DNF Review: Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Reviewed by First Mate Keira

Title: Beauty Queens
Author: Libba Bray
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Libba Bray
Page Count: 396 pages
Grade Reading Level: Ages 16+

Summary: Miss Teen Dream pageant contestants expect to parade around in their bathing suits and wind up in a terrifying airplane crash. Do they work toward their survival and ultimate rescue? No! They practice for their talent show and question/answer session with the judges. Who cares about food? This means they will be thinner and prettier for the cameras when they do get rescued!

Why I started this book:

I envisioned beauty queen contestants on a desert island combined with flavors of Lord of the Flies.

Why I quit this book:

When an author needs the kitchen sink to make a point or push the plot forward, you have to ask yourself why she couldn’t do it with the setup she had two pages ago. You will find in this story:

• 1 boy who desperately wants to be a girl and is taking the hormones to prep for the sex-change operation
• 1 lesbian couple plus make-out session
• 1 deaf girl who dances to make a difference
• 1 big-haired Texas cheerleader that appoints herself leader of all
• 1 undercover journalist-in-training who is smarter than the others and is the feminist of the bunch
• 1 dumber than rocks Mary Sue
• 1 girl with a food tray embedded in her forehead
• 1 sex tape
• 1 boy band turned pirate crew reality TV show
• 1 Evil Corporation
• 1 terrorist
• 1 insane dictator
• 1 airplane crash landing
• Several inappropriate advertisements – about the only worth while part of the whole book, I find their over the top presentation equals my opinion of today’s current advertising.
• A team of sparkle ponies

Need I go on? I think you get the point. I got exhausted and bored. The satirical humor of the story could only keep me engaged for so long and then that was it. Done. Maybe you can read further than I did, but even the faint hope that the evil corporation might have purposefully crashed the aircraft didn’t keep me interested in reading the last part of the book.

Beauty Queens

Rating:  DNF (Did Not Finish)

Beauty Queens ' Bray, Libba

US $22.25

23h 16m