Reviews

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

ps2's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

mybooksarenovel's review against another edition

4.0

I've been meaning to get around to reading this for almost 20 years. I'm so happy to not be disappointed!

- Victorian England and India
- all-girls boarding school complete with rivalling mean girls
- the oppression of girls and women
- arranged marriages to sickeningly older men
- a secret garden
- mediumship - both the con and occult kind
- secret orders and societies
- portals to other dimensions
- malevolent spirits

What an underrated series! This story was a total trip. It was incredibly immersive and I was absolutely lost to it. The forgiveness element was the most satisfying. I will definitely be continuing on.

gertrudy's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

krystalthedealer's review against another edition

3.0

It was good enough to make me want to read more. It wasn't good enough to make me wanna definitely reccomend it to my friends.

dgolds11's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

horchata's review against another edition

slow-paced

2.75

Libba Bray is an entertaining writer, but I felt like this book could have been condensed by about 50-100 pages. There was so much that took up so much time!! I found myself wishing I could understand the audiobook at 2.5x speed so I could get to the end faster without missing anything. A book where I wish it was possible to skim with my ears, haha.

gabriellaashlin's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

bloodelf's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

kristenbooks's review against another edition

4.0

Well that was fantastic. Can't quite give it 5/5, but that's a solid 9/10 and 4.5/5 right there. I honestly couldn't put that down.

emmapants's review against another edition

5.0

Libba Bray's first novel introduces us to Gemma Doyle, the titular character of the trilogy. Gemma is in Mary Lennox-like circumstances when her mother dies and she's removed from her beloved India and replaced into Victorian England. This book encompasses the historical with the fantastical, a portal story as well as a paranormal one, and throws it into a Victorian boarding school where the girls are as much teenage, and often mean, girls as any contemporary YA story. Oh yeah, and there's a love interest too.

I'm going to have a problem genuinely reviewing this series, cause I just adore it so much. Let me just say, it has everything, is well-written and made me cry. And I cry very rarely.

Basically if you enjoy any of the sorts of stories I mentioned, you have to read this. Double if you are or ever have been a teenage girl.

Read my full review and comparisons to other books at my blog: http://shorteasywordsreviews.blogspot.com/2011/03/theres-only-so-many-vampire-stories.html