A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle Trilogy, #1)

by Libba Bray

After the suspicious death of her mother in 1895, sixteen-year-old Gemma returns to England, after many years in India, to attend a finishing school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see into the spirit world.

• ISBN10: 141773227X
• ISBN13: 9781417732272
• Publish Date: 22 March 2005 (first published 1 January 2003)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 7 April 2021
• Imprint: Turtleback Books
• Edition: Turtleback School & Library ed.
• Format: Hardcover (Library Binding)
• Pages: 403
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

YES!
+Mean Girls meets The Craft, guest starring Sylvia Brown, set in 1895.
+Visions which are really portals into another realm! Gemma can essentially cross to the other-side, which is a nice dream world where she can talk to her dead mother.
+A girls' boarding school complete with a closed off East Wing, missing class portraits, dead students, intriguing hidden diaries, and many more secrets.
+Frenemies to real friends?! I honestly didn't expect that. I thought these girls were going to continue to be awful, but they truly bond. Not to say it's all sunshine and rainbows, because...well, things get dark.

NO!
-Period-typical racism toward Romani people. They're always referred to as "Gypsies" and "heathens."

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

For whatever reason, the idea of writing this review over the last couple days has simply been exhausting. I really liked this book. It has a lot of problems. I enjoyed the characters, even though all of them were deeply flawed. I felt as though there were situations that were not fully played out (i.e. Miss Moore and the East Wing) but I liked the storyline I got.

So, the good stuff:

- I think Libba Bray inserted the magic really well. It felt subtle and on the edges of things, which is how I feel magical realism should be. Anything bigger is just fantasy.
- I really liked all four girls and their relationship. Their friendship is interesting, because none of them are really friends so much as symbiotic relationship where on one had the girls benefit off Felicity's influence and on the other enjoy Gemma's gift. The way they fell into accidental friendship (but not really loyalty) was interesting to me.
- I just... I really liked Pippa's storyline? I feel like no other reviewer I've read enjoyed the girls outside Gemma, but I loved Pippa's story. It made me sad.

The bad:

- The romantic story is honestly awful and pointless. It adds nothing to the story and feels out of place.
- The Romani people are one big fat stereotype and that's not cool. ESPECIALLY because they also don't add much to the story!!!
- There are a lot of open ends where it feels like the story *could* have gone to be richer, and then didn't. I feel like I missed something that could have been good.

Overall, liked the book a lot. It's a great story - Libba Bray is a great storyteller! But there are some technical issues which I feel needed to be acknowledged to make it a five-star read. I'll be grabbing the next of Gemma's series to be sure.

[gmcgregor]

I love secondhand books. As thrilling as it can be to score a book you've been looking for at the used bookstore, there's also a chance to browse through the shelves and see what catches your eye that you might be willing to take on flyer on for $2. Which is how I picked up Libba Bray's A Great And Terrible Beauty. The cover art is striking, and the back promised a mix of the supernatural, girls boarding school drama, and a touch of gothic horror. While none of those things is a Must Read for me in and of itself, the combination sounded intriguing. And so, two American dollars later, I had my copy in my hot little hands. The book follows 16 year-old Gemma, who has been living in India with her parents for virtually her entire life and wants desperately to go live in England. But when she has a mystical vision of her mother's gruesome death, which comes true, she finds her wish granted in the worst possible way. To England she goes, sent straight off to boarding school at gloomy Spence Academy. She doesn't quite fit in with the other girls...until she catches queen bee Felicity in a compromising position and bribes her way into the inner circle. Gemma's power grows, and there's a secret diary that the girls read and use to find their way into a whole other world...where, of course, danger lurks.

Some experiments work out well. Some don't. This was a miss for me. It's the first of a trilogy, and it's usually been my experience that the first entry in a series is the best one in terms of a standalone story. Not so here...the entire idea of the realms and The Order and the Rakshana feels like Bray herself doesn't really understand how it all works and where she's trying to go with it, but figures she can get to it in the sequels. Same with Gemma and her friends...they're still sketches, their characters are very thin. I think YA can be a great genre, and some of the YA books I've read are still among my favorites. But I think it's often the home of some lazy writing and mistaking stereotypes and/or tropes for actual characters, and this book falls into the proverbial chaff rather than the proverbial wheat for me.

[duchessofdiscord]

One of my absolute favorite series of books. I've read it many, many times, and will probably read it many more times. Absolutely adore Libba Bray's writing style.

[Sam@WLABB]

Our story begins in Colonial India on Gemma's 16th birthday. An argument with her mother prompts Gemma to run, when she is suddenly struck with a "vision". This is a foreshadowing of the many visions she will experience. Two months later, she is shipped off to the Spence school, a finishing school in England, where she will be groomed for marriage. BUT what she finds at Spence is greater than proper grooming, she finds destiny.

This book is a little bit of everything -- a little historical fiction, a little scary, a little paranormal, a little romantic, a little coming-of-age. It was very eye-opening to see what was expected of women in this time period and to see an average teenage response to these demands. There was definitely a lot of social commentary in there about the raw deal women received back then. All of that helped me better understand the mindset of our main characters, Pippa, Felicity, Gemma and Anne. They are all "damaged" in some way, and this book is their journey and exploration into this realization and their growth.

The paranormal aspect really peaks at about 80 percent through the story. Some may say it moved slow, but there was a lot of ground work that needed to be set forth. Don't worry, the "Dead Poet's Society" -style antics are quite amusing and very enjoyable.

[nitzan_schwarz]

2014 cleaning my shelves challenge

3.5 stars

So... how do I start this?

After reading Libba Bray's The Diviners and embarking on a full on crush (and really not so secretly coveting her writing skills) I vowed to read anything the woman has ever written, even if it's the damned phone book! So, naturally, I picked up A Great and Terrible Beauty. Mostly because of its beautiful name and its beautiful cover. I admit I've never even read the summary. I mean, why should I? It's Libba Bray!

Well, Libba Bray or not, this book was... err, how to put it? meh. I was mostly... disappointed.
The writing was still immensely beautiful. Hauntingly beautiful, really. But everything else... that's where it fell short.

First and foremost - I couldn't connect to any of the characters. Not to Gemma, our MC, and not to any of her "friends". Half the time, they didn't feel quite real to me, and the other half I was kind of annoyed with them and how they were acting. Maybe the goal was to make them feel other than human, but I struggled with it.

I'm not entirely sure I can call them "friends", either. It didn't feel like friendship, at any rate. It felt like... well, the closest I can describe is using each other. There was no real give and take between them, just take take take. If I had these kind of "Friends" I wouldn't survive in this world.

And if that's not bad enough - there's the "plot". It didn't grab me. It wasn't exciting. It was barely even there. I kept waiting for something to happen. For things to get interesting. I had to wait a long time.

And the worst thing about this whole book was probably the romance, because Gemma and what's-his-name barely know each other. They speak maybe three times, and two out of those are not very pleasant. And yet Gemma is already thinking things about him. From sexual to emotional. It's all very insta love, a major no-no for me.

I wonder if I had read this book before the Diviners would I feel similarly. I may have rated it higher, even though I feel this rating is very merciful of me. And mostly it's because the writing is painfully gorgeous.

I don't know if I'll ever continue with this series. Probably not, as it did not get me interested enough. Plus, Megs might have accidentally spoiled some aspects of the finale that make me even less enthusiastic to continue...

To read this review and more, check out my blog!

[Amanda]

Original review (11/7/2012): http://onabookbender.com/2012/11/07/review-a-great-and-terrible-beauty-by-libba-bray

A Great and Terrible Beauty is exactly the kind of book I loved as a teenager: history, intrigue, and just a wee bit of the spiritual/paranormal world. Well, and a dashing love interest, the angst of making friends, GIRL POWER, and little life lessons nestled underneath it all. While teen Amanda would likely have enjoyed this more than adult Amanda, the two of us agree that it was good and we want more because it is clear that Gemma’s story is far from over. (Also, there are two more books, so obviously we’re not done here.)

I am a complete and total sucker for heroines in historical books who fight the oppression of women in their times. I thrive on characters like Gemma, because I’ve always admired them and wanted to be like them. The fact that times were different mean little; there is still inequality and discrimination against women in today’s society, just buried deeper and with new names. Gemma isn’t exactly fighting it, but the seeds are present, and that is all I need.

The paranormal aspect of A Great and Terrible Beauty is probably my only real complaint. It was often slightly confusing (for Gemma, too) and though I think this was likely intended, I just wanted MOAR information. I will not apologize for my information whorish ways. But the realms and magic were intriguing, and I’d like to see where Libba Bray takes this trilogy. Gemma Doyle’s world has a lot of potential–for heartbreak, for world-altering consequences, for bucking traditions and learning how to find one’s own way in the world.

A Great and Terrible Beauty is a slow and creepy book, and it is my sincere hope that the trilogy continues to get better as we go.

[ladygrey]

With a title like [b:A Great and Terrible Beauty|3682|A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, #1)|Libba Bray|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1284558475s/3682.jpg|2113193] and such a fantastic cover this should be powerful and beautiful and startling. It shouldn't be young adult fiction written in first person.

Expectations aside, this wasn't a bad book for what it was. [a:Libba Bray|2526|Libba Bray|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1206563678p2/2526.jpg] captures Victorian lifestyle well. The book seems very authentic. She also explores women's place in that era which is interesting on its own but also reflects the place and attitude of women today in ways that I think would challenge girls to look at who they are and the choices they make. I think the most effective moment is when she's talking about being in the realms and the contrast that it is to their life, There's no one around to stifle us. No one to tell us that what we think and feel is wrong. It isn't that we do what we want. It's that we're allowed to want at all. (chapter 25).

But ultimately, I was disappointed. This is young adult fiction and so it's simple, straight forward, the concepts are touched upon and not delved into, interesting ideas are expressed in a sentence and never become a theme or anything more significant.
And, as young adult fiction, I didn't like the sex scenes, spare as they were. It isn't tawdry but it's more than I would want a 14 year old or even 16 year old reading.

It has glimmers of the possibility of interesting, but there is nothing great about it, nor terrible nor even beautiful. Nothing I liked enough to read the next two books (however much they keep trying to taunt me with their own alluring covers and titles like [b:A Sweet Far Thing|7641774|Sweet Moon Dreams (Moon, #1)|Rose Marie Wolf|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1300617118s/7641774.jpg|2126620]. I will not be drawn in.

[celinenyx]

Nice book to read, but sometimes the discriptions were vague and it was hard to follow what happened in the action scenes. Also there could be some more depth in the background, as I found the Realms a little bit disappointing. Still, original and a good read.

Honestly I'm completely baffled by this book. I didn't really like it. It felt dry and boring. But I could not for the life of me put it down. Something compelled me to keep on reading and I'm fkd if I know what it was.