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A review by pages_oflau
Enchantée by Gita Trelease
5.0
Thank you so much to PanMacmillan for sending me a copy of this book to review.
"Yves Rencourt, The chandler's apprentice, had lost his wig."
Enchantée is a beautifully written book set in historical Paris, infused with magic and completely captivating from the very first page!
The main character Camille lives in poverty with her younger sister Sophie - who is really poorly - and her brother Alain, who is an alcoholic and gambler. He owes so many debts that every little bit of money Camille and Sophie earns he claims for himself to pay his debts but instead he drinks it away. From the start it was clear how much of a bond Camille and Sophie have, always looking out for each other and I felt their sisterly love. Their parents died and left them with nothing.
"In the end, who can say which way was right and which way was wrong, as long as one of them leads to happiness?"
In this world, there are 3 types of magic: Magie Ordinaire - for changing things; like scrap metal into coins, Glamoire - for changing oneself & Magie Bibelot - for imbuing objects with magic. Camille starts off at the beginning of the book using just Magie Ordinaire to enchant scrap bits of metal into coins to pay for food, this kind of magic feeds off of ones sorrow and pain.
As the story progresses, Camille moves onto stronger, darker magic, Glamoire which needs her sorrow and blood to work. Camille soon gets caught up in all the glitz and glam and becomes addicted to gambling herself, at the very beautiful Versailles, with the help of a magic dress.
I loved Camille - much like with myself if anything like this ever happened to my family I imagine I would be like her. I would do whatever it took to keep a roof over our head and food on our table. Camille was such a caring older sister to Sophie and it was so inspiring to see that grow even when the bad things happened. And of course then we have Lazare, who is Indian and the amount of abuse he faces for being Indian is heartbreaking but so real, he is also super adorable.
"Remember - magic is a cheater's game, and everyone who sees it wants to play."
The magic system in this book is simple yet completely believable. I loved everything about this 1789 version of Paris, the glitz and the glam was there, the world building was incredible and everything was so well described that I couldn't help but be transported there.
This book is so beautifully written, and all the history made it even more believable and it really shows that Gita did her research.
Trigger/content warnings; racism, degrading comments about women, physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, illness of a loved one, loss of a loved one, alcohol addiction & gambling addiction.
"Yves Rencourt, The chandler's apprentice, had lost his wig."
Enchantée is a beautifully written book set in historical Paris, infused with magic and completely captivating from the very first page!
The main character Camille lives in poverty with her younger sister Sophie - who is really poorly - and her brother Alain, who is an alcoholic and gambler. He owes so many debts that every little bit of money Camille and Sophie earns he claims for himself to pay his debts but instead he drinks it away. From the start it was clear how much of a bond Camille and Sophie have, always looking out for each other and I felt their sisterly love. Their parents died and left them with nothing.
"In the end, who can say which way was right and which way was wrong, as long as one of them leads to happiness?"
In this world, there are 3 types of magic: Magie Ordinaire - for changing things; like scrap metal into coins, Glamoire - for changing oneself & Magie Bibelot - for imbuing objects with magic. Camille starts off at the beginning of the book using just Magie Ordinaire to enchant scrap bits of metal into coins to pay for food, this kind of magic feeds off of ones sorrow and pain.
As the story progresses, Camille moves onto stronger, darker magic, Glamoire which needs her sorrow and blood to work. Camille soon gets caught up in all the glitz and glam and becomes addicted to gambling herself, at the very beautiful Versailles, with the help of a magic dress.
I loved Camille - much like with myself if anything like this ever happened to my family I imagine I would be like her. I would do whatever it took to keep a roof over our head and food on our table. Camille was such a caring older sister to Sophie and it was so inspiring to see that grow even when the bad things happened. And of course then we have Lazare, who is Indian and the amount of abuse he faces for being Indian is heartbreaking but so real, he is also super adorable.
"Remember - magic is a cheater's game, and everyone who sees it wants to play."
The magic system in this book is simple yet completely believable. I loved everything about this 1789 version of Paris, the glitz and the glam was there, the world building was incredible and everything was so well described that I couldn't help but be transported there.
This book is so beautifully written, and all the history made it even more believable and it really shows that Gita did her research.
Trigger/content warnings; racism, degrading comments about women, physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, illness of a loved one, loss of a loved one, alcohol addiction & gambling addiction.