Social upheaval, a smart, evolving heroine, and the power of questioning authority all decorate the pages of The Revolution of Olivia Witherson, an excellent sequel to The Great Misfortune of Stella Sedgewick. Olivia is delightful to read about, and while the narrative might feel a little bit immature for adult tastes, I’m fully confident that teenagers are going to love this book. I may not have loved it, but I definitely enjoyed it.

It’s 1872, and vicar’s daughter Olivia Witherson is on the cusp of something amazing. She’s moved to Paris to be with her rich fiance, Sam Desir, but with a shower of mud and manure hitting her skirts, reality sets in. Sam has little time to spend with her because he’s so involved with his family’s thriving business. His family is obsessed with keeping ahead of the rich White families that surround them, and they seem to have no time at all for Olivia’s life, nor for the servants they employ.

Then, sliding into the family’s coach when she ought not to have, Olivia is accidentally kidnapped by The Saints Tristes, a street gang who are determined to grab attention to fund their cause. They had intended to take Sam and hold him for ransom but Olivia – as the moneyed fiancee – will do nicely as a replacement.

Olivia is incensed by her situation. Most of her ire splashes on the gang’s leader, Jac Santil, with whom she had a previous unpleasant encounter. But she quickly learns the Saints are not simply out there for their own gain: they feed the poor, support their community with their lifted earnings, and are in the middle of organizing labor strikes for the downtrodden factory workers among them – including those who labor at Sam’s father’s factories. Olivia soon finds herself caught between Sam and Jac, the poor and the rich — and her future hangs in the balance.

Spending time with Olivia Witherson is a privilege, and it was so easy to disappear into the pages of The Revolution of Olivia Witherson. Olivia herself makes this a worthy B-level read: she’s fun, feisty, kind and good-natured. She cares that there’s injustice and strife on the streets, but has no idea how to help. She’s the main reason to read this book, along with the cast of quirky side characters she meets up with. While she eventually uses her privilege to help the poor, the moral messages within were far too simplistic for my taste, relying too much on easy, pat platitudes.

Sam is an even more vague character in this book than he was in The Great Misfortune of Stella Sedgewick, and he isn’t used to his best advantage here. Jac is roguish and arch and charming, and he’s got a lot of drive and is streetwise. These two men are connected in a surprising and inventive way that I didn’t see coming at all. The central romance is your typical love-hate connection, its charms spiced by the characters’ individual charisma.

The most interesting supporting characters here are definitely the Saints: creative Daniel, sylph-like Djamilla, linguistically skillful Adrien and Rene the muscle. They’re very distinct, and they kept me continuously entertained throughout the book. I enjoyed the breathtaking fun of the capers the group dove into, and the danger that came along with each adventure. And when the book ended, I really WANTED to spend more time with Djamilla.

But I had to mark the book down a little bit for its incomplex moral picture. Olivia is an avatar who has to be taught social justice, in this case while she’s held captive in a Patty Hearst-like manner. She learns all about the horrors of the factory floor. She sees and meets all of the stock figures of the era: the ex-child laborer mangled by a machine, the poor orphan child so desperate to touch and own something pretty that she’ll bargain her last crust of bread for Olivia’s fancy dress.

Predictably, the Desirs have next to zero good qualities. Sam’s father Emil is making his workers grind their fingers to the bone in unsafe conditions for poverty wages so he can benefit from them. Sam is distant and money-driven. Madame Desir, Sam’s mother, thinks Olivia is a gold digger who wants a share of Sam’s fortune.

By contrast, the street gang is the salt of the earth: they have been mangled in the machinery of capitalism, and are looking for fairness and their own due – even though they’re not above Doing Crimes to get their way. The desperate poor on the streets of Paris obviously don’t deserve to suffer and Emil is obviously wrong, and I’m obviously not on the side of the rich folks here, but there really should have been more morally grey characters on both sides of the class divide to illustrate the reality that your status doesn’t always determine who you are as a person. The neat bifurcation of the characters into either “good” and “bad” felt wooden and underdeveloped.

The Revolution of Olivia Witherson thrilled me as an adventure yarn, made me smile as a romance, and entertained me as a character portrait. As an adventure, it’s wonderful, but I wanted more nuance and depth from the narrative than it was able to supply.

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This guest review comes from Lisa! A longtime romance aficionado and frequent commenter to SBTB, Lisa is a queer Latine critic with a sharp tongue and lots of opinions. She frequently reviewed at All About Romance and Women Write About Comics, where she’s on staff, and you can catch her at @‌thatbouviergirl on Twitter. There, she shares good reviews, bracing industry opinions and thoughtful commentary when she’s not on her grind looking for the next good freelance job.