Beauty Queen by Libba Bray
Reading level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Press (May 24, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0439895979
Source: Audiobook (highly recommended)
Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥

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. Your tour guide? None other than Libba Bray, the hilarious, sensational, Printz Award-winning author of A Great and
Terrible Beauty and Going Bovine. The result is a novel that will make you laugh, make you think, and make you never see beauty the same way again.

REVIEW


With Beauty Queens Libba Bray has created a truly twisted and hilarious novel that is a fantastic mixture of Lost, Austin Powers and Miss Congeniality gone totally wrong.

Imagine a plane full of teen beauty queen contestants on route to a photo shoot, then they crash. Tragic, right? Yet tragic does not even begin to explain what happens next as the survivors of this plane crash come together, join forces and survive in the wild. The insanity escalates with explosive beauty products a crazy dictator and pirates, YES! Pirates that are thrown into the mix. Together these elements and the surviving contestants create this environment that is unbelievable to fathom but will have you engaged from the very beginning.

As I settled in for the fun ride that Beauty Queens was sure to be I truly did not expect the crash landing of wicked awesome that it was. I adored it's dark and twisted look at the world of beauty pageants and how our society views beauty and I would be left breathless with laughter. From it's footnotes, to it's contestant bios and inventive commercials I knew I was witnessing the brilliance that is Libba Bray, in Beauty Queens.

I think this book is crazy funny, but understand that some may find it over the top and a bit offensive. So, while I adore this book I know that it is not for everyone. If you enjoy dark comedy and read that is a lot of crazy then this is the book for you.