A Great and Terrible Beauty
by Libba Bray
reviewed by Meghan Sullivan
Libba Bray’s novel A Great and Terrible Beauty is not only a fantasy book but a female empowerment story. Set in Victorian London, this book focuses on four friends who desperately want to break away from the rules and regulations of Spence, their high class, private boarding school. Trying to find an escape, Gemma realizes that she can open a portal to the Realms, a magical dimension where anything is possible. In the Realms, they are finally free to be who they want to be with “no one around to stifle [them]” (Bray 284). In the Realms, Gemma and her friends can make their dreams come true. But after finding a mysterious diary, the girls soon begin to realize that magic and power come at a price, and people want the magic for themselves.
In A Great and Terrible Beauty, Bray creates well written, complex, female characters. Gemma, the protagonist, deals with guilt because she believes that she is responsible for her mother’s death. Gemma is sassy and witty and has lots of pride, but still loves her friends and wants to make everyone happy. Although she thinks that the rules of high class social are stupid, she still tries to impress Miss Moore, her favorite teacher. Felicity, Gemma’s best friend only cares about power. She is the leader of the school and often feels that people need to “remember [their] place” (Bray 225). She is cruel and mean and bullies Gemma when she first arrives at Spence, but her father is too busy for her and her mother left her. As the book progresses, the reader witnesses Felicity grow as a character and as a friend. She finally admits that her father does not care about her, and she becomes more concerned with the welfare of her friends than her own. Ann, Gemma’s roommate, was a nobody before Gemma arrived at Spence. She was the invisible girl in the background. Ann is not beautiful, and is at the school on a scholarship, meaning her future consists of becoming a governess. All she wants is to be beautiful. However, she has “dull, watery eyes” (Bray 48) and “her nose runs” (Bray 48). Ann becomes so depressed that she cuts herself, all because of her desire to be beautiful. Their other friend Pippa, however, sees that beauty as a curse after being forced to marry a man over fifty years old. All she wanted was to find true love, but she was sold to be married because the man offered her family a large sum of money. Pippa “could be vain and selfish” but also “brave and determined and generous” (Bray 397). All of these friends want different things, believe in different powers, but they all bond together because “they were all dreamers” and “they were all damaged” (Bray 314); but that is okay because it is our flaws that make us interesting, a motif shown throughout the book.
Though Bray uses many techniques to enhance the book, her choice to narrate in first person dramatically changed the novel. Because the reader is limited to what the character knows, they are drawn into the mystery. By telling the story in first person, Bray can leave out both major and minor detail that would explain the entire story, forcing the reader to continue to read if she wants to know everything. In addition, the reader forms a more emotional connection with Gemma because the story is being told from her point of view. The reader also learns about her feeling and opinions, leading to a more emotional attachment being formed.
This is an amazing book, and I highly recommend it to people who love mystery, magic or suspense. A Great and Terrible Beauty is also an empowering novel of women breaking away from the deep-seated oppression present during Victorian times. This book has very witty humor and is amusing at times. It is also very easy to connect with the characters because they show different emotions that many girls still experience today. I enjoyed reading about four headstrong, complicated teenage girls who took their lives into their hands and choose to do what makes them happy.
Beauty Queens
by Libba Bray
reviewed by Briana Escobar
In this day and age, finding entertainment that rightfully represents numerous diverse groups of people is hard to come by. Bray does a spectacular job of including several diverse characters in her novel, Beauty Queens. This remarkable novel follows the lives of girls entering a beauty pageant. However, on their way to the destination of the pageant, their plane crashes on a deserted island where the girls are left with no food, water, shelter, or adults. This group of 50 teenage girls, or, more accurately, however many survive the crash, has to work together to survive and be rescued.
Bray uses tasteful satire throughout the novel to express the many unfair stereotypes forced on women. For example, her striking comment on the double standards on a woman’s expression of her sexuality, “Sexuality is not meant to be this way - an honest, consensual expression in which a girl might take an active role when she feels good and ready and not one minute before. No. Sexual desire is meant to sell soap. And cars. And beer. And religion” (Bray, 178). Anyone who identifies as a woman reading this book is able to relate to this image. Readers are able to recognize the disgusting sexual objectification of women in advertisement, and seeing a strong woman such as Bray shedding light on the subject makes readers feel empowered.
However, the brilliant ways that Bray stands up to society through literature doesn’t stop there. The outstanding idea of having beauty pageant girls expressing feminist themes absolutely demolishes the age-old negative stereotypes of feminists. One of the hardest struggles women face in today’s society are the constant, barraging stereotypes, and the characters feel the weight of the struggle in this book as well. “The world expected girls to pluck and primp and put on heels. Meanwhile, boys dressed in rumpled T-shirts and baggy pants and misplace their combs, and yet you were supposed to fall at their feet? Unacceptable” (Bray, 205). Libba Bray analyzes that perhaps to get women to find themselves and become the empowered women we all deserve to be, perhaps they have to get lost.
A Great and Terrible Beauty
by Libba Bray
reviewed by Francesca Legaspi
A Great and Terrible Beauty is a story about a 16 year old girl named Gemma Doyle, who has the ability to wield magic and use it to escape to a magical, mysterious place called the realms. After her mother is “murdered” by a sorcerer named Circe, Gemma is forced to leave India, her home, and travel to London so she can attend boarding school called Spence and learn how to behave properly. After her mother died, Gemma’s world was turned upside down when she began to have visions that she couldn’t tell anyone about since she didn’t understand them herself. Gemma hopes that by attending Spence, she can learn how her mother really died, as well as learn to understand herself. Upon arriving at Spence, Gemma encounters 3 girls named Felicity, Ann, and Pippa, who, will come to help her understand her power and what her purpose is.
Although each of the girls are viewed by everyone at Spence as perfect and incapable of having flaws, the girls soon bond and learn that each of them holds a secret and a desire that they want more than anything else to come true. The story focuses on the girls’ adventures as Gemma takes them all into the realms after learning what her power is and how to control it from reading the diary of a girl named Mary Dowd, who supposedly died many years before in a fire, alongside her friend, Sarah-Reese Toohm. She and her friends are determined to make their lives better and attain their desires by forming their own group, which they name “The Order”. The girls pass in and out of the realms where they each use the magic within it to fulfill their desires during their time there. Each time Gemma passes through, she is able to speak with her mother and continues to learn more about how dangerous her power is and why she mustn’t use it outside of the realms until she is deemed ready. However, Gemma thinks that she is ready to use her magic since she so badly wants to fulfill the wishes of her friends and herself, even if it goes against her mother’s wishes.
The more Gemma passes through the realms, the more she learns of the dark secrets of the original Order, the sins of Mary Dowd and Sarah, why her power is feared by others, and why she must be careful in the ways she uses it. Gemma’s curiosity turns out to be both her most helpful and detrimental quality throughout the story. As she continues to learn more secrets and unlock the truth about who she is and who her mother really was, Gemma learns that she has to make certain decisions that could change her life and the lives of her friends forever.
What decisions does Gemma make? Does she learn the truth about herself? What happens to her friends when they encounter Circe? Read this suspenseful and thrilling novel to find out!
A Great and Terrible Beauty
by Libba Bray
reviewed by Marta Maynes
A Great And Terrible Beauty is an amazing novel filled with magic, Victorian-Age traditions, and powerful women. Written by Libba Bray, A Great And Terrible Beauty takes us inside an exclusive, all-girls preparatory academy in 19th Century London, where magic and secrets lurk in every corner.
The novel is written from the viewpoint of sixteen-year old, Gemma Doyle. After her mother mysteriously dies in India, Gemma is sent to Spence Academy in England to continue her education. Gemma immediately gets an eerie vibe from the school and constantly feels like someone is watching her. While she tries to put these feelings in the back of her mind, she is inundated with new friends, new traditions, and a rigorous study schedule.
Gemma sees visions of the future, and they all mysteriously come true. Gemma is confused on what to make of the visions. She wonders if they mean anything! It’s not long after Gemma discovers the powers she has, that she learns that she is in fact being watched by a young man. But why? Does she need to close her mind from seeing the visions?
At Spence, Gemma’s magical powers unfold as she discovers pieces of information from her and her mother’s past. Gemma’s powers can grow even stronger if she accepts her destiny. Will she accept her fate?
Reading A Great And Terrible Beauty will have readers enthralled with excitement and at the edge of their seat. The relatable characters develop a connection with the reader and have them wanting answers. Readers will not want to put this book down!
