return to the realms, they get distracted with the enchanting world that only Gemma has access to. Pippa is there as well; the fourth friend that chose to stay in the realms, trapping her there forever. The world is not well in this dimension though. Kartik has reappeared; a boy from a gypsy family with advice for Gemma. He tells her that she must find the Temple and bind the magic or else bad things will happen. Gemma knows she must do what he says even if it means that she has to meet up with her mother's old friend and now her enemy, Circe. Until Circe is destroyed, Gemma cannot live in the realms or reality in peace. However, Circe is very difficult to find, let alone destroy.

     Libba Bray manages to get the reader really involved with the story. Every little feeling that Gemma feels, you can feel yourself. She also writes in a way that connects you with each character really allowing you to be entranced in the book and submerse yourself for hours.

The picture included shows how over the course of all the books, the cover show her letting her hair down slowly. I think this shows that she is finally figuring out who she really is.

The excerpt below gives the reader a perspective of Gemma's life and how the girls interact together.

Excerpt:

"“You know that Mrs. Nightwing is like God—everywhere at once. In fact, she may be God, for all I know.” Felicity sighs.

The firelight casts a golden sheen upon her white-blond hair. She glows like a fallen angel.

Ann looks around, nervous. “Y-y-you oughtn’t to talk about”—she whispers the word—“God that way.”

“Why ever not?” Felicity asks.

“It might bring bad luck.”

Quiet descends, for we are all too well and too recently acquainted with bad luck to forget that there are forces at work beyond the world we see, forces beyond all reason and comprehension.

Felicity stares at the fire. “You still assume there is a God, Ann? With all we’ve seen?”"

Link to more information:

http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/rebel-angels

Reading Response #1: A Great and Terrible Beauty

     This book is a romantic fantasy novel written in the Victorian era. Gemma Doyle, the main character, is sent off to a boarding school, Spence Academy, at the age of 16. All the females in her family have attended this school. The curriculum focuses on learning basic skills like manners and how to be come a lady. All girls attend this school until they are picked up by a suitor and ready to be married off. At first, Gemma despises the school and everyone attending, however, Gemma finds out many things about her family history that change her life forever and forces her to not want to leave. These secrets have been kept and protected for many years by her mother who died trying to protect her. Gemma soon realizes that she has a strong connection to another group of girls in the school and later finds out why.

 http://www.randomhouse.com/teens/gemmadoyle/books/great.html

       I have provided a link that will give you a little bit more information about this exciting trilogy. This book will make you want to lock yourself in your room and read for days.

Here's part of an except from the book which can be found on the link I provided:

Chapter One
June 21, 1895
Bombay, India
"Please tell me that's not going to be part of my birthday dinner this
evening."
I am staring into the hissing face of a cobra. A surprise-ingly pink tongue slithers in and out of a cruel mouth while an Indian man whose eyes are the blue of blindness inclines his head toward my mother and explains in Hindi that cobras make very good eating.
My mother reaches out a white-gloved finger to stroke the snake's back. "What do you think, Gemma? Now that you're sixteen, will you be dining on cobra?"
The slithery thing makes me shudder. "I think not, thank you."
The old, blind Indian man smiles toothlessly and brings the cobra closer. It's enough to send me reeling back where I bump into a wooden stand filled with little statues of Indian deities. One of the statues, a woman who is all arms with a face bent on terror, falls to the ground. Kali, the destroyer. Lately, Mother has accused me of keeping her as my unofficial patron saint. Lately, Mother and I haven't been getting on very well. She claims it's because I've reached an impossible age. I state emphatically to anyone who will listen that it's all because she refuses to take me to London.

I love the way Libba Bray writes. She is so descriptive in a way that paints a picture in your mind. Her writing style works very well with this fantasy novel because it makes all unrealistic things come to life.