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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

"Beauty Queens" by Libba Bray

The fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream pageant thought this was going to be a fun trip to the beach, where they could parade in their state-appropriate costumes and compete in front of the cameras. But sadly, their airplane had another idea crashing on a desert island and leaving the survivors stranded with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner.
What's a beauty queen to do? Continue to practice for the talent portion of the program--or wrestle snakes to the ground? Get a perfect tan--or learn to run wild? And what should happen when the sexy pirates show up?
Welcome to the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. Your tour guide? None other than Libba Bray, the hilarious, sensational, Printz Award-winning author of A Great and Terrible Beauty and Going Bovine. The result is a novel that will make you laugh, make you think, and make you never see beauty the same way again.


First let me start by saying this, I am in love with Libba Bray's sense of humor and sarcasm. I knew this book and I were going to get along when it started off with a public service announcement type letter to the reader. Don't be fooled by the excessive make-up and perfect pageant waves, these beauty queens are quite resourceful. This book was funny and sarcastic, but there were also a whole heap of serious issues going on within and between these girls. Maybe a few too many issues crammed onto one island, but then again I breezed through this book and really enjoyed myself, so I guess those issues weren't too distracting. Some of the character names in this book were priceles, MoMo B. ChaCha, come on now!! And I'm pretty sure my absolute favorite character was the pirate SinJin St. SinJin. So Good! There are the obvious comparisons that can be made to 'Lost' and 'Lord of the Flies', and while those comparisons aren't completely wrong, I'd say this book really stands on its own. Personally, I don't ever remember laughing out loud like this while reading 'Lord of the Flies' or watching 'Lost'. Two thumbs up in my book :0) Highly Recommended!

5 comments:

  1. So I loved the first half of this book. I was laughing a lot, and reading portions of it aloud to my daughter (age 14). Then it started getting a little more mature themed (I thought anyway) and so I finished it, but ended up not loving it as much as when I started. It kind of went over the top a few too many times. But I can see why so many readers have loved this book.

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  2. I loved the premise and the cover, but not the story. I never laughed out loud once. I saw where the author was trying to be funny, but it never connected for me. This was almost a DNF.

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  3. I loved Going Bovine and I'm looking forward to reading Beauty Queens (which I have, checked out from the library, but I need to finish a couple others first!). Glad to see you enjoyed Beauty Queens so much.

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  4. Wow! Beauty Queens sure sounds fun! I always love books with good humour.

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  5. I couldn't finish this one. It was too silly for me. :(

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