Sunday 24 April 2011

Book review: A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Title: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Author: Libba Bray

Length: 403 pages

Published: 9th December 2003

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Childrens Books

Warnings: Suggestive situations, reference to alchol, violence

Summary: Gemma Doyle, sixteen and proud, must leave the warmth of her childhood home in India for the rigid Spence Academy, a cold finishing school outside of London, followed by a stranger who bears puzzling warnings. Using her sharp tongue and agile mind, she navigates the stormy seas of friendship with high-born daughters and her roommate, a plain scholarship case. As Gemma discovers that her mother's death may have an otherworldly cause, and that she herself may have innate powers, Gemma is forced to face her own frightening, yet exciting destiny . . . if only she can believe in it.

Review: I read this book because Nina forgot what happened in it. It lives up to my first impression of it: Nina the genius forgot what happened in it = I will forget about it. The characters were cliché, the events were cliché, the plot was predictable and the* (SPOILER).The characters were so stupid at times that I couldn't understand why the took certain actions to the extent that I didn't really care when **(SPOILER). That's not very good. I thought the characters were together because of their own personal benifit and that the didn't really care about eachother that The idea of the main characters shadowing the actions of people in the past old one but I thought that the way it was linked to the main characters was decent and explained well. The scenes in the garden was alright at first but I thought that Gemma argued with her mother too much and that it slowed down the pacing of the plot.



Rating: 1

Spoilers- highlight them to read
*death of Pippa was poorly executed

**Pippa died**

3 comments:

  1. Sounds a bit rubbish really; no wonder Nina forgot what happened. Such a good title too-shameful.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I read this once a while back, and I remember that bugged me too. All the characters' motivations and logic were ridiculous, and there seemed no reason for them to stick together, blah blah.
    Great review though. ^^

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really liked the first in this series...but the others were so boring! I think I actually threw this one against the wall. It went on to my "wall bangers" list on GoodReads lol

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking time to read this!
Comments are much loved.
Nina xxx

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