Publication Date: February 4th 2020
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, LGBT
Synopsis:
Emilie des Marais is more at home holding scalpels than embroidery needles and is desperate to escape her noble roots to serve her country as a physician. But society dictates a noble lady cannot perform such gruesome work.
Annette Boucher, overlooked and overworked by her family, wants more from life than her humble beginnings and is desperate to be trained in magic. So when a strange noble girl offers Annette the chance of a lifetime, she accepts.
Emilie and Annette swap lives—Annette attends finishing school as a noble lady to be trained in the ways of divination, while Emilie enrolls to be a physician’s assistant, using her natural magical talent to save lives.
But when their nation instigates a frivolous war, Emilie and Annette must work together to help the rebellion end a war that is based on lies.
* I would like to thank Sourcebooks fire for a copy of this book in return for an honest review*
Two girls fighting for what they want and to prove they are enough. Set in the backdrop of a french revolutionary style fantasy sprinkled with magic and queer representation.
“I feel broken.The world tells me I should want these things, but I don’t”
This was a perfect read for me to complete during fierce female reads February!
This stand alone fantasy was full of an amazing and well thought out magical system that played with interesting elements, that were detailed and well crafted. I loved how much time Miller put into the magic building. I usually want more world building in my fantasy books, but the magic system and the details put into how it works and how the art feeds off the time of day was spectacular.
Emilie and Annette switch places because Emilie is a noble and her mother wants her to get education in the midnight arts (which is predominately female practiced), but Emilie wants to study the noonday arts! Annette just wants to be able to perfect her midnight arts, but is from a poor family and doesn’t have that luxury. The girls switch places in secret and continue to communicate. A time comes in which they must use their skills and strengths to fight an impending war together.
“Desires were complicated, living in a world full of contradicting ones doubly so.”
In addition to the magical system, the other element I found to be on point in Belle Révolte was the queer representation! There was an array of individuals on the spectrum of sexuality/gender. I enjoyed that when brought up it was accepted as normal and there was not time focused on the negative. It was presented like just stating a fact to share information. Miller did not make a big deal out of it and draw a lot of attention to the rep. and I found that to be so awesome. I am not sure everyone would agree with me. I respect Miller for exploring so much queer representation!
The character development was so great! Miller spent so much time on the characters, their backstory and how they fit into the situation at hand. I even felt a connect to the side characters, which sometimes authors struggle with in my opinion. I love the fierce females and how they were all dealing with their own struggles and were able to all fight with their own skills and talents. The girls are so true to themselves throughout everything and do not apologize for it. They stand up for what they believe in and make sacrifices that could change their lives.
The setting was lots of fun and a nice mix of fantasy with historical elements. With the common element of countries at war that you find in many fantasies, Miller was able to weave together many different elements to make it a stand out fantasy. With the unique magic system, a revolution, queer representation, the class differences in their roles in society and the subplot romances!
“There was freedom in knowing the closeness of death.”
The overall story contained so many elements and although at times I felt like the pacing was a little off, Miller fit a lot of story and action into a stand alone fantasy novel! This book was not without some faults in my mind. I do struggle with stand alone fantasies because there are so many elements and do not feel like you can fully fit it all into an under 400 page book. I think Miller did a fantastic job with telling the story and answering any questions I have and feel like for the most part wrapped it up nicely. That doesn’t mean I agree with the ending. But I am very hard to please with endings.
Belle Révolte was a beautiful story about two girls taking back the power to decide their own lives. It was able to evoke such feeling and emotion from me that have also made writing this review difficult. This is definitely a story that will stay with me and I highly recommend it!
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