Star Rating: 4/5
A Great and Terrible
Beauty
By Libba Bray
All Gemma Doyle wanted was to leave India , go to London , and enjoy the parties her grandmother
described in her letters. What Gemma did not
want was to go because her mother was murdered or, as her brother would have
her tell her new classmates at Spence
Academy , because her
mother died of cholera. Gemma knows the truth; at least she thinks she does.
The day her mother died, Gemma had her first vision. She had just run angrily
away from her mother when the vision opened—a vision of her mother being attacked
by a creature that came out of the shadows. The vision and her mother are gone
now, and Gemma is to become a suitable wife along with the other Spence girls. Except
there is another option, one involving her visions. Gemma’s first vision was
just a taste of what is inside her. After falling into another vision, Gemma is
confronted by a stranger who demands she stop having them. How can she stop
though when she realizes she could control the visions and change her fate?
When she could have power, beauty, even her mother again?
Libba Bray’s A Great
and Terrible Beauty draws the reader in right from the beginning and keeps her
wondering throughout the book. Bray does an excellent job blending the past and
the future. She teases you with tidbits of the past, making you question and
consider what you know and think you know, without revealing the mystery and
adventure of the future. The reader may notice more than Gemma if she pays
careful attention to the tidbits and begins to make guesses on her own but
never so much so that Gemma starts to seem oblivious. The mystery is enhanced
by the other characters, particularly her classmates Felicity, Pippa, and Ann.
Each at first seems fairly flat and stereotypical, but the reader discovers
with Gemma that they are not as they seem. The girls are easily relatable with
their varied personalities, dreams, and sometimes surprising and always
enlightening secrets. These secrets and the others throughout the book are what
tantalize the reader, begging her to question what she knows compared to what
she perceives and assumes.
Note: I am a sensitive reader and don’t enjoy reading things
that make me mentally or physically uncomfortable in certain ways. There is a
short scene involving sexual content in this book, which may to you seem tame.
I felt the scene was unnecessarily descriptive. I feel that it could have been
removed from the novel, taking nothing from the characterization or plot. For
these reasons, I have deducted a star from my rating. I would still recommend
this book to mature readers who could recognize the passage, skip over it if
they wish, and still enjoy the story. Obviously, this is strictly my opinion
and you are free to think, feel, and do as you please.