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Ana Maria phdesign — Originally published on The Librarian Next Door: While en route to a tropical island getaway, the plane carrying the 50 contestants in the Miss Teen Dream Pageant crashes onto a remote island miles away from anything. With few supplies and no indication of being rescued soon, the 14 surviving girls must figure out how to live on the island – and still maintain their tans in anticipation of the pageant. As tentative friendships between the would-be competitors form, the girls begin to find their own inner strength and rethink what they’ve always been told. And, just when they start to settle into island life, the Miss Teen Dream contestants make friends with a band of sexy pirates and stumble across an international political scandal involving one crazy, Elvis-loving dictator. Will these beauty queens survive? Will the pirates steal their hearts? Will the dictator threaten their lives? More importantly, can they do all of that without breaking a nail?! If you’ve never read any of Libba Bray’s fantastic books before, you are seriously missing out. Bray is a mad, mad, mad genius and is clearly at the top of her game with the thoroughly fantastic Beauty Queens. Drawing on a wide range of seemingly disparate sources (including the Miss America pageants, Survivor, Lord of the Flies, The Pirates of Penzance and even James Bond), this book is wickedly smart, hilariously scathing and brilliantly satiric. It skewers pop culture, politics, capitalism and just about anything else you can imagine about American society in a completely clever way. Bray’s style of writing isn’t for everyone – you have to enjoy her idea of funny – but I personally love the insane and crazy humor in this book. Though the first part of the book is a little bit slow (mostly because the focus is on developing the personalities of each character), the pace picks up in the second half of the book as Bray throws twists and turns into the story, adding more mystery, more overlapping and interwoven stories, and more pirates. (Everything’s better with more pirates.) And bookworms? There are footnotes! FOOTNOTES! Throughout the entire book, Bray’s narrator interjects with laugh-aloud footnotes that don’t really move the story forward in anyway and yet without which, the book would be incomplete. Those footnotes made my academics-loving, research-paper-writing heart go pitter-patter. Though the book has a lot of characters and shifts perspective as the various plot threads start to come together, the novel centers around the Teen Dream girls. It would be too easy to dismiss most of the characters as ridiculous and over-the-top, but the pageant girls in particular are so much more complicated than they first appear. You think you’re getting a bunch of stereotypes, but Bray constantly surprises you and makes you fall in love with characters you thought you hated (I’m looking at you, Miss Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins of Texas). Of course, there were a few girls I loved more than the others: Adina, for her snarky sense of humor and her voice of reason amid the insanity; Petra, for being Miss Rhode Island (home state represent!) and her undeniable sense of self in the face of opposition; and Jennifer, for the heart beneath the tough exterior and her self-sustaining strength. One of the things I absolutely loved about Beauty Queens was that it could easily be considered a feminist book without being a “feminist” book or a “message” book. Bray isn’t trying to force a lesson down readers throats, nor do you even have to read it as a feminist book. It’s simply really good writing about smart, flawed girls who are so much more than the narrow molds they’ve been told to fill. While reading, I stopped on nearly every page to re-read a sentence, phrase or passage again; I tried to come up with a bunch of my favorite quotes from the book until I realized I was pretty much repeating the entire book. That’s how good Beauty Queens is – you want to flag every retort or inner monologue because every one is intelligent and witty: “Tiara, what have you learned here on this island?” “I’ve learned that it takes a village to build a catapult, which is not a city in Mexico, and that uterus is not a dirty word or the name of a planet…I’ve learned that feminism is for everybody and there’s nothing wrong with taking up space in the world, even if you have to fight for it a little bit, and that if you don’t feel like smiling or waving, that’s okay. You don’t have to, and you don’t have to say sorry. Mostly, I’ve learned that I don’t really care if you like these answers or not, because they’re the best, most honest ones I’ve got, and I just don’t feel like I can cheat myself enough to give you what you want me to say.” (Chapter 34) As I said before, Libba Bray’s writing style isn’t for everyone, but I still strongly recommend that everyone at least TRY to read Beauty Queens because it truly is a fantastic book from start to finish. There’s a little bit of everything: action, adventure, romance, friendship, pirates, corrupt politicians, secret arms deals, and good old-fashioned sparkle. Hell, there’s even commercials! (And the footnotes – don’t forget the footnotes). Do not miss out on Libba Bray and Beauty Queens – you won’t be sorry.

Martha Patricia _artha_atricia — ** spoiler alert ** Redwall is a story of a young mouse,named Matthias, that is headstrong and very determined. Redwall Abbey, the place he grew up in and is currently residing, is under the attack of Cluny the Scrounge, an evil and ambitious rat that plans to overthrow The Abott of Redwall Abbey. The only hope for the residents of Redwall is to find the legendary, but real, warrior known as Martian the Warrior! Matthias finds that this legendary warrior, whom he adored was inside of him. With his new found and already existing courage he defeats Cluny with the help of his friends and brings peace to Redwall Abbey. But not all is fun and games, shortly afterwords, the Abbott of Redwall, a dear old friend of Matthias, passes on to the next world with Matthias and his badger friend, Constance, weeping and watching over him.

Amelia Taylor amltyl0rd38a — Practicum 1 for EDRL 442