Beauty Queens by Libby Bray

Beauty Queens

by Libba Bray  

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.

(summary from goodreads.com)

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Honestly, this book is one of my guilty pleasures. It is wildly inappropriate in parts and I will never let my children read it (at least until they are all mature and stuff), but it is also delightfully funny and mocks our perception of beauty and beauty pageants hilariously. Libby Bray has a wicked sense of humor but mixes it well with real feelings and tragedies and such. Full of fabulously crafted characters and ridiculous happenings. A great book, if you don't mind reading something that pushes the definition of "young adult fiction".

Mom note: As a mother of readers, I also want to make a note to myself (and others if they care) why I would or would not have my children read this book, because honestly, sometimes I forget. This is a YA book, so everything is within YA strictures. Violence: moderate. Profanity: yes. Sex: moderate, but much discussion.