Beauty Queens

March 21, 2011
Bray follows her Printz Awardâwinner, Going Bovine, with an only slightly less absurd premise in this out-there satire about a planeload of teen beauty queens who crash onto a (not so) deserted island. Lord of the Flies with an evening gown competition, anyone? Led by the indefatigable Miss Texas, Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins, the 14 surviving contestants must rely on competitive moxie. Despite the large cast, Bray makes the Misses distinctive, though each is more a stand-in for a particular brand of diversity than a fully dimensional teenager (one's black, one's deaf, one's gay, one is a boy in the process of becoming a girl). Poor Miss New Mexico stands out because she has a serving tray embedded in her forehead. ("Bangs are the new black!") Halfway through the ordeal, a boat full of shirtless, reality TV pirates runs aground, allowing for some smoking hot scenes. Fun footnotes, contestant profiles, and scripted commercial breaks are interspersed. There's a lot of message, but every time the story veers toward sermonizing, Bray corrects with another crack about our media-saturated, appearance-obsessed, consumer-driven society. Ages 13âup.

Author-narrator Libba Bray starts with this premise: What would happen if a plane carrying Teen Dream Beauty Queens were to crash on an (almost) deserted island, leaving a handful of girls with no chaperones? She ends with an expertly crafted tale of girl power, a social commentary, and a hilarious spoof on popular TV shows and classic books. As narrator, Bray puts her theatrical background to good use, changing accents, register, and pitch so smoothly and consistently that listeners will forget there's but a single narrator. From the Texas drawl of Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins (gun-carrying homecoming queen) to the Yankee accent of Adina Greenberg (feminist journalist from New Hampshire), Bray gives each character a distinct, recognizable voice. The addition of thoughtful sound effects makes this "un-turn-off-able." C.B.L. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine


borntoswim - From the description, Beauty Queens, looked like a fun book but after reading the first chapter I didn't like it at all. The way it was written, I didn't like, and the plot could have been better. I only read to like the fourth chapter and got really tired and bored of it. It is worth a try if you want to read it, but be warned it is disapointing.