Title: Beauty Queens
Author: Libba Bray
Trigger Warning: Abandonment, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, mentions of eating disorders, sexual assault and harassment,
About this book:
Survival. Of the fittest. 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.
My Thoughts:
I have had this book on my shelf for years, and this year, with my goal to read the books I already own I only hesitated a little bit when it came to grabbing this one.
The cover is glorious, especially after you’ve read the entire book because you know just which character it is. This book is satire, and it had me laughing aloud quite a bit as I flipped through the pages, and tried to picture the scenarios occuring.
This book is a little bit Lost, a little bit Survivor, and entirely too entertaining for its own good. It’s full of surprisingly diverse characters, especially for being representative of people in a beauty pageant, but that diversity is also part of the conflict, with assumptions and stereotypes being brought to the forefront along with how ridiculous it is to judge people based on the colour of their skin, what they look like, where they are from and any other differences they may have.
Because when it comes down to it, in desperate times like this, we are all human with our own strengths and weaknesses and capable of strengths we may not be aware of.
This book is not for anyone who might not love dark humour, or satire because it is packed full.
Favourite Quotes:
“Why do girls always feel like they have to apologize for giving an opinion or taking up space in the world? Have you ever noticed that?” Nicole asked. “You go on websites and some girl leaves a post and if it’s longer than three sentences or she’s expressing her thoughts about some topic, she usually ends with, ‘Sorry for the rant’ or ‘That may be dumb, but that’s what I think.”
—
“Weren’t you wearing a purity ring when we got here? Aren’t you supposed to be saving yourself?” Shanti asked.
“Yeah,” Mary Lou answered. “And then I thought, for what? You save leftovers. My sex is not a leftover, and it is not a Christmas present.”
A Lovely Little Book Blog 