Beauty Queens

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When a plane crash strands thirteen teen beauty contestants on a mysterious island, they struggle to survive, to get along with one another, to combat the island's other diabolical occupants, and to learn their dance numbers in case they are rescued in time for the competition.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

I don't get it submitted by eringogreen on June 17, 2012, 10:54pm I'm not a young adult, so maybe I never should have picked this up, but I heard it was funny and YA novels are sometimes enjoyable. I couldn't even bring myself to continue reading this one. It's ridiculous.

So Much Fun submitted by jmb.mlis on August 24, 2013, 5:36pm Gilligan's Island has nothing on this group of girls! Great inclusion of a realistic and enjoyable trans* character too.

Sly Yet Telling Simple Truths submitted by Fevvers - STAR473 on August 8, 2015, 7:40am Within 10 pages I fell in love with this book. I didn't put it down except when absolutely necessary. It is sly and subversive. It is full of satirical social commentary, and yet it has true heart and characters that become naturally more rounded (and often more strange) the more the reader gets to know them - and the more these characters get to know themselves.

It is wonderfully, diversely feminist - the main characters gradually shed their pagent contestant shells or embrace what is not constructed about their "Miss Teen Dream" personas. The story is hilarious, smart, wacky, and thoughtful and blunt - a mix like the marooned Beauty Queens themselves. I found it throughly satisfying. (The funny "LOST" references didn't hurt, either.)

So yes - think "Lost" meets "America's Next Top Model" and the Miss America pagent and add in a dystopian "Corporation" that dominates the media (and has its fingers in a few other pies as well), and if that potential grabs you at all, give this one a shot. Just don't give it a shot with a can of hairspray and a flare gun. Enjoy!

Fun But Simple submitted by Maria Maguire on June 21, 2018, 12:08pm I loved the diverse set of characters in this book, not just in race, sexuality and gender identity, but also in the wide range of personalities the girls have. It was fun to see the girls becoming more of themselves as the Miss Teen Dream pageant becomes more of a memory than their reality.

I also had fun reading how they worked together and used their beauty pageant materials to make creative survival gear. Another amusing part were the satirical interviews, commercial scripts, and pageant information sheets sprinkled throughout the novel. These made me laugh out loud more than once.

However, the book was a little heavy handed with some of the themes in a way that is good for a younger audience, but made it a little awkward for me as a 20 something to read. Still, I recommend this book for a goofy, fun read to adults and a thoughtful, creative book to older kids and teenagers.

Surprising submitted by zmclaugh on August 1, 2018, 9:20am Given the premise, this was surprisingly good. A diverse cast with more going on than first meets the eye. I did get tired of it after a while, though.

Keep going! submitted by valeriemates on August 8, 2021, 2:23pm I was skeptical of a book where a bunch of teenage beauty queens get stuck on a desert island. The start was slow and seemed like it was headed straight to the mindless silliness that I expected. But then the book took off, as the teens found their own very diverse inner strengths. I loved how many different types of people were represented, and I loved watching how the teens found their individual own strengths and used them together to take on huge challenges. Also there is a scene with affirmative consent that is just gorgeously well written. I don't think the author had always researched what it's like for people with the individual differences that she was writing about, so the characters didn't always ring true to me. But the book was meant to be a fun read, not an education on the details of everybody's issues, so maybe that's okay. Anyway, overall I really enjoyed this book.

I should add that I am a woman in my fifties, so probably not the intended audience for this book.