![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaTitle: A Great and Terrible Beauty
Author: Libba Bray
Published: New York: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (Random House), 2003
Page Count: 416
Total Page Count: 20,301
Text Number: 59
Read For:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
lumos_daily book club
Short review: Set in Victorian England, A Great and Terrible Beauty is a young adult novel about sixteen-year-old Gemma. Raised in India, Gemma is sent to an English boarding school following the sudden and suspicious death of her mother. At Spence, Gemma is introduced to the cut-throat social order of her peers and a society called the Order, made up of females who have access to and control over magic, specifically worlds of magic known as the Realms. Gemma's magic abilities blossom and she forms a new Order amongst her school friends, but darkness looms on the horizon. Gemma must research the members of the old Order and the circumstances of her mother's death in order to protect her friends, her self, and the safety of her world. A book full of high prospects, A Great and Terrible Beauty is a fast read that fails to deliver but remains amusing and interesting. I admire what Bray tried to do far more than what she managed to accomplish, and the book itself reads as a somewhat immature, rough, and cliched modern take on the gothic horror genre.
I have a long-standing passion for young adult fiction, and so I was optimistic going in to Libba Bray's first novel. I really was. I was also pleased and impressed by the ideas and concepts that Bray introduced at the onset. Many of them, including the Order, the idea/threat of women in power, the occult, and the concept of the existence and necessity of both dark and light, interested me greatly. These concepts have the potential to not only make for a good read and be interesting and entertaining, but also to expand boundaries, question beliefs, and otherwise make for a book that is challenging and eye-opening as well as fun to read. Beyond these points, Bray also begins with a promising protagonist and setting, a varied cast of characters that are fun to read and easy to identify with, and above all an enticing subject and premise: magic, occult, power, and the mystical, delightful Realms.
I was, however, ultimately disappointed with this book. I feel that Bray fails to deliver: she introduces interesting and challenging concepts but fails to explore them in depth. Where she could make the reader rethink her presuppositions and question her beliefs, Bray instead leaves the concepts largely unexplored. The concept of dark and light in particular feels under-examined. Ms. Moore provides a visual, quotable lesson about dark and light, using shadows to bring out highlights in a painting and saying that, "...you don't notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light. You have to play with it till you get it exactly right." But that's about as deep as the exploration goes. In their adventures, the girls encounter darkness only as a threat, never learning more about it than necessary and never exploring it. The darkness is given no redeeming features outside of Moore's quote. Its existence and necessity are never brought in to question or examined. The subject on a whole remains largely unexplored. That's the trend that Bray follows with all of her great ideas: introduction, quotable but unsupported statement, and limited to nonexistent investigation. The ideas are good ones, but the lack of study that they receive is disappointing. The text fails to reach its potential as a source of new ideas and much-needed reconsideration.
My other complaint with this novel is the writing style. Unlike many of my favorite young adult books/series, which are written in (generally omniscient) third person, A Great and Terrible Beauty is written in the first person from Gemma's point of view. Gemma makes for a sarcastic, immature, even annoying narrator, and no matter how true this is to the average sixteen-year-old girl, it detracts from the text and is almost an insult to the reader. It is true that these books written by adults for children and young adults must be crafted in order to appeal to a younger audience. Furthermore, Bray writes about the Victorian era for a modern audience, and so she is further forced to adapt the text in order to make it an appealing book. While this no doubt explains Gemma's style of narration and some minor references to what would be considered "modern" issues such as self-harm, I don't believe that it excuses it. Reading Gemma's bitching and excessive and witless sarcasm is boring and insulting to the reader. It doesn't encourage a young adult audience to be any more than bitchy and sarcastic, and it makes the text less appealing to the adult audience. Like Rowling, Lewis, and Pullman, Bray should have elected to go with a third person narrator to give her reader some distance from the adolescent protagonist. Those other authors manage to make their texts accessable to a young adult audience while still maintaining a respectful writing style that is easier to read and doesn't come of as insulting to a mature audience. As a result, their books are accessable to all ages, endure as the readers themselves mature, and encourages inter-generational reading and gains a wider audience. I don't see the same as being true for Bray's book. Bray would have further benefited from a third-person narrator because this is her first book and it reads like it: she is an immature author, very rough around the edges. A third-person narrator would have given her fewer obstacles to contend with; Gemma as a narrator only adds to Bray's immaturity and faults as a storyteller.
As usual, though, I probably sound like I disliked this book far more than I actually did. I always over-critique, and so it generally comes off that way. A Great and Terrible Beauty remains an entertaining and speedy read, and I do give Bray credit for at least introducing some interesting ideas even if she fails to investigate them fully. The book does have a certain appeal, no doubt about it: the Realms and the magic that run throughout create a solid and attention-grabbing plot that keeps the reader attached and interested. The gothic/Victorian setting supports that magic perfectly, with plenty of ruined wings, forbidden male figures, and incentives to trespass and escape social mores. Bray's greatest strength as a writer is creating compassion for her characters: the unlikely bunch of girls all have histories, desires, strengths and weaknesses, and there are many opportunities for the reader to identify, sympathise, or gain strength from the characters. Finally, there is just enough romance and desire in the relationship between Gemma and the primary male character Kartik to keep the reader looking forward and curious. I don't think that this book is very good, I don't think it will become a classic even among young adult novels, and I don't think it deserves all of the praise that I've heard it given, but I do think that it is at least a swift and entertaining read and I can see why people are fans of it. I prefer to stick with the other young adult books that I admire and love, but I'm glad that I read A Great and Terrible Beauty if only to understand what all of the fuss was about.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
Author: Libba Bray
Published: New York: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (Random House), 2003
Page Count: 416
Total Page Count: 20,301
Text Number: 59
Read For:
lumos_daily book clubShort review: Set in Victorian England, A Great and Terrible Beauty is a young adult novel about sixteen-year-old Gemma. Raised in India, Gemma is sent to an English boarding school following the sudden and suspicious death of her mother. At Spence, Gemma is introduced to the cut-throat social order of her peers and a society called the Order, made up of females who have access to and control over magic, specifically worlds of magic known as the Realms. Gemma's magic abilities blossom and she forms a new Order amongst her school friends, but darkness looms on the horizon. Gemma must research the members of the old Order and the circumstances of her mother's death in order to protect her friends, her self, and the safety of her world. A book full of high prospects, A Great and Terrible Beauty is a fast read that fails to deliver but remains amusing and interesting. I admire what Bray tried to do far more than what she managed to accomplish, and the book itself reads as a somewhat immature, rough, and cliched modern take on the gothic horror genre.
I have a long-standing passion for young adult fiction, and so I was optimistic going in to Libba Bray's first novel. I really was. I was also pleased and impressed by the ideas and concepts that Bray introduced at the onset. Many of them, including the Order, the idea/threat of women in power, the occult, and the concept of the existence and necessity of both dark and light, interested me greatly. These concepts have the potential to not only make for a good read and be interesting and entertaining, but also to expand boundaries, question beliefs, and otherwise make for a book that is challenging and eye-opening as well as fun to read. Beyond these points, Bray also begins with a promising protagonist and setting, a varied cast of characters that are fun to read and easy to identify with, and above all an enticing subject and premise: magic, occult, power, and the mystical, delightful Realms.
I was, however, ultimately disappointed with this book. I feel that Bray fails to deliver: she introduces interesting and challenging concepts but fails to explore them in depth. Where she could make the reader rethink her presuppositions and question her beliefs, Bray instead leaves the concepts largely unexplored. The concept of dark and light in particular feels under-examined. Ms. Moore provides a visual, quotable lesson about dark and light, using shadows to bring out highlights in a painting and saying that, "...you don't notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light. You have to play with it till you get it exactly right." But that's about as deep as the exploration goes. In their adventures, the girls encounter darkness only as a threat, never learning more about it than necessary and never exploring it. The darkness is given no redeeming features outside of Moore's quote. Its existence and necessity are never brought in to question or examined. The subject on a whole remains largely unexplored. That's the trend that Bray follows with all of her great ideas: introduction, quotable but unsupported statement, and limited to nonexistent investigation. The ideas are good ones, but the lack of study that they receive is disappointing. The text fails to reach its potential as a source of new ideas and much-needed reconsideration.
My other complaint with this novel is the writing style. Unlike many of my favorite young adult books/series, which are written in (generally omniscient) third person, A Great and Terrible Beauty is written in the first person from Gemma's point of view. Gemma makes for a sarcastic, immature, even annoying narrator, and no matter how true this is to the average sixteen-year-old girl, it detracts from the text and is almost an insult to the reader. It is true that these books written by adults for children and young adults must be crafted in order to appeal to a younger audience. Furthermore, Bray writes about the Victorian era for a modern audience, and so she is further forced to adapt the text in order to make it an appealing book. While this no doubt explains Gemma's style of narration and some minor references to what would be considered "modern" issues such as self-harm, I don't believe that it excuses it. Reading Gemma's bitching and excessive and witless sarcasm is boring and insulting to the reader. It doesn't encourage a young adult audience to be any more than bitchy and sarcastic, and it makes the text less appealing to the adult audience. Like Rowling, Lewis, and Pullman, Bray should have elected to go with a third person narrator to give her reader some distance from the adolescent protagonist. Those other authors manage to make their texts accessable to a young adult audience while still maintaining a respectful writing style that is easier to read and doesn't come of as insulting to a mature audience. As a result, their books are accessable to all ages, endure as the readers themselves mature, and encourages inter-generational reading and gains a wider audience. I don't see the same as being true for Bray's book. Bray would have further benefited from a third-person narrator because this is her first book and it reads like it: she is an immature author, very rough around the edges. A third-person narrator would have given her fewer obstacles to contend with; Gemma as a narrator only adds to Bray's immaturity and faults as a storyteller.
As usual, though, I probably sound like I disliked this book far more than I actually did. I always over-critique, and so it generally comes off that way. A Great and Terrible Beauty remains an entertaining and speedy read, and I do give Bray credit for at least introducing some interesting ideas even if she fails to investigate them fully. The book does have a certain appeal, no doubt about it: the Realms and the magic that run throughout create a solid and attention-grabbing plot that keeps the reader attached and interested. The gothic/Victorian setting supports that magic perfectly, with plenty of ruined wings, forbidden male figures, and incentives to trespass and escape social mores. Bray's greatest strength as a writer is creating compassion for her characters: the unlikely bunch of girls all have histories, desires, strengths and weaknesses, and there are many opportunities for the reader to identify, sympathise, or gain strength from the characters. Finally, there is just enough romance and desire in the relationship between Gemma and the primary male character Kartik to keep the reader looking forward and curious. I don't think that this book is very good, I don't think it will become a classic even among young adult novels, and I don't think it deserves all of the praise that I've heard it given, but I do think that it is at least a swift and entertaining read and I can see why people are fans of it. I prefer to stick with the other young adult books that I admire and love, but I'm glad that I read A Great and Terrible Beauty if only to understand what all of the fuss was about.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
