Khanh, first of her name, mother of bunnies's Reviews > Rebel Belle

Once again, my chest tightened, and there was that weird fluttering sensation that was like butterflies. But it couldn’t be butterflies. I did not have butterflies over David Stark.

25% of the way in, I was sure I would give this book a 4, but I ended up wanting to fling this book at Harper's head. This book may be really, really cute, but overall, it's just an overextended love triangle without much of a plot. Nothing of importance happens in this book.



This was not a bad book by any means. I absolutely adored the main character, the relationships and the friendships were wonderfully written, the high school kids were just plain cute. But seriously, there was no fucking point to the love triangle, and I wanted to bash my head in every time the WONDERFUL BESTEST BOYFRIEND EVER Ryan clashed with BROODING HIPSTER ASSHOLE (with a heart of gold) David.

Not since Unearthly has a love triangle been so dragged out to agonizing nonresolution until the very fucking end. There was no fucking point to this love triangle. Why did it need a love triangle? Why could she not protect one guy and be his friend while remaining with her current boyfriend?! Why?!

If you don't mind the love triangle, I would recommend this book, because it was seriously sweet, as in the "I just ate a half pound of French chocolate truffles, but who cares, bitches, they're TRUFFLES!" sort of sweet. It was the good kind of sweetness. This book is so lighthearted and cute. But that love triangle, man!

The Summary:

“So, Harper Jane Price. Are you ready to accept your destiny?”

It's silly, but if Harper hadn't forgotten her lip gloss, this never would have happened.

Harper Jane Price, Southern Belle extraordinaire, is perfect. She has a great life (let's not talk about her dead sister), a loving, wonderful boyfriend Ryan, fantastic friends, adoring parents, and a bright future.

Southern Belles are beautiful on the surface, sure, but what you might fail to notice upon first glance is that they have a backbone made of steel. Harper is one of those "I don't know how she does it" type of gal. Great grades, school president, popular, admired. Until the night it all starts to unravel. Until the night she forgot her lipgloss at the homecoming dance. Because then she had to borrow her friend's lip gloss. Because she stepped into the bathroom, only to encounter her school janitor, Mr. Hall, bloody and battered.

His breath was coming out in short gasps, and there was a dark red stain spreading across his expansive belly. There was no doubt in my mind that he was dying.

Before dying, Mr. Hall breathes an ice-cold breath of air into Harper's lungs (ew), and whispers to her...

“Look after him, okay?” he said, his eyes looking glazed again. “Make sure he’s...he’s safe.”

WTF?! So there's Harper, in her Homecoming outfit (which cost over $1k), hovering over a dead man. SHIT. And to make it worse, at that moment, her history teacher barges in. Not only does he insult her...

“I really can’t think of a worse choice,” he said, still smiling, “than the bimbo who wrote a paper on the history of shoes for my class.”

But he tries to kill her!! He doesn't exactly succeed, because somehow Harper finds the strength in herself to kick his ass.

The sword was still poised in the air when I came to an abrupt stop and sunk the heel into his throat, right under his jaw.

He really shouldn't have called her a bimbo.

So crap, what the fuck is all this?! Before he died, Mr. Hall muttered something about a "Pal," and some vague shit about protection. After Googling this shit, Harper theorizes that the "Pal" means Paladin (Thank you, World of Warcraft, really!). So the only thing Harper has to figure out now is who she's meant to protect.

Mr. Hall hadn’t been a superhero. He’d been a Paladin, and that was . . . different, right? And what—or who—had been his noble cause?
What was mine?

She'll figure it out eventually. Meanwhile, there's school to deal with. Not to mention asshole hipster extraordinaire David Stark. Everyone has a thorn in their life, and David Stark is Harper's pain in the ass. He's the only skinny-jean wearing hipster in the entire school, and ever since childhood, David's mission has been to take Harper down. Currently, he's on the school paper, writing vicious articles about her, and this latest one is the last fucking straw.

Under the picture of me and Bee, there was a smaller caption: Homecoming Queen misses crowning under mysterious circumstances. My eyes darted over the rest of the article as my heart started pounding. “...hiding in the boys’ room...violently ill...tension between the ‘Queen Bee’ and her underling, Bee Franklin...this reporter...”

Harper Price is PISSED, and she's going to murder that asshole. Except she can't.

Whatever the reason, my right hand shot up to slap David Stark across the face.
Half an inch from David’s cheek, my hand stopped in midair. And it wasn’t because I had some crisis of conscience, either. It was like my hand hit an invisible wall right by his head.

Well, fuck. It turns out that Harper is a Paladin chosen to protect David. And as much as she hates him, she can't hurt him. In fact, she has to protect him with her life. What will become of Harper's life? Her relationship with her friends, her wonderful boyfriend? Is she prepared to give it all up to protect David?

I withdrew my hand. “No, thank you.”
Saylor and David both stared.
“I appreciate your offer very much,” I continued. “But I’m afraid I have to refuse.”

Well, we all know that it's not that simple. But Harper already has so much on her plate. How is she going to deal with David...while trying to maintain her relationship with Ryan?!

“But you’re always arguing with him. Or talking about him. Or competing with him. And sometimes I wonder how you can be so obsessed with someone you supposedly hate.”

And Ryan is so understanding. He's trying to understand WHY she's spending so much time away from him. Harper is so busy sneaking around with David talking about being a Paladin that she just doesn't have any time for the perfect Ryan anymore. And Ryan really is perfect.

“I love you,” he said at last. “You know that. But it’s...it’s like we’re speaking two different languages most of the time. Harper.” He tugged on my hand. “If there’s something going on with you, you can tell me, okay?”

Even as he suspects something's going on between David and his girlfriend...

“You guys seemed pretty...intense yesterday,” Ryan said, dropping my hand.
“Yeah, we were intensely arguing over him writing that stupid article,” I said even as I had a sudden vision of me and David, laughing in his car. Hugging. God, we had hugged.

THAT'S THE ENTIRE FUCKING BOOK.

The Premise: The Paladin thing is just...strange. This is pretty original, in that I've rarely seen the concept of the Paladin used, and to be honest...it doesn't quite work. It's just a protector, nothing more. Someone assigned to protect a person, and the concept was not convincing. The mythology behind it wasn't well-drawn enough to be truly attractive, and overall, I just found the concept rather baffling. This book completely lacks Hex Hall's magic in that sense. It is an urban fantasy that's too light on the fantasy, with almost no relevant action at all.

Harper: She is just a fabulous narrator.



The quintessential Steel Magnolia. She reminds me a little bit of Mac in the Fever series. Before you go running away, I have to make a case for Harper. She is young, she is 17, and she is so utterly competent. Think of Harper as Mac 4.0. Harper has none of Mac's immaturity, on the contrary, Harper is astoundingly capable. She is cheerleader, class president, Homecoming organizer, she's in the Future Business Leaders of America, she's got great grades, she's got a gentle nature, she holds it all together. Most of it had to do with the fact that she's trying to get over her sister's death. Harper organizes away her grief with perfection. So much that her parents worry about her.

And the next time I did school stuff in the middle of the night, I just did it in my closet with the door locked. Honestly, what is wrong with this country when striving for excellence means you need antidepressants?

I absolutely loved Harper. She is never judgmental, she is a Southern Belle with none of the annoying characteristics, and honestly, I hate to generalize, but if you've got an Y chromosome, you're probably not going to like this book because Harper is so adorably girly.

THE MOTHEREFFING LOVE TRIANGLE:

Ryan was a good guy. He always had been.

Harper has a boyfriend, Ryan, and he is absolutely perfect. Handsome, smart, he has supported her throughout her family tragedy. He has stood by her while she joins 1000000 school committees, waiting patiently for her to make time for him. She's been in love with Ryan since 3rd grade, and it took her 6 years to get him. They've been dating for a couple of years, and Ryan is an absolute darling. He is an utter gentleman.

He lowered his head and kissed me, albeit pretty chastely. PDA is vile, and Ryan, being my Perfect Boyfriend, knows how I feel about it.

He gets along with her friends.

“Ladies,” Ryan said, nodding at Amanda, Abigail, and Mary Beth. “Let me guess. Y’all are...plotting world domination?”
“No,” Amanda told him, deadly serious. “We’re talking about Cotillion.”
“Ah, world domination, Cotillion. Same difference,” Ryan replied with an easy grin, and this time, all three girls giggled, even Amanda.

Her parents adore him. He truly is a wonderful guy. He's concerned about her, about all the pressures Harper places on herself.

And Harper adores him. Until David Stark steps into the picture.

She and David have known each other since they were children, too, it's a small Southern town, y'all. Harper and David have been each others' nemesis their entire lives, since the cradle, almost.

He and I had loathed each other since kindergarten. Heck, even before that. Mom says he’s the only baby I ever bit in daycare.

It followed through to middle school.

“I’m sure you’d hate to miss everyone’s felicitations.”
David had beaten me in the final round of our sixth-grade spelling bee with that word and now, all these years later, he still tried to drop it into conversation whenever he could.

He's taken to writing vicious articles attacking her leadership in school, and implying that she was pregnant. But the instant Harper gets "assigned" to protect him...suddenly, something fucking changes!

For one horrifying second, I thought he was going to kiss me. I wasn’t really sure how I’d react if he did.
But it was only a hug. And if I maybe spent a second or two thinking that he actually smelled really nice, or that he was much more solid than he appeared, so what?

AND SO THE APOCALYPSE BEGINS. Who will it be? Will it be Ryan, lovely boyfriend Ryan who's waiting patiently on the side while Harper gets all her school shit and secret Paladin shit together? Or will it be David?!

Still, I had to admit, yellow was a good color on him. It brought out the gold in his hair, and—
I stopped myself. The gold in his hair? Since when did I care about David.

SO WHO WILL SHE MOTHERFUCKING CHOOSE?! Wonderful, neglected Ryan, or asshole-with-a-heart David? And will she ever stop being a motherfucking terrible girlfriend?!

“But, God, Harper, sometimes I feel like your whole life is a checklist, and I am way down at the bottom. And, you know, every once in awhile, you throw me a bone to keep me happy.”
I flinched at that, hard. Not only because it was insulting, but because it was way too close to the truth.