Book Review

This Week’s Book Review

Colleen Worger, Grade 10

          The book that I have chosen to review is “Beauty Queens” written by Libba Bray. The story is about fifty American beauty queen contestants who are all on their way to compete in the Miss Teen Dream Pageant. Each girl has a distinct personality, and all are reminiscent of real life. While flying to the pageant however, the plane crashes on a remote island that has been uninhabited for many years. The book follows the survivors of the crash on their journey throughout the mysterious island while they try to find an answer to the strange things that have been happening to them. (Lost vibes anyone?).

            I enjoyed this book quite a lot and found it entertaining and very funny at times. One thing that struck me as odd was that the book didn’t seem to have a main character; it was told from the point of view of all the different characters stranded on the island. It took me a while to connect everyone’s names and remember who was who because there were so many different characters. Once I got past that, I found that one of the main reasons I loved it was there was a lot of humour in it, which was like the cherry on top for me. It really fit well with the story. The author did a great job of putting a large amount of detail and explanations about the setting into the book which made it easier to understand what life was like for the beauty queens. Another other part of the book that I enjoyed was that occasionally there was a page that was set up like a beauty pageant form and you could read it and learn new things about one of the characters. All of the detail, and even the character’s feelings were described so well that I felt like I could have been on the island watching all of the events unfold. Two of my favourite quotes from the book are:

“I don’t want to do the pageant anymore. I want to make another hut. That was fun. And I want some gummi bears.”, and “Your problem is not having any trust. You expect the world to fail you, so it does. And then you get all pouty-pants about it. How’s that workin’ out for you, New Hampshire?”

            I did enjoy this book a lot and would give it a 9/10.