The books are fantastic! It's like 'Gossip Girl' with magic and corsets! Here's a little rant I went on after reading the first two:
A Great and Terrible Beauty Plot: It’s 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence’s most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?
Rebel Angels Plot: Gemma Doyle is looking forward to a holiday from Spence Academy—spending time with her friends in the city, attending balls in fancy gowns with plunging necklines, and dallying with the handsome Lord Denby. Yet amid these distractions, her visions intensify — visions of three girls dressed in white, to whom something horrific has happened that only the realms can explain.
Review I utterly and completely loved these two books, and cannot wait for the third to come out. These books are totally awesome. It's like "Harry Potter: The Almost All Girl Version" where the series focuses on Hermione, Pansy Parkinson, Luna Lovegood, Prof. McGonagall and Bellatrix Lestrange.
The books are well-written, hilariously funny at times, really moving at others. The characters are well rounded and are developed as the series progresses, they are charming, funny, petty, damaged, selfish, caring, lonely and so much more. At times you want to hang out with them, at others you want to slap them, and then a moment later you want to hug them.
The stories aren't terribly complex, they're definitely more J.K. Rowling than Margaret Atwood, but they are page turners that once you get into you won't want to put down. I got the 450 page "A Great and Terrible Beauty" on Friday night, started reading it Saturday and was finished it by Sunday. And I immediately went out to Chapters, got myself a strawberries and cream frappicino, bought and began to read the sequel "Rebel Angels" in the store. Went on a reading binge which left me utterly exhausted at work but I finished that one late Monday night.
Highly recommend!
To add to that, I just finished the 820 page third book in three days (it is literary crack!) and it was sooo good. So I can tell you that the series doesn't crap out at the end either ;)
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A Great and Terrible Beauty
Plot: It’s 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence’s most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?
Rebel Angels
Plot: Gemma Doyle is looking forward to a holiday from Spence Academy—spending time with her friends in the city, attending balls in fancy gowns with plunging necklines, and dallying with the handsome Lord Denby. Yet amid these distractions, her visions intensify — visions of three girls dressed in white, to whom something horrific has happened that only the realms can explain.
Review
I utterly and completely loved these two books, and cannot wait for the third to come out. These books are totally awesome. It's like "Harry Potter: The Almost All Girl Version" where the series focuses on Hermione, Pansy Parkinson, Luna Lovegood, Prof. McGonagall and Bellatrix Lestrange.
The books are well-written, hilariously funny at times, really moving at others. The characters are well rounded and are developed as the series progresses, they are charming, funny, petty, damaged, selfish, caring, lonely and so much more. At times you want to hang out with them, at others you want to slap them, and then a moment later you want to hug them.
The stories aren't terribly complex, they're definitely more J.K. Rowling than Margaret Atwood, but they are page turners that once you get into you won't want to put down. I got the 450 page "A Great and Terrible Beauty" on Friday night, started reading it Saturday and was finished it by Sunday. And I immediately went out to Chapters, got myself a strawberries and cream frappicino, bought and began to read the sequel "Rebel Angels" in the store. Went on a reading binge which left me utterly exhausted at work but I finished that one late Monday night.
Highly recommend!
To add to that, I just finished the 820 page third book in three days (it is literary crack!) and it was sooo good. So I can tell you that the series doesn't crap out at the end either ;)
So yes, I highly recommend the books :D