Review: Beauty Queens - Libba Bray

Name: Beauty Queens

Author: Libba Bray

General Release Date: 24th May 2011

Date I finished it: 25th August 2011

Type: Hardback (US edition)

From: The Book Depository

My Rating: 3/5 stars

When I first got Beauty Queens months ago I was super excited by it, but for some reason it got put near the end of my urgent TBR list. I don't really know why that is.

So I picked it out as one of my books for Project 10 Book. (If you want to know more about this challenge check out my You Tube videos)

I have not read any of Libba Bray's books before, so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect.

Beauty Queens follows a pack of teenage beauty queens whose plane crash lands on what seems to be a deserted island. After they finally realise that no help is coming their way the girls decide to have some fun while trying to survive. They turn building huts and weapons into a competition and use their skills to create safe drinking water and create a regular food supply.

But everything is not as it seems, there is in fact a secret compound on the island full of Corporation employees, the same Corporation who run the teen beauty pageant they were all meant to take part in!

I did enjoy this book, it was strange to get into at first as almost every chapter is from a different beauty queen's perspective. It was a bit confusing at first as there is so many of them, after a while though I soon saw who the main characters were and their stories were the ones that stuck n my head the most.

In between chapters there is also fact sheets on each of the girls, which does make it a little less confusing to remember who everyone is. There are also adverts and press releases from the Corporation, which at first I wondered why on earth those things would be in the book, but as I read more they made sense.

I did like how each beauty queen had their own little quirks and personalities and from a readers perspective, even though it got confusing I liked hearing from each of them.

I really liked how diverse the range of girls stranded on the island was as well, it's not often in books (tv shows, anything really) that you see a wide mix of girls from completely different backgrounds, cultures and ethnicities.

The story itself is pretty unbelievable, especially when the pirates showed up! But it was a fun read.

If you are looking for something light-hearted that doesn't make you think too much, this is it!