General
Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins
Pages: 310 pages
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Publisher: Putnam, April 2014
Links: Goodreads // Amazon // Book Depository
Overall Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Summary
Harper Price, peerless Southern belle, was born ready for a Homecoming tiara. But after a strange run-in at the dance imbues her with incredible abilities, Harper’s destiny takes a turn for the seriously weird. She becomes a Paladin, one of an ancient line of guardians with agility, super strength and lethal fighting instincts.
Just when life can’t get any more disastrously crazy, Harper finds out who she’s charged to protect: David Stark, school reporter, subject of a mysterious prophecy and possibly Harper’s least favorite person. But things get complicated when Harper starts falling for him—and discovers that David’s own fate could very well be to destroy Earth.
With snappy banter, cotillion dresses, non-stop action and a touch of magic, this new young adult series from bestseller Rachel Hawkins is going to make y’all beg for more.
Review
Rebel Belle is one of those books you definitely don’t want to judge by the cover. From the looks, it seems to be a cute contemporary. The pearls, the bows, and the pastel peach cover just screamed to be contemporary for me. When I realized it wasn’t, I was so surprise.
Anyways, Rebel Belle’s plot is much different from anything else I’ve read. The setting was mainly the most unique part.
I found that the writing style was just average. Honestly, it didn’t stand out to me.
The whole southern belle, cotillion type of setting was really hard for me to understand because I know nothing about it. I feel like this made it very difficult for me to connect with Harper. I found that this was probably the main factor that kept me from fully enjoying the book. I honestly couldn’t connect/ understand Harper’s attitude and character.
I never found myself REALLY liking David. I was very neutral about him, which is disappointing. I felt like his character was a little forced. The other characters were okay as well. Sadly, none of them were particularly memorable.
Aside from that, I found that the magical aspect was the book was interesting… but a little predictable. Aside from the main “what-the-actual-magic-is” being unique, there was nothing about how the magic played out into the plot that really WOWed me.
Overall, this was an okay read. I liked it at some parts, but overall, it is not something I would jump out of my seat recommending. I would suggest you pick it up if you are interested in the synopsis!
☾ myriadinklings × books, stationery, + life 
Thank you for that review! I was totally going to start reading it solely for the cover hahahah, but now I’ll keep in mind what you said here. I’m sorry you had to spend money on an “okay read”
Thanks again! And also, totally unrelated to the review, but your pictures are WOW! It’s beautiful, really :))
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I really enjoyed this one. It’s hard for me to connect with Harper at the beginning because she seems like girly type of girl, and like you said, I know nothing about Cotilion. But after a few googles and wikipedia, and after diving deeper into the book, it’s really fun to read! And the magical aspect is also really interesting, it’s nothing like I’ve read before. Great review!
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I’ve been pretty keen to read this book, I always thought the premise was really intriguing but it kind of sucks to hear the writing is mediocre and the love interest uninteresting. Pretty cover tho hahaha!!
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I know what you mean by judging the book by its cover! I thought it would be a contemporary, but was pretty surprised by its magical elements. I thought this book was silly fun and something I wouldn’t read if I wanted a super serious read. I couldn’t connect with Harper too (I don’t even live in the US!), though she struck me as those stereotypes from the movies. There was something endearing about her though. Great review, Jen!
Are you going to be reading the sequel? c:
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Great review Jen! It has such a beautiful cover so it’s sad to see that it was only mediocre 😦
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