A review by poachedeggs
Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
2.0
2.5 stars.
I wavered between disbelief and outright irritation from the very beginning of the book, when the robotic Texan beauty queen Taylor asks everyone to practise their pageantry skills right after the plane crash, and Libba Bray began throwing in all kinds of 'quirky' little footnotes.
So readers need to suspend their disbelief a lot, or they might as well just read non-fiction, but this isn't really [b:Gulliver's Travels|7733|Gulliver's Travels (Penguin Classics)|Jonathan Swift|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311647470s/7733.jpg|2394716]. It's a bunch of pretty self-centred beauty queens (one of whom walks around with a tray stuck in her forehead for much of the book - and it wasn't funny the first time we found out either) who, upon finding out that most of the plane's passengers had perished in the crash on a deserted island, immediately start worrying about their make-up and dresses. Then later, they meet some pretty airheaded guys, one of whom begins quoting Dickens out of the blue and wins the favour of the most unconventional girl on the island. I accept that the bimbos and stereotypes may work, but I can't stomach (IN THIS CONTEXT only) the sudden erudition that must possess a character before he can be liked. All in all, a strange mix of realism and outright bizarre behaviour with no fantastical elements to explain that, oh, that is how the laws of (human) nature work here.
It might have worked for a 200-page book, but I am starting to get the feeling that Libba Bray just writes really long books - [b:A Great and Terrible Beauty|3682|A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, #1)|Libba Bray|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1284558475s/3682.jpg|2113193] weighs in at 400+ pages, and [b:Going Bovine|6512140|Going Bovine|Libba Bray|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266736365s/6512140.jpg|4733312] is 480 pages long. A lot more editing would have improved Beauty Queens.
I was sufficiently entertained, however, in the later half of the book, when Taylor's character becomes a lot more interesting (and I found out what a bandolier refers to!) and the girls do some things that are not exactly surprising - they are meant to have some socially/morally educational purpose - but that on occasion, do please the feminist in me.
Some of these ideas might have worked better in an essay though. I am perhaps rather biased in thinking that a great novel of ideas often doesn't work unless the writer is a European or represents the world in sci-fi/dystopian terms (ah, the fantastic [b:Genesis|6171892|Genesis|Bernard Beckett|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255832595s/6171892.jpg|6351510]). Outside of these, character development is still so important!
I wavered between disbelief and outright irritation from the very beginning of the book, when the robotic Texan beauty queen Taylor asks everyone to practise their pageantry skills right after the plane crash, and Libba Bray began throwing in all kinds of 'quirky' little footnotes.
So readers need to suspend their disbelief a lot, or they might as well just read non-fiction, but this isn't really [b:Gulliver's Travels|7733|Gulliver's Travels (Penguin Classics)|Jonathan Swift|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311647470s/7733.jpg|2394716]. It's a bunch of pretty self-centred beauty queens (one of whom walks around with a tray stuck in her forehead for much of the book - and it wasn't funny the first time we found out either) who, upon finding out that most of the plane's passengers had perished in the crash on a deserted island, immediately start worrying about their make-up and dresses. Then later, they meet some pretty airheaded guys, one of whom begins quoting Dickens out of the blue and wins the favour of the most unconventional girl on the island. I accept that the bimbos and stereotypes may work, but I can't stomach (IN THIS CONTEXT only) the sudden erudition that must possess a character before he can be liked. All in all, a strange mix of realism and outright bizarre behaviour with no fantastical elements to explain that, oh, that is how the laws of (human) nature work here.
It might have worked for a 200-page book, but I am starting to get the feeling that Libba Bray just writes really long books - [b:A Great and Terrible Beauty|3682|A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, #1)|Libba Bray|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1284558475s/3682.jpg|2113193] weighs in at 400+ pages, and [b:Going Bovine|6512140|Going Bovine|Libba Bray|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266736365s/6512140.jpg|4733312] is 480 pages long. A lot more editing would have improved Beauty Queens.
I was sufficiently entertained, however, in the later half of the book, when Taylor's character becomes a lot more interesting (and I found out what a bandolier refers to!) and the girls do some things that are not exactly surprising - they are meant to have some socially/morally educational purpose - but that on occasion, do please the feminist in me.
Some of these ideas might have worked better in an essay though. I am perhaps rather biased in thinking that a great novel of ideas often doesn't work unless the writer is a European or represents the world in sci-fi/dystopian terms (ah, the fantastic [b:Genesis|6171892|Genesis|Bernard Beckett|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255832595s/6171892.jpg|6351510]). Outside of these, character development is still so important!