review; beauty queens

Beauty Queens
by Libba Bray

When a plane crash strands thirteen teen beauty contestants on a mysterious island, they struggle to survive, to get along with one another, to combat the island’s other diabolical occupants, and to learn their dance numbers in case they are rescued in time for the competition.

Review:

So this was a fun book? I mean, it was a satire that at times felt a little too – I don’t know, shallow? But that was the point – to show how shallow the world can be, how double-standards can affect people, etc. It took me longer to get through than I expected, but that is largely because I fell into a reading slump while I was reading it.

Then I hit the middle of the book and flew past the pages. Each girl, even the ones we don’t find the names of till near the end, was given a characteristic, was an individual. The writing was snappy, the action sometimes – most of the time – over the top and ridiculous, and it was just a lot of fun?

I have to say though, I enjoyed Sinjin St Sinjin’s character more than I thought I would, and Taylor definitely grew on me, and by the end, she was one of my favourites. All the girls were wonderfully written and I loved how they grew and learned to depend on themselves and each other, how they learned to care less of what the rest of the world thought of them.

(Petra/Sinjin is definitely one of my all time favourite pairings.)