Enchantée ARC Review! | Magical Realism and Hot-Air Balloons!

Hi friends! If you’ve been around for a while, you know that I have been DYING to read Enchantée for forever now, so I’m so so SO thankful to Flatiron for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinions!

Right. I am terrible at summarizing because (a) spoilers and (b) I like to ramble. But ANYWAYSSSS…this follows a girl named Camille who must use “everyday” magic to provide for herself, her older brother who is a drunkaed, and her younger, ill sister. Until one day, in an act of desperation, she uses the forbidden magic of changing one’s self to gain her ticket to Versailles. And of course, she makes friends there but also enemies and along the way she meets this dashing aeronaut whom we all love dearly.

ALRIGHT. *cracks knuckles* let’s do this review thing.

First off! Unique things about this book!

• Whoever says “hot air balloons are stupid” clearly has never read this book. The balloon is more than a plot device, more than a setting, it’s a symbol. And WE NEVER GET THINGS LIKE THAT IN YA.
• Historical magical realism is not really a thing??? It’s an actual crime we need more books like this.
• Gita is a debut author and WE STAN DEBUT AUTHORS. Her talent in this is extraordinary and I can’t wait to see what she does next okay bye

I REALLY LOVED CHANDON. Actually, Chandon was lowkey my favorite character in the book and he’s my little cinnamon roll and AHHH. I LOVE HIM.

ahem.

I also liked Lazare’s character, although I wished we got a tad more depth. His struggle with being half Indian (his mother was from India) was such an incredible addition to the story and made it so much more than just token diversity.

There were moments where I was frantically turning the pages and my eyes were like “slow down” and my brain was all “NO WE MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT” and I blew up*. At other times, it was a struggle to lose myself in this world.

*on the inside don’t worry I’m still here

Camille annoyed me in a lot of ways? So many of her actions didn’t make a lick of common sense although it wasn’t just her! HALF THE TIME THESE PEOPLE DID NOT SEEM TO GRASP THE CONCEPT OF COMMUNICATION. Questions that needed to be asked weren’t. It was ridiculous.

And as much as I enjoyed the romance, I wasn’t full-on obsessed shipping it with my whole heart!

And I think I was relatively misled by the blurbs, because I was expecting Laini Taylor writing, Erin Morgenstern writing. Gita’s writing is terrific but in a simple way, not in a lush, dreamy way like I was originally expecting!

Sometimes the plot was slow. Like, ridiculously slow. It felt like things were running around in circles because of those asdfghjkl characters* who DID NOTHING. It’s so hard not to spoil. Because of the backwards and forwards of the characters AND the plot, the flow was really hard to grasp sometimes. One minute I’d be reading one scene and sleeping, the next I was freaking out.

*except for you Chandon love. You were perfect. And you did good too Lazare.

ALSO I wanted more revolution??? More of the royalty??? We got to see like the same 5 aristocrats. Seriously, this is VERSAILLES in 1789 and there’s almost nothing truly involving the royalty and the revolution together.

although that last chapter and those last couple of pages? Perfection.

In Conclusion…

This was tough for me to rate, because on one hand it was a fascinating story packed with rich layers, but on the other hand it was rather disappointing. I would recommend this for fans of magical realism!

Tell me your thoughts, friends!