Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Title: Beauty Queens

Author: Libba Bray

Publisher: Scholastic Press
Release Date: May 24, 2011

Source: Purchased

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

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.

Beauty Queens is the first Libba Bray book I’ve read and I am happy to have finally read one of her books. Beauty Queens was funny, witty and all around a great book. I highly enjoyed reading it and even wished it would have been longer.

What could possibly go wrong when a plane full of teenage beauty queens crashes on a deserted island? Just about everything. No one really knows what to do to survive and the girl put in charge thinks they shouldn’t do anything other than continue preparing for the pageant. Except that’s not really going to help them get off the island. But somehow they manage to survive and come together instead of seeing each other as competition. But then pirates show up and while trying to find a way off the island, the group of beauty queens discover there may be a lot more going on than meets the eye.

I don’t think I could have loved this story more. It was everything I expected and that much more. Libba Bray is an absolutely brilliant writer and I am so happy I finally picked up one of her books. The story she wrote had a bit of everything: action, adventure, drama, romance, humor, just to name a few. But even with all those elements thrown together, the story worked perfectly. And who would have thought a story about beauty queens stranded on a desert island would turn out to be so amazing? Let’s just say Libba Bray wrote a story I am not about to forget any time soon.

As much as I love being able to really relate to characters and there not being too many of them, I absolutely loved the cast of characters here. Each girl was unique and brought something different to the story. If I were to relate to one girl more than the others it would be Adina, simply because I felt we had similar personalities. But I loved the others too. I enjoyed seeing Mary Lou get comfortable with her body, the relationship between Jennifer and Sosie develop, as well as Shanti and Nicole come to terms with who they are and just seeing all the girls change and grow. And of course, Taylor was always a great source of entertainment. And don’t even get me started on the pirates and the secret agents. There wasn’t one boring character.

Beauty Queens was an absolutely amazing book. Libba Bray is a fantastic writer and I can’t wait to finally read more of her books and discover this great author.