Beauty Queens

By: Libba Bray

Narrated by: Libba Bray

Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

The 50 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.

©2011 Libba Bray (P)2011 Scholastic Audio

I absolutely love this book

I've read this book at least 5 times and each time it just gets better

I hate my self for liking it so much

Where does Beauty Queens rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I listened to it twice, I have only done this a few times with other books. It ranks in my top 20

Who was your favorite character and why?

Crystal Renee, I have a soft spot for crazy

Which character – as performed by Libba Bray – was your favorite?

Crystal Renee from the great state of Texas

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When Miss Texas was taking out the armed corporation workers

Any additional comments?

I really didn't want to like this book so much, but you can't control these things as much as you would like. The story flows really well, two of the main characters are extremely likable.

This book deserves the crown

I am a Libba Bray fan, so buying Beauty Queens was a no brainer for me; however, I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did.

I think that the author did an excellent job dealing with some pretty weighty themes, such as self esteem, girl power, friendship, etc. And combining them with multiple sub plots such as corporate greed, the ridiculous nonsense company feed the public on a daily basis, and politics and weaving them together in a fun, entertaining, and relevant web called Beauty Queens.

I very rarely re-read (listen to more than once) books, but this book I have listened to twice already.

I recommend this book to all of my friends who ask for a good book.

Funny!

Struggled to finish, but enjoyed the satire. Got a bit annoyed with the characters, but enjoyed the plot.

Good satire

Natrator was a BIT much. Super campy. Pretty much hilarious outrageousness and an overall good message. I thought the Pirates were weird at first but just went with it. I'd love to see this translated to a movie lolol it would be hilarious.

only con was the way one character always yelled, deaf people don't do that. it was annoying while listening and like a joke that didn't work. maybe it didn't age well.

still a fun read

Laugh out loud in public places!

If you like witty satire of American culture - this book is for you. This book pokes fun at everything - beauty pageants, TV commercials, hair removal products, reality shows, boy bands, corporate America, and even has a Sarah Palin-esque presidential hopeful and a Kim Jong-Il type with lots more than world domination on his mind.

There's also a serious side to all this silliness - a look at how women are portrayed in the media, the expectations that women are faced with from society, how it's ok if you haven't got it all figured out by the time you're 16 years old.

All of the "footnotes" got a little annoying - I found they interrupted the flow of the story. Other than that - I think this is a great book for young women especially.

I Really Wanted to Like It

Trust me, I really did. I loved Going Bovine and all her other novels but this one was so bland and empty. I couldn't really figure out who the main character was and when there was mention of spy activity, I stopped. Her other novels are fantastic and this was funny to a point. But it was not impressive.

Unexpected Awesomeness...Libba Bray is fantastic.

PJV Quickie: My initial thoughts with ‘Beauty Queens’ were, of course, captivation with the cover, but the concept threw me through a loop. I hadn’t read Bray before, so I wasn’t familiar with her writing style or sense of humor. This led to an initial trepidation, satire is not always my cup-of-tea, along with force-fed cultural messages, but I think I made a wise choice in partaking via audiobook. Libba Bray did her own narration and the added benefit of some extra “special effects” made ‘Beauty Queens’ via audio a pleasure to experience.

Review:

The descriptor, Lord of the Flies with Beauty Queens has been touted around a lot in regards to this book. And while on a base level, yes the two novels can be synonymous with the coming of age on a deserted island motif, but I think it is doing ‘Beauty Queens’ an injustice to be described as such. The novel is basically about the pressures of the teenage years in a materialistically saturated environment and how this crash landing actually enables these girls to shrug off the yokes their parents and society have placed upon their shoulders and become the women they can be and should be. But, in a fun and sparkly way of course!

In ‘Beauty Queens’ we meet a host of larger-than-life characters, like Miss Texas, Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins, who is a card-carrying member of Femmes and Firearms and practically worships LadyBird Hope, one of the corporations Big Wigs and presidential hopeful, a former Miss Teen Dream winner. Then there is Adina Greenburg, Miss New Hampshire, who is actually on an under cover mission from her schools newspaper to expose the Miss Teen Dream for what it is, a subversive instrument of female repression. Or there is Mary Lou Novak, Miss Nebraska, who comes to the island wearing a purity ring, but later realizes her inner wild girl needs to roam free…

I could go on and on about the sheer hilarity of this novel and the great characters that Bray created. Even her villains were brilliant, MoMo B. ChaCha, is the leader of the Republic of ChaCha and is obsessed with American Reality television and Elvis. I was thinking Gadhafi every time his character came to the forefront. Bray paired Momo and Ladybird together and I was literally gagging imagining Sarah Palin (Bray used a nasally northern accent to represent Ladybird which had Sarah Palin written all over it) and Gadhafi going at it in a heart-shaped hot tub. Yeah — sorry for the mental image.

Take all those great characters and weave within it, off-the-wall marketing schemes, hilarious product placement and just brilliant, brilliant story creation and you’ll have an almost perfect read. Then trump that with the audiobook, which had Bray as the narrator (She did like a million different voices impeccably!). It also had sound effects with the footnotes (when the characters would mention products a footnote would appear) and commercial breaks which would have me laughing out loud and then the finale of a great interview with Bray herself – this is one I highly recommend grabbing up in audiobook form.

You don’t want to pass up this novel. Nope. Don’t do it.

Recommendations:
This is for a more mature teen audience, sexuality, violence and cultural stigmas, along with alternative lifestyles are all covered. Fans of more wittier satires should really enjoy. It is sometimes described as a dystopian and if you are looking for this genre, I wouldn’t call this title a dystopian. The world, is a satirical depiction of our own society and while yes, it seems more nefarious then our own society, it was pretty much on target. I would not put this one in the dystopian category, more of a modern commentary.

Other AudioBooks You Might Enjoy:

Grave Mercy: His Fair Assassin by R. L. LaFevers
Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor

Strong start, Weak finish

I really enjoyed the beginning, but at some point...not sure what point, it became really hard to listen to. The idea of the story--beauty queens stranded on an island--is really appealing; but after the first 3rd of the book, the jokes were spent, and the concept became overworked. Delving into the background of the girls didn't make them more human to me, it just made it that much harder to relate to the characters. Everything from the plot, to the foot notes, to the commercial breaks belabored her point of our shallow society to the point of morose exhaustion.

I will admit she did an excellent job narrating, which is why I purchased the book to begin with. Her accents were greatand were about the only thing giving these girls' real distinction from on to the other. Even halfway through the book I still found myself thinking, "Now which girl is that?"

All in all, it was entertaining, but not a hit.

Hard to get into

I found that if you can stick with this book for the first few hours it turns out to be an okay message. However to get there you have to wade through stereotypes and some well unrealistic outcomes.