This book was, at first, a cover buy. I saw that cover and I immediately bought it (those color combinations are beautiful!). And then I read the summary and knew this book was right up my alley, and BELLE REVOLTE did not disappoint. It's magically enchanting and provides a thought provoking story that will keep readers captivated.

First, the magic, because what fantasy book is complete without magic? And this magic system was one that was so unique and breathtaking. What I loved is that this magic didn't just show the readers the good parts, but also showed the consequences magic users have to pay to use said magic. I've read so many books that just illustrated the good points of magic, so it was refreshing to read about how magic can have consequences. The magic played such an important part in this beautiful story. It fit well with the political aspects, which played an important part in this magical story.

And then there's the world building. The world was beautifully described and, in my head, turned out to be visually stunning. I could not get enough of this world. One of my favorite things about fantasy books is the world building and Miller blew it out of the park. Her descriptions are brilliant and well placed. Miller's writing was poetic and emotionally gripping. Her writing made this story and world feel so real that I could visually picture myself in this world (hopefully part of Annette's group of friends). Her writing gets the readers to really feel the emotions of her two main characters. Miller's writing would have been my favorite part of BELLE REVOLTE, if I was not a sucker for a strong romance.

So then, obviously, my favorite part of this story was the romance. The charming romance was the icing on the cake for me; it was delightfully unique and just the type of romance I was looking for. It was definitely swoon-worthy, and Annette and Yvonne were great for each other. Their personalities complemented one another, and their romance felt wholeheartedly real. And don't get me started on Emilie and Charles's romance (*insert heart eyes here*). These two are a good rivals to lovers romance that is everything and more and 100% swoon-worthy, too. I would fight so hard for these two romances and the two main characters. Annette and Emilie would be powerful protagonists, even without the magic aspect of this story. Their voices are strong and relatable and just absolutely wonderful for this story. They were the voices I needed to hear.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this beautiful tale with powerful representation and main characters that would do absolutely anything to save the world and people they love. For those readers looking for their next compelling read, I highly recommend BELLE REVOLTE.

If I had one sentence to describe this YA sensation and "hook" potential readers in my library, I would say that it is a new imagination of "prince and the pauper meets the French Revolution." This fantastic story follows Emilie and Annette as they swap lives. This is a magical world that is beautifully built and highly unique. The world and elements are developed throughout the story. The pacing of this seemed a bit slow at the start, but once I understood the world and some of the details involved, I was hooked. This book has wonderful potential and was thoroughly enjoyed and well received with all students I have shared it with!

First of all I would like to thank Sourcebooks Fire and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book. I know that it has been a long time, but I was going through some personal issues and those problems kept me away from every platform.

This book was something that gave me all the feels. We are presented to Emilie, a revolutionary female protagonist, who was born not just with luck, but also within a powerful family. Specifically, a powerful mother. On the other hand, we have Annette,whose will to pursue her own dreams is bigger than anything.

These two girls have more than one thing in common. Especially their physical appearance, and once they meet each other, it will be the start of this Belle Révolte.

The world construction for this novel is one of the things that I liked the most. You can absolutely tell that the author had to do a lot of research and had to learn and review some of the most important characteristics of the French culture back in those times. And then, of course, go through the same process to add the magical components and bring this awesome universe to life.

Both Emilie and Annette have some things about their personalities that I love and hate. Sometimes, it was easy to distinguish which of them was narrating the chapter but some other times it was hard to identify which of them was in charge.

I hope that you give this book a chance. I promise you that it will be time well spent.

I wanted to absolutely adore this book. I loved the author’s note on Goodreads talking about potential triggers as well as notes on the inclusion of trans and ace characters and was so excited to read a “prince and the pauper” tale but with progressive themes, diversity and revolution.

This book had some lofty goals and I really liked the idea of it, but unfortunately a lot of it just left like it was partially done. The characters were hard to keep straight and some of them were too similar which led to confusion. Even with the chapters labeled by POV I would catch myself having to go back and reread because I was accidentally thinking of a different character while reading.

The last 40% of the book was my favorite- but even then it felt a bit rushed and some loose ends were tied up a bit too conveniently. Overall I enjoyed the book but wanted a bit more from it. I think people who like classics or fantasy twists on classics would enjoy this one.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for this early review copy.

The first half of this book was quite slow, but it picked up in the last half. An excellent book for students to read trans and queer representation. Also, it is nice to get a standalone fantasy!

This was such a delight to read! It had so many elements that I truly enjoyed.

Belle Revolte is a fantasy retelling of The Prince and The Pauper with a magic system that is divided by gender and features a king that is evil. Of course (because it’s a fantasy ya book after all).

The book follows Emilie who wants to study the noonday arts which are supposed to be for men only, and also more science-y. She ends up trading places with Annette who takes her place at a boarding school and studies the midnight arts.

This book has tons of LGBTQ+ representation, and has so much to say on everything from class, to wealth, to gender, and more. The writing style was lush, and flowery and occasionally would drag down the book. And although I loved both Emelie and Annette as the main protagonists, I found that there were too many other side characters and had trouble keeping some of them straight.

Overall, I really enjoyed Belle Revolte and enjoyed my reading experience.

**I also listened to part of the book on audio and I really liked both of the narrators and thought they both added a lot to the experience.

This was a beautifully written fantasy novel. Definitely deserves all the hype. It had a wonderful storyline, unique characters, interesting worldbuilding. I definitely will be buying a finished copy.

“If you don’t know why you should care about other people, especially the people who are dying for you...then you shouldn’t be in charge of anything, much less people.”

tw: slight gore and death
rep: asexual character, multiple sapphic characters, non-binary characters, trans man love interest, and two (2) f/f couples

(spoilers in this review)
this was the bumpiest roller coaster ride of a story i’ve ever read. it started off very slow and then suddenly flung me, heart first, into a mess of emotions and tragedy.

i loved so many of the characters. there was rarely a character that i didn’t automatically love, though that did come back to hurt me when later stuff happen. sebastian and isabelle betraying their friends, laurence and estrel being killed, oh god rainier being killed.

i loved the romance in this book. there was slow burn, enemies to friends to lovers, and (i think) fake hating??? i’m almost 99% sure that laurence and estrel were in love but i don’t think was ever actually confirmed. i loved the who ended up with who. both the couples were just so so soft with each other and loving ahhh. oh god charles was my absolute favorite, he was so caring and soft with emillie when no one had been before, they were absolutely perfect for each other. and yvonne and annette?? oh god, that magnificent slow burn flirting was amazing. they care for each other so much and protected each other. beautiful.

please read this book, if you don’t mind gore and death, it’s absolutely amazing. i wish i’d read it sooner.

This is a tricky book to review - it has some serious flaws, but on the whole, I really enjoyed it. It's fast-paced YA fantasy with two smart female leads, and it's got a heck of a lot of queer rep (biromantic ace protagonist with sapphic love interest, trans man love interest, lesbian side characters). Though it tries to deal with some darker issues, the book is at its best in its frothier moments - the medical training school and finishing school scenes are much more enjoyable than the battle scenes or the attempts to look at inequality.

I liked both POV characters, and I appreciated that although this has shades of the Prince and the Pauper, Emilie and Annette were both clever and engaging enough to hold my attention in their individual stories, not just as foils to each other. I wish more time had been taken at both schools, as the first half of the story is where all the character development is, and I really enjoyed this section of both girls' journeys. I would say that up to about 55-60%, this feels like a less robust/deep version of a Tamora Pierce first-in-series, and I was sad to lose that tone with the end of the book.

Unfortunately, the worldbuilding is a little bit thin. We have mostly French names, including the title, and the story focuses on a revolution against the nobility, but the author has been clear that this is not intended to be a parallel to French history but an entirely new world, which makes me think that really, we didn't get to see nearly enough of the original aspects world, as it does just feel like France with magic. And I would have liked more explanation on the magic! Not enough information is also the cause of the other major flaw in this book, which is that it regularly leaps from one thing to the next too fast for the reader to follow - for example, people will be having a conversation and then storm off, and even going back and rereading the entire conversation several times, I couldn't work out what had caused the change. Emilie and Charles's rivalry at the start seemed to be based on absolutely nothing on the page - I wondered if it had been too heavily edited, and things taken out that the author assumed a reader would already have seen? It just felt rushed, and like I was trailing to catch up at times, which is strange for a book with such a simple plot.

Essentially, if you don't think about it too hard, and let it wash over you, this is an enjoyable read with themes of dealing with systematic inequality. Three and a half stars, but I'll round up as it is fun.

Belle Revolte is a book that I picked up mainly because of the title and the cover however, I ended up being so glad that I did. The magic and society in this book is so cool and well done. There's also a lot of representation in this book (one of the main characters is sapphic) which I loved.

Another YA fantasy masterpiece from the author of Mask of Shadows. Two amazing female characters, bucking the flawed system to do what is right. A page Turner and a haunting magical tale that will stay with you long after the story ends. Another must-read from @LinseyMiller

Not gonna lie, it took me some time to really get into this book. i actually had to postpone my first read because I wasn't in the right state of mind the first time I started it but once the first few chapters passed, I really got into it. I love the dynamics between the two main characters and how their plots worked both independently and together. It was all so intricate and captivating. The characters were pretty interesting too and the relationships with their friends too. Basically this is a very good high fantasy and you should read it. (also, it's very gay)

I couldn't finish this unfortunately......... This ended up being my first DNF for a long while, I don't think it's the book I think it's because i'm not in the right frame of mind to read this book. I felt like if i continued this i'd end up in a reading slump. I ended up reading to 50% and i'm going to come back to it later!

I was very excited for this release, because the premisse sounded amazing, and I'm always here for asexual main characters. The book did start of promising, but I quickly found it dragging a little and getting really confusing and difficult to keep track of. I might give this a second chance later on, but for now, I had to DNF it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to like this and I tried really hard to. However, I just didn't. The pacing was slow and it took me a while to get through because I found myself not caring enough to pick it back up. The premise sounded like something I'd enjoy - two girls who swap places to learn different types of magic and end up finding out that a war is about to begin. Definitely sounds like my cup of tea. Unfortunately, the characters, the plot, and the writing all sort of fell flat for me.

Both main girls, Annette and Emilie, seemed very similar that it was difficult to tell them apart. There were many times while reading that I forgot who was who and had to rely on the secondary characters to remind me of which girl I was following. One of these main characters is sapphic ace, but the ace representation is hardly there other than one short conversation which could have easily been taken out of the book and would not have changed a thing. I get that the story itself isn't about ace and that people are more than their romantic or sexual preferences, but it just seemed kind of pointless to me.

I still don't understand who Laurence and Estrel were and why they were integral to the movement. Nor do I understand why hacks existed and were fine with lending their magic. There was just a lot that wasn't explained, and yet, it was somehow crucial to the world-building and background story so I was just confused and underwhelmed.

It wasn't the worst thing ever and it had potential, but Belle Revolte was just a miss for me.

Wow. BELLE REVOLTE is outstanding!

Everything about it was just *chef's kiss*. It checked off ALL the boxes for me - I'm a sucker for the whole "Prince and the Pauper" storyline, so this was almost definitely going to be something that I loved, but compelling characters (and not just MCs, but incredible side characters too)?! A revolution?! A unique magic system?! Yeah... it was a fantastic read.

An interesting concept and overall satisfying read but I had immense trouble getting through the first part of it. At many points, I found myself not entirely certain as to what was happening in the plot and although I found the magic system with the use of hacks to be an interesting way to view nobility and privilege in the story, it was a bit underdeveloped.

The book does get a lot of extra points for the good ace representation that I really enjoyed and the darker themes worked well for its story. Overall, it's left a good taste in my mind but it was very hard to get there.

Thank you for the review copy.

Belle Revolte was a beautiful and poetic read that only suffered a bit from a complex web of characters and magic. The two main characters, Emilie and Annette, were well written and great contrasts of their different upbringings. The only real downfall of the story was the numerous magics and titles given to many characters. It was hard to keep track sometimes which made the story harder to enjoy. Even with my issues, I think this was a great upper YA book!

God, this book is just so good! Miller weaves an excellent story, but what makes BELLE REVOLTE so compelling are the characters. I particularity love the way she handed the diverse cast of characters -- this is a masterclass in writing trans characters respectfully and inclusively.

Plus the worldbuilding is excellent!

I was really excited to read this after hearing a lot of people talk about it. Unfortunately this was not the book for me.