Author: Libba Bray
Date Released: May 14th, 2011
Pages: 390
Rating: 4 out of 5
Description:
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.
Review:
This is definitely laughoutloud hilarious!! I've never read a Libba Bray book before, so I wasn't quite sure of what to expect, but this was pretty funny. I also wasn't quite sure of what I was getting into, because for some reason I sort of thought that they were going to like start killing each other or resorting to cannibalism or something violent, kind of like a Lost (the TV show) meets Gone (the book by Michael Grant) meets Lord of the Flies type of thing.
I'm not totally sure of how this story was told, but to me, it seemed to be told like it was an actual TV show, complete with commercial breaks that absolutely cracked me up. What really surprised me about this book were the characters. So, there were some of the dumb blondes, like Tiara (Miss Mississippi), and the ones with brains, like Adina (Miss New Hampshire). But throughout the whole book, the major characters Adina, Mary Lou (Miss Nebraska), Petra (Miss Rhode Island), Jennifer (Miss Michigan), Sosie (Miss Illinois), Nicole (Miss Colorado), and Shanti (Miss California) all go through self-discovering changes and realizations of what they really want to pursue, instead of being in pagaents. The characters were extremely funny and all of them were different in their own way. What was also very surprising was how they were able to take care of themselves and survive... I thought that they wouldn't most of the time...
The plot was totally unexpected. While I was reading, I was like, "How is this book going to end??" I kind of thought that everyone would die in the end or something, but it was the complete opposite, and you eventually find out why all of this happened, which is completely jaw-dropping. Bray really threw in a lot of unexpected twists and turns that really kept Beauty Queens engaging and interesting.
I think it was genius how she blended in the profile of some of the pagaent girls, interviews with people like Ladybird Hope, top secret documents, and of course, the commercials.
Beauty Queens was an absolutely enjoyable read all the way, with no dull moments at all. It's really funny too, so if you're looking for a book to make you laugh... CHOOSE THIS ONE!
Cover Review:
Coolest cover ever?? I think so. This is definitely a very creative cover with the girl wearing the bikini along with the pagaent sash and a bullet thing with lipsticks in it instead of bullets. It kind of also screams "THIS IS FUNNY! SO READ IT!" in a way, or at least to me.
Cleo :)
*Description and picture from goodreads.com
**Review copy purchased.
I just read this and really enjoyed it too! The plot was a total surprise for me. I thought it would be more "Lord of the Flies" esque but it turned out to be a lot more of a political statement. Great review!!!
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