Rebel Belle Review

Rebel Belle Review
By Rachel Hawkins

Summary from Goodreads

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.

My Review

With this being my fourth Rachel Hawkins book (I previously read and loved the Hex Hall trilogy), I have found that her books are best read quickly, within a couple of days, possibly a week tops. That being said, this book took me around a month to read. Between school and homework and obligations and such, I didn't have much time to read and I just couldn't justify spending time reading, so then I didn't and this book just sat half-read, staring at me guiltily on my desk. I flew through probably about 200 pages of this really quickly, and I probably could have flown through the rest of it too, if I'd tried. It was overall a very quick read and a really fun time.

Rachel Hawkins writes very sassy female main characters. They don't take crap from anyone and they know who they are and that they can kick-butt. Harper, our main character, was no different. Harper was super sassy and had some great lines, and her interactions with other characters were always thoroughly entertaining. However, in the beginning, Harper bothered me a little. While she was a really fun POV to follow, she also just irked me a little. She came off as little shallow and stuck-up at times, and it just bothered me. She did grow on me as the book went on, though, and I ended up liking her.

"Brandon's hair was a few shades darker than Bee's, more gold than blond, and while I guess he was attractive in a clean-cut jock kind of way, I'd never go for his type. Too many muscles, too few brain cells." (p. 70)

One thing that kind of bothered me was the situation with Harper's sister. I won't go into depth on the situation, because spoilers (I think?), but it just didn't really feel fleshed out. It was mentioned in the beginning, so maybe it's just because I read the beginning so long ago, but the situation felt a little brushed over to me and almost a little unnecessary at points, and it was kind of dropped once there was more drama in Harper's life. This is why I should have finished the book sooner.

"David's grin slowly faded and his fingers fiddled with the edge of his T-shirt, pulling it up and over his bicep a little. Since when did David Stark have biceps? How did you get any muscle tome when all you did was type and be annoying?" (p. 187) 

I really quite like David Stark very much. He balanced Harper out and brought her down to earth. David was so many things that Harper wasn't, but at the same time, they were very similar. David was kind of a dork (in the best way possible) and I loved every time he talked to Harper. David would always tease and kind of poke fun at Harper, which was such a change from Ryan, who just kind of annoyed me.Yeah, I'd take David over Ryan any day. Ryan is more or less your stereotypical, one-dimensional jock/homecoming king/boyfriend of the captain of the cheerleading squad. Okay, maybe he is slightly more than one dimension, but I still like David more.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but I wish I had been able to read it faster, because I think that would have improved my reading experience. I will be picking up the sequel, eventually but I don't know how soon I will be reading because at this point I'm just not super inclined to read it. I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars.