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
Thoughts:
2/5 stars.
This is one go those mixed-feelings-yet-more-like-meh-feelings book. In the beginning, I enjoyed what laughs and creativity this book had to offer. But then things started to turn... weird. Figuratively, out of no where weird.
Beauty queens crashing on an island sounds like quite the adventurous read, and on top of that Libba's rep has always been complete genius in my records of book-keeping, yet this one was just a massive let down for me. Though I do love Libba's complete lack of control and organization, and how she freely writes in such creative ways with smudges of craziness, this one was just too much. It got a little too off.
Not that I have anything wrong with lesbians, transgender peeps, etc., but Libba just sort of BAMMED this utter craziness of these girls feelings onto you. One chapter, you're reading about how they're struggling to survive, and then the next some girl is FREAKEN' NAKED, yet is casually chatting it up with some dude she just met, seducing him for later sexytime. And though I am most happy with books that step outside of the box, this was was just 525600 miles away from it. Also, when reading books about characters who are having questions of sexuality and what-nots, you what to feel some relation to them, something to tie you two together so you not only acquire enjoyment from a novel, but some sort of self-realization. But the characters were just so unrealistic and quite simply, annoying.
There were too many plots. WAY TOO MANY. I lost track of what was happening, and by the end I was just skimming the pages, struggling to find the end. I was confused with the Momo B. ChaCha informations, and felt there were just too many side stories to keep track of. It was all just too much. On top of that, she would call some of the ladies by their state, such as Miss Ohio, and quite frankly, I had no clue who that was, leading to me being confused about what was happening in general.
This book was just too unorganized for me. Though I did like the separations where we read The Corporation's commercials or the ladies applications, and the side notes at the bottom of the pages that added more hilarity to the whole shebang,I started to get confused with the Agent chapters. I really saw no point for them to be there, and my mind really didn't comprehend anything that was happening in those chapters.
Overall, this was not my favorite book of Libba's. Truly, she is an author I've adored before, but this one just fell for me. I would highly recommend Going Bovine though. Leave your thoughts on this book in the comments below!
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