Title: Beauty
Queens
Author: Libba
Bray
Publisher: Scholastic
Press
Publication Date: May
24, 2011
Genres: YA,
Satire
Reviewed by: Angie
Edwards
My rating: 4/5
SUMMARY
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.
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
What do
you get when you take the beauty away from beauty queens? Easy. Girls who learn
to use their brains, and develop their talents. Girls who empower themselves
and stop apologizing for wanting to be more than the next objectified reigning
beauty queen. Yeah, baby! This book has it all! Bray gives readers a
tongue-in-cheek, satirical look at political correctness, the stigma attached
to being disabled (ahem...I mean “differently abled”), commercialism, Helen
Keller, beauty pageant stereotypes, reality TV, dictators (which reminded me of
the hilarious lemur in the movie, Madagascar),
corporate espionage, hermaphrodites, racial equality, purity rings, etc, etc.
It’s just a smorgasbord of hotbed topics every reader will be able to relate to
in one way or another.
This
book kept reminding me of one of the episodes on CSI: Miami, season ten. You should watch that episode. It was
pretty frightening to see the outrageous things parents do to their five-year-old
daughters to participate in beauty pageants. I was shocked. Anyway, before I digress any further, I
enjoyed Beauty Queens, but I was also
disappointed that I didn’t enjoy it more. I love satire and I caught all the
between-the-lines-snark embedded in this novel, but at times it was just a
little too fluffy and tedious. It actually took me awhile to finish this book
because, although I appreciate the many themes that are explored, the
characters were so bland and clichéd (most likely intentionally so), they
barely held my interest. From the summary and magnificent book cover I
mistakenly got the impression that Beauty
Queens was going to be one incredible laugh-fest, and though I chuckled a
couple of times, it wasn’t as entertaining as I hoped it would be. Only the
last twenty percent or so was incredibly enjoyable once the action kicked in.
My
favorite parts were the foreword (from your sponsor), commercial breaks on The
Corporation Network’s TV channel during a couple of chapters, and the Miss Teen
Dream Fun Facts page for each contestant. I liked how each character acted like
a typical teen; behaving exactly how teenagers at that age would. I’ve
genuinely never read a book with as many self-absorbed teens as these all in
one storyline, but it made it easier to see them grow as individuals towards
the last half of the book. Not only that, but she also pointed out how – and
I’m sure this is very true for some – people don’t like an “angry disabled
person”, no matter how beautiful she is, because it messes with their sympathy,
and thus accentuates said disabled person’s imperfection. If you really think
about it, you can’t ignore the brutal honesty behind that statement.
If you
look past the satire, you’ll find that there is a message about the value
society places on superficial beauty, and the pressure on young women to look
the way mega corporations and labels promote as acceptable. Beauty is but skin
deep, Bray tells us. It is also so much more than young women simply falling
prey to a commercialized money-guzzling enterprise run behind the glitz and
glamour by greedy, sadistic bastards who destroys the environment and tests
products on helpless animals while lining their own pockets (my words, not hers
– or is it?). Beauty should be in the eye of the beholder, darn you!
To
summarize: Bray pokes fun at just about everything that have become the norm in
our everyday lives; the things we don’t give much thought to as we go about our
daily routines on auto-pilot. But, there are truths to all the things she
spotlights, such as birth control, for one, and – while having a good chuckle –
it’s hard to overlook that every serious topic tastefully disguised with humor
also serves as food for thought on an awareness level. Oh, and there are
pirates brandishing mad dialogue skills, and a spectacular not-to-be-missed
fireball finale! So, despite my complaints, I think this is a cleverly-written
novel that should be read by every teenage girl.
PURCHASE LINKS
ABOUT the AUTHOR
Libba Bray is the New York Times bestselling author of The Gemma Doyle trilogy (A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, The Sweet Far Thing);
the Michael L. Printz Award-winning Going Bovine; Beauty Queens, an L.A. Times Book Prize finalist; and The Diviners series. She is originally from Texas
but makes her home in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband, son, and two sociopathic
cats.
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