A Great and Terrible Beauty

By: Libba Bray

Narrated by: Josephine Bailey

Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

It's 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls, and their foray into the spiritual world, lead to?

©2003 Libba Bray (P)2004 Random House, Inc. Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group

Critic reviews

"A delicious, elegant gothic." (Publishers Weekly)

:)

I read this series a few years back in high school and I loved it. i enjoy the story. i feel like the narration takes something away from the book tho.

Great Story; Narrator Sucks

Love this story! It’s original and intriguing. However, they need a new narrator. This one is boring and has no emotion in her voice.

Astonishing!

The narration is perfection. I already loved this book in print, but, oh man, Josephine Bailey does a beautiful job with all these characters. Love love love!!!

Couldn't put it down/glad to learn there were2more

Where does A Great and Terrible Beauty rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

The best! But it was my first...

What was one of the most memorable moments of A Great and Terrible Beauty?

The friendship growing between the girls

Have you listened to any of Josephine Bailey’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This was the first

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

YES

Any additional comments?

I was so sad when the book ended only to learn there were 2 more books!!

Re-reading it!

I haven't thought about this book series in so long, but I stumbled upon when it was recommended on Audible.

The story was much more complicated than I remembered, and the friendships are even more complex. I do genuinely like the story, and it was just a fine start to a YA series. I do remember liking the other two books more.

Intriguing

What did you like best about A Great and Terrible Beauty? What did you like least?

Libba Bray writes beautifully and clearly gets teenaged girls. I liked the characters, and I appreciated the fact that she didn't go the predictable route and make the girls' school into a den of horrors - in fact, it's a remarkably kindly place. What I liked least: the lack of insight on the part of the main character. I hope for long-term character development as the story continues in Books 2 and 3.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Well, there's a whole secret magical world, and many characters of uncertain allegiance that I'm sure will become more significant as the plot develops.

What about Josephine Bailey’s performance did you like?

Everything. She was terrific.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yup.

loved it

Listened with my 15 year old daughter. We both couldn't wait to keep listening! Recommend especially to girls 13 to 17.

fun quick read

Fun and thought invoking. a beautiful story about “good little girls” behaving badly at great risks and gaining their own rewards.
in a world where a woman’s worth is determined by what she can do for a man’s reputation these young women find a way out of the mundane and into destiny.

i’m so glad i stumbled upon this story i think i’ll finish the series.

A Great and Wonderful Book

Libba Bray's first in the Jemma Doyle series, A Great and Terrible Beauty is a journey well worth taking. I would never recommend this book to a guy, but for the rest of us, we've all felt like Jemma sometimes. That's the beauty of the book- yes, it's set in Victorian England and, yes, part of it takes place in a magical otherworld called the Realms, but still, Jemma and all her struggles and friends and enemies and frienemies feel real. This book concludes its narrative, but still leaves open a number of questions so that the sequel is very desirable. Even if it hadn't left open the major snare that gets you into the next book, you'd still want to go on. The world created, the characters introduced, and the relationships just starting to burgen in this book are developed more in the following ones. Well worth the read even if you aren't going on to the next, but with such a great author brilliant narrator, and compelling story, why wouldn't you. I'm still hoping for a fourth book.

Mature YA that will suck you in!

Would you consider the audio edition of A Great and Terrible Beauty to be better than the print version?

Plot: Gemma Doyle is at the age where she wants nothing more than to get away from her controlling mother. They used to get along famously, but now it seems that they can never see eye to eye. As a young woman approaching 16, she wants to leave the hot climate of India and get a proper English education to prepare her for society. That is, until her mother is brutally murdered before her eyes. The result of this tragic death is that she gets what she wants and is ushered to London to attend Spence boarding school. As all good mysteries go, she learns that the school has a hidden secret that affects her more personally that she would like.

I'm slowly learning that Libba Bray simply cannot do cookie cutter. A Great and Terrible Beauty is a unique tale that expertly weaves beguiling characters and a spooky Victorian setting. The pacing of A Great and Terrible Beauty is much like The Diviners. It is slow, but I was never bored. Libba Bray's primary focus is her characters which is always a selling point for me as a reader.

The overall mystery is something that Gemma pieces together little by little until we have our grand "a-ha" moment. It was never obvious, but there is a clear trail of bread crumbs that Libba Bray leaves for both the reader and Gemma to discover on their own.

Characters: From the beginning, Gemma Doyle proves herself to be your typical teenager. She's a downright brat and has a strained relationship with her mother. It isn't until she's forced onto the shores of London that she grows. She even has a moment where she questions what it's like to be a woman and timidly explores the ideas of sex and natural attraction. I appreciated her strong will and refusal to become nothing more than a passive wife.

The other young women at Spence as equally intriguing, as their friendship with Gemma is not 100% "I-like-you,-you-like-me-let's-be-friends." They each have weaknesses that Bray has no qualms with highlighting.

World Building: Libba Bray is the queen of dark and beautiful things. Her portrayal of Bombay, India brought to mind a bustling shopping center and humidity. On the other hand, London was described as gray and almost stifling. I felt transported to this Victorian world that felt both organic fantastical.

Audiobook Performance: At first I was worried about Ms. Josephine Baker's performance. The novel starts off in India so of course, the natives have heavily-accented English. Baker tries her best to deliver her lines with a believable accent, but all I could do was cringe. Her English accents were far better, and I was soon wrapped up in Baker's performance.

Short N Sweet: A Great and Terrible Beauty is the mature YA novel that readers have been waiting for! Full of whimsy, complicated friendships, and a surprise ending, A Great and Terrible Beauty will have you itching to buy the whole trilogy!