Bellegarde | ARC Review

Evie Clement has perfected the art of avoiding attention as she works at her family’s bakery and dreams of a life where she can trade dusting flour for designing dresses. Her focus is on honing her sewing skills–she doesn’t need to be fawned over by some teenage boy.

Least of all Beau Bellegarde–the playboy of Paris, the second son of the ultra-wealthy Bellegarde family, the most popular guy in their prestigious high school. Others may swoon over his rakish charm and winning smile, but not Evie.

Unfortunately for Evie, Beau needs her. His conniving step-brother has roped him into an impossible bet: turn the biggest wallflower they know into the winning Bellegarde Bloom at the annual Court of Flowers Ball, or lose his entire fortune.

Evie can’t understand why Beau has taken an interest in her, but she can’t help but be intrigued…

Can love bloom in the most unexpected of places?

This was such a fun book. A little bit of Gossip Girl, a little bit of She’s All That, and some Bridgerton but make it young adult. Who can say no to that?

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself, Beau Bellegarde. It’s just a word. Sort of like the word buffoon. Do you know that one?”
This book was pretty funny at times. I liked the sass from Evie that she often slung at Beau. It really hiked up their chemistry and banter.

I loved how modern this book was in so many ways, mainly the language, while still taking place in a historical world. Plus, I feel like the historicals I read are usually in England so this was a nice change to take place in France.

This was mostly dual pov. We got one random chapter from the “mean girl.” Rachelle about halfway through. Although, I’m not sure why because it offered no special insight to the story and no depth to the character. She further reinforced that she was the mean girl we already knew her to be.

The biggest thing that I disliked about this book was the romance. The first half was shaping up to be so cute and then the second half we throw in a second love interest and leave Beau and Evie to never acknowledge their feelings for each other. It was literally the last chapter and then all of a sudden they like each other? We should have been feeling the struggle of their feelings along the way. Instead, we only got little inklings of it sometimes before they were left to do other things.

Also, the second love interest was so charming! What the heck! We better get a book about him because I was liking him more than Beau by the end.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, but I wouldn’t go into it expecting a strong romance. Read the book hoping for a fun world with characters pursuing their dreams and living life.

Rating

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