I am not usually that big of a fan of dystopian novels, but this one gets high marks from me. I have long been interested in the French Revolution and the mash up is irresistable

This one is not for me. It would be a good book for much younger readers, but it was not as enjoyable for an older reader.

I really struggled to get through this book. While I found the concept intriguing, I struggled to engage in the world. It felt too current while trying to also be futuristic and historic at the same time.

This may work for others. It didn't for me. I am not sure that many of my patrons would seek out this book as well.

It's the year 3070, and Marie née Maria is an influencer with over a million followers on the popular app Pixster. She's also an Austro princess who's about to be sent to the Franco kingdom, specifically Versailles, to marry Louis, a man she's never met, in an effort to unite their kingdoms. The Apps paint Versailles to be a beautiful, comfortable kingdom, but when Marie gets there, she learns there's more to the palace than meets the eye, and what's worse is what's beyond the palace walls.

I'm a big fan of Marie Antionette's story, so I was pretty excited to read this. First and foremost, Marie here is a very well-written character. That always matters to me first. The story is familiar, albeit with many sci-fi liberties taken throughout. There were a few things I didn't like about the book. The futuristic slang, for example, while fine at first. This was also a long book (for YA), and at times it felt long. I'm still on the fence regarding the ending, but all in all I enjoyed this book. Just as a side note, if like me, you're not a student of French, it might be easier to get the audiobook.

It took me some time to get into this story, but in the end I found I quite enjoyed this bizarre, futuristic retelling of the French Revolution.

A new version of Marie Antoinette is our main character in the year 3070, which seems to have a lot of very humanoid, semi-sentient robots, but otherwise looks a lot like 2022. The tech mostly matches what we have now, which doesn’t make a ton of sense, but that aspect of the story takes a backseat to its better components, which are its solid character development and interesting spin on how the French Revolution might foment in a world of tech and climate change issues.

Marie and Louis and the secondary characters are lovely and interesting, and they are all written well as futuristic homages to what we know about their real world namesakes. The French Revolution is a fascinating but fairly depressing topic in real life, and it’s not much different here, though a slightly different ending to the Royals’ story helps lighten things up.

The tech stuff isn’t my favorite, but I do think Dahlin did an admirable job of weaving it into an old story in inventive ways. I do wish she hadn’t loaded the text up with made up slang and curse words (if you’re new around these parts, made up curse words are my pet peeve. Just use the actual words or don’t have the characters swear). It’s particularly bad in this book because it’s all computer and tech terms (giga! Phishing!) which is both super cringe-y and also likely to be incredibly outdated 1000 years into the future.

That issue aside, this was a more successful retelling than I expected and I was pretty invested in the characters and the story by the book’s end. Worth a read if you’re into French Revolution, Royals in general, and/or techie dystopia.

As a huge fan of Marie Antoinette and royals, I enjoyed this youthful take on Marie 2.0’s life. I enjoyed that this perspective was coming from a 14 year old whose primary interests lie is trying to blaze a new trail while skirting palace rules and keeping her Franc social media follower numbers up. If you’re a Marie Antoinette fan, you will recognize several names from the real people who were part of the OG Marie Antoinette’s life.

Set in the year 3070 in post-“The Event” France, we get a peek at new technology, new fashions utilizing that technology, the old world mixing with the new world, and the same problems that the namesake Dauphin and Dauphine face.

I loved the gossipy court full of spies and bugs, the intrigue, and placing the characters in a futuristic new world with a “does history repeat itself” storyline. You must read the book to see if history does repeat itself!

I appreciated the use of tech terminology as slang for emotions and expressions. While I don’t perpetuating incorrect historical quotes, seeing how the real Marie Antoinette never uttered the infamous “Let them eat cake” phrase, I like how the author derived a way to showcase how misinformation des to the public can do true harm. I’m glad the quote was attributed to a fuxrional and futuristic Marie Antoinette instead of the real royal that existed.

This book is perfect for young adults who like some actual royal history mixed in with a futuristic world of royals. Thank you to #Netgalley and #HarperCollins for the ARC of Cake Eater in exchange for my honest opinion.

Allyson Dahlin takes readers into the year, 3070, in her book, Cake Eater. This fun spin on Marie Antionette shows what life may have been like if technology and social media were as popular in 1770. Cake Eater boasts a glamourous life for Marie in her new home at Versailles and the Franc Kingdom, as she is to be married to Louis and become queen. In the neon spotlight, she should be careful though - With surveillance, censored news feeds, and disappearing courtiers, everything at Versailles may not be what it seems.!

I adored this imagination of Marie Antionette and Louis. Marie is a firecracker, and both she and Louis have genuine hearts to change their kingdom to spark change against the riots and social media firestorms.

1.5

Thanks to Net Galley for the ARC.

This was quite a slog. I kept going because every once in a while something amazing would happen and because most of the posted reviews had a lot to say, in vague terms, about the ending. I wanted to know. Now I know and I wish I didn’t.

I think there is a solid 250 page book in here

Allyson Dahlin’s, debut novel, Cake Eater is set in the year 3070 when a teenage Marie Antoinette has arrived at Versailles to marry the sweet, but shy Louis-Auguste. Marie is a social media influencer as well as princess who gets many likes for her over the top looks, but is finding it difficult to connect to the people in her new home. And beyond the parties and bright lights, darkness is looming. This is a post apocalyptic world in which much of the human population was decimated and only a few big cities are left trying to recreate what human civilization was previously like.

Will this Marie make the same mistakes that plagued her predecessor or will she escape her fate? Does history repeat; can it be rewritten? How much control do influencer have and how much are they controlled by the products they push? There is a lot baked into this cake with a mix of cyberpunk, history, and rom-com, yet it all comes together as a mostly satisfying whole.

Though marketed as YA, this book will also appeal to adults. Fan’s of Sofia Coppola’s film, Marie Antoinette, staring Kirsten Dunst will be delighted by this novel’s blend of history and future speculation.

This is going to be a very honest review about this title. This book was hard for me. Here are the big reasons why. As a historian I have read a bit about Marie and know some of the things that she had to go through when going to France and becoming their queen. So, when in the first half of the book focused a lot on this idea of talking about Marie’s integration into the Fanc kingdom and their expectation for a ruler I was seeing more the original Marie Antoinette’s struggles and confusions. The modern world aspect really was not as present in the first half of the book, so it felt like a leap when in the second half of the book the technology, AI, and social media became more prevalent. It also was very slow in the first half, but the second half speed by. What did I like. I do like having a bit of the old history integrated with this idea of the future. History can and many times repeats itself, so I think it is interesting that this Marie had such a parallel life with the original Marie. I thought it was interesting that they deemed the original Louis the “Sun King” considering that he really didn’t do much for the original France and was not very liked. So that the royalty used him as someone to model themselves after I thought was an interesting choice. Though to be fare the original histories were locked up in the library where not even the royalty could access them so miss information many times does lead to bad leaders being put in a positive light. I also loved the parallel of the current Louis being a computer hacker. I think that if the original Louis was alive today his love of locks and keys would have led him towards learning how to unlock the internet. Overall, this book is a mishmash of ideas. Some are great some are misplaced together I am not quite sure what it really makes. I didn’t love this book, nor did I hate it. I think I am just super puzzled by it.

Thank you so much to HaperCollins Childrens Books and Net Galley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this title.

Delicious retelling of Marie Antoinette. Some slow parts, but overall enjoyed this book
.Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

I want to start off by thanking Turn the Page Tours and NetGalley for allowing me and providing me with a copy of this book to be a part of this awesome tour. I honestly wasn’t sure what to think with this story. The synopsis sounded fun, and the cover is stunning. You don’t have to know the entire history of Marie Antoinette to enjoy this story.

The writing was nice, but the pacing was off a bit. Sometimes it was fast-paced, but at other times, it was a little slow. The advanced technology mixed with court life (surprisingly) worked. Admittedly, that’s why I wanted to read this. I wanted to see how Dahlin would combine 18th-century court life among the Ton and the use of advanced technology with social media influencers. I was also curious to see if the characters were based on the real-life figures or if they would be completely different. The slang threw me a bit, but it didn’t take me out of the story.

Overall, this is a great combination of history and science fiction. You get to learn a little about historical figures in a fun way that would intrigue you to know the story behind them.

This retelling of the story of Marie Antoinette is an interesting and compelling novel. Marie Antoinette, the daughter of the Austrian empress, arrives in Paris to marry Louis-Auguste, the crown prince and heir to the French throne, in 3070. Her task to fully integrate into the French royal family as part of an effort to achieve peace between the two empires. Even for a royal life herself, life at Versailles is beyond anything she experiences or imagined. But beneath the glittering surface, there seems to be a much darker reality that powerful forces are determined to keep hidden from Maria and her new husband. As they form a fragile bond and begin to search for the truth, they realize that their enemies are everywhere ... and danger lurks even where they least expect it.

This very creative story combines romance, a thriller, and a royal story into a powerful and highly engaging book.

Highly recommended!

I just devoured Cake Eater by Allyson Dahlin, which is an extremely unique reimagining of Marie Antoinette’s life set in a far-future version of France. This book manages to combine the genres of historical fiction, retelling, and science fiction all in one!

Cake Eater is really different from any other book I’ve previously read, largely because of the breadth of the genres it combined. It was an unconventional choice, choosing to retell the story of a real historical figure in a completely different era, but it really worked for me! Marie was a spunky protagonist, who definitely felt like a teen of the future even with her historical roots. I especially enjoyed the world and clothing descriptions incorporated into the story, as they made the setting feel more vivid for me!

My Recommendation-
If you love books that boldly blend genres, you should grab a copy of Cake Eater! I would especially recommend this book to readers who enjoy a classic high-tech far-future setting for their stories.

A millennium in the future, Maria of the AustroLands travels to Franc to marry Louis, the dauphin, and becomes Marie Antoinette. As Marie tries to win the Franc people over with her fashion posts on the Apps, she and Louis begin to realize that their life at Versailles is a bubble and their information about life in Paree is being filtered. Can they avoid the fate of their namesakes from millennia past?

A few years ago I did a ton of research on the French Revolution for a novel, and so knew enough about the real Marie Antoinette's life to see the similarities, even though this was set in the future. The future was similar enough to now that readers will be able to connect Pixler to Instagram and holophones to cellphones. I loved how Marie's fashion choices make her an influencer, and how that famous line, "Let them eat cake," is used in the same way it was originally. Fake videos, criticism of "empty empathy"-type social media posts, and hashtags update how a revolution might take place in today's society. There was a sweet, slow romance between Marie and Louis, who were married just after meeting each other - I got the sense that Louis might have been demisexual or asexual without being labelled, while several other characters were LGBTQ. The slang of the 3070s (calling people "dongles" and saying they're "glitching" when they are speechless) reminded me of the slang in the Uglies series and it really worked well. I think there could have been more exploration of the androids, and this wrapped up a little too quickly - I would have loved to see how Marie <spoiler>went on to make a change in the society and how she would have done that given the ending</spoiler>, but overall the mix of historical and science fiction made learning about Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution fun to read about!

If you know anything about Marie Antoniette and her story, you have an idea of how tragic her life was, but Allyson Dahlin takes this to another level in Cake Eater with a Black Mirror-esque twist. The setup for this novel is brilliant and I am happy to say that the story lived up to its striking cover.

There is something so lush about the writing and the world that Allyson Dahlin has built here, which feels very much appropriate for a story about Marie Antoniette. I think taking that real historical figure and placing her in the year 3070 was genius and worked so well. I could totally imagine her as a social media influencer! I always appreciate books that explore social media, and I thought that this book looked at it through a unique lens. It touched on the politics behind using an app like Instagram and how important it was for Marie Antoniette of the future to not only create a following but to make sure that her audience had a certain impression of her. It is something that she doesn’t take lightly!
What was so brilliant about how the story unfolded was the subtle and slow evolution toward the darkness that occurs. We follow Marie as she sees Versailles for the first time and she describes its grandeur, and there are a lot of references to neon lights, grand statues, over-the-top parties, and what you might expect from a future Versailles. Slowly, Marie comes to realize that something more sinister is happening here and it is so unsettling to the reader, but it had me turning the pages!

Of course, it wouldn’t be Marie Antionette’s story without King Louis XVI! I found Louis to be a character who was easy to fall in love with and I won’t soon forget him!

Cake Eater felt like an uncommon mix of genres, from Sci-Fi to thriller to romance, and I was invested in it all! I will admit that it took me a minute to get used to the future slang that the author invented, but I eventually got over it and understood why it was included.

I was so impressed with Allyson Dahlin’s debut and I cannot wait to see what she writes next. I would love if she continued to take historical figures and put them into future situations. It would be an interesting niche, that is for sure!

Dnf @ 67%. Although I really hate reviewing books that I haven’t fully finished, since surpassing the 50% mark, I figured I could pin down my thoughts anyways. I don’t read a lot of futuristic stories so this one stood out to me. Exploring a teenage Marie Antoinette in a digital age we have yet to see sounds intriguing enough. And with the entire Versailles scene set on a holographic stage, what’s not to love. This book reminded me a lot of a YA Sci-Fi I read a few years back and since making that connection I couldn’t get it out of my head. Marie, herself was a stale, sort of naive, and silly girl who wishes to change her world but doesn’t actively participate in it. The use of technology is simple and relatively straightforward, not unlike the devices and gadgets we have or have seen in other media. One of my favorite additions is the use of “glitching” as a colloquial word for swearing or freaking out. The romances, too, were a cause of a bit of annoyance on my part. I don’t like love triangles and this one was no different. The idea of an android or “other” lover is simply overplayed and uninteresting. I wish I could’ve stuck it through to finish this book but there was nothing drawing me to it. Even my favorite character, Louis couldn’t rescue the sinking ship he was written into.

This is a reimagined Marie Antoinette where it’s the year 3070 and this is a future descendant. Her course of life mirrors the first marie antoinette but there’s androids, future tech, and cameras that follow her everywhere. The premise was original but the novel pacing moved sooooo slow. Nothing happened until the last 1/4 of the book. However, if you’re a big French Revolution fan you’ll like it

Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: Cake Eater

Author: Allyson Dahlin

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 5/5

Diversity: Asexual love interest, gay character, lesbian character

Recommended For...: young adult readers, retelling, Marie Antoinette, historical fiction, sci-fi, LGBT

Publication Date: August 9, 2022

Genre: YA historical fiction sci-fi retelling

Age Relevance: 15+ (alcohol consumption, romance, sexual content, animal violence, body image issues, pressuring for sex, vaping, gambling, panic attack, death, climate disaster, violence, gore, pregnancy)

Explanation of Above: There is some alcohol consumption shown and mentioned, along with vaping and gambling. There is some romance and some sexual content, but that is mostly fade to black with just a few mentions in non-descriptive terms in the book. There is also some pressuring for sex on both parties and a mention of teen pregnancy. There is some animal violence mentioned against some holo deer. Body image issues are shown and discussed in the book. There is a panic attack shown in the book. Climate change and crisis are mentioned and shown in the book. There is some violence mentioned and some gore with vomit shown.

Publisher: HarperTeen

Pages: 448

Synopsis: She has a million followers on social media.

She uses her fashion-forward eye to pick the perfect angle and filter on every photo.

She’s iconic.

She’s a trend-setter.

She’s Marie Antoinette, the year is 3070, and she’s arrived in the Franc Kingdom to marry the prince, secure an alliance, and rake in likes from her fans.

Versailles is not the perfect palace Marie’s seen on The Apps. Her life is a maze of pointless rules, and the court watches her every move for mistakes. Her shy husband Louis is more interested in horses and computer-hacking than producing heirs. Versailles seems like a dream full of neon-lit statues, handsome android soldiers, and parties till dawn. Under the surface, it’s a creepy den of secrets: surveillance in Marie’s bedroom, censored news feeds, disappearing courtiers.

When Marie and Louis become king and queen long before they’re ready to rule, any efforts to aid their suffering subjects are stamped out by the mega-corporations of the First Estate. Between riots in Paris and image-wrecking social media firestorms, Marie can’t afford to lose her head. Using her social media savvy and Louis’ hacking knowledge, they try to fix their reputations and change their kingdom for the better, but the royals may find it’s already too late. They’re ruling over the end of an era.

Review: I really liked this book! At first it read like the Royal Diaries version of Marie Antoinette but soon it took on a life of its own. The book does good to talk about a lot of underlying issues, two of the most prominent are social media commentary and how information is presented to people. The book had a great conversation about capitalism and the elite on social media and how the AI/algorithm can keep them from seeing real issues. The book also did so good to talk about a similar issue in further detail, and that’s in how information is given. If you were paying attention to the media during 2020 and 2021, you saw a lot about how officials talked down COVID and how that caused people to stop taking it seriously (along with other issues, but the media played a huge role in COVID information distribution). The book has a ton of great quotes about information that is sent to coddle people and calling it “gentle information” which I really loved. I also loved how the book talked so well about how officials and media can be used to intentionally keep people ignorant because it’s easier to control those in power and those not when you keep them ignorant of important matters or of vital information. The book also discussed the power of influencing and how it can be used for good, but how it can also lead to misinformation being spread and how easy the public opinion can sway due to one bad video of you. The book is extremely well written and had amazing world building. I also thought the character development was good and the book was well paced. I really loved this futuristic take on Marie Antoinette and I hope the author does similar things with other historical figures. I, for one, would love to see Elizabeth I and Anastasia.

However, the book did have a lot of confusing moments because it doesn’t 100% line up with the original Marie Antoinette “tale”/life story, but once I got past those I thought the book was super well done.

Verdict: It was great! I recommend for history and sci-fi fans!

As a Marie Antoinette fan and a wannabe Francophile, this book was so amazing! I loved seeing the futuristic elements that the author added while still staying true to the base story/original details.

Definitely a fan and I will DEFINITELY be picking up a copy upon release!

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Thank you so much to the author, Allyson, for providing me with an ARC of this book to read and review!