Beauty Queens

by Libba Bray

[Nessa Luna]

Actual rating: 4,5. I bought this book back in May last year, because I wanted a nice summer-y read for the upcoming summer. I then read a couple of pages, and put the book back on my shelf. I promised myself many times that I would pick up the book and read it, but I never did, until now. And now that I have finished the book, I wonder why the hell I waited this long.

Beauty Queens tells the story of fifty Pageant contestants, whose plane crashes in the middle of a deserted island. The survivors must try to survive in this jungle, until help comes. If help comes at all. I honestly really loved the concept of beauty pageant contestants stranded on an island with no help, no hair curlers and hardly any make-up at all!

I think the reason I put it on hold for so long, was Taylor. She was so annoying in the beginning of the story in my opinion, and I really had no patience for a character like that to be honest. But as the story went on, she kind of grew on me, and I have to say in the end I actually liked her character. As for the others, there was a lot of diversity and I really liked that. My favourite character, out of all of them, has got to be Jennifer. Partly because she loved comics so much and yeah I love it when there's a comic-loving character in a story. One thing I did find annoying, was that sometimes the characters kept on being named as their states, like 'Miss Texas' for example. It got really confusing at some points, and I really wished they had just kept to their actual names.

This book was written in such a humouristic and sarcastic way, I honestly loved it so much. It was making fun of so many things and everything was just so over the top sometimes, and that is honestly my kind of humour (that and sadistic humour). I honestly loved the writing, and I really do plan on picking up more of Libba Bray's books. I loved all the little annotations that were made in the story and how it looked as if the Corporation had written the book, similar to Illuminae, but then with more story than actual files. I definitely live for these kind of books!

At the end, it got so thrilling, that I really didn't want to put the book down, and I think I finished the last 150 or so pages in one whole evening. I can definitely say Beauty Queens belongs on the list of my favourite reads this year, and I am still hitting myself for waiting this long to read it.

If you love stories about plane crashes and a group of people trying to survive in harsh circumstances (like Lord of the Flies), and especially if you love sarcastic stories that take the piss out of things, definitely definitely pick up Beauty Queens by Libba Bray!

My opinion in one gif: