Author: Libba Bray
Publisher: Scholastic
Rating: WORTHY!
I've been somewhat of a fan of this author since I read the A Great and Terrible Beauty trilogy - a trilogy that made sense, was well-written, and enjoyable. I looked at other titles by Bray, of course, but I've never found one which appealed as much as that did. Until now!
Beauty Queens is one of the funniest and best-written novels that I've ever not read. I say that because I didn't read this - I listened to the audio book read by Libba Bray herself, and she does a damned fine job of it. I recommend getting the audio book over the print or ebook because she reads it perfectly.
This just goes to show how brain-dead it truly is to insist upon actors for reading the audio versions of published books. Actors may be fine at acting, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're any good at all at reading novels for an audience, and audio book publishers simply don't get that for some reason. Another book I enjoyed in the audio book version was The Golden Compass narrated by Philip Pullman and read by an ensemble cast. The Subtle Knife was just as enjoyable in the same format. I haven't got to the third in that audio trilogy yet.
The big problem with audio books is the expense, of course: the CD versions are way expensive, but with the advent of audio ebooks, perhaps this will change - although with Big Publishing™, I wouldn't hold out much hope. I got mine from the Libba-rary(!), and once I knew how good it was, I went out and bought the hardback - which I got at a nice discount - just to have it on my shelf.This novel gripped me from the start and made me laugh out loud repeatedly. I routinely by-pass introductions and prologues in books, but this is hard to do with audio-books, so I just let this play. I enjoyed every bit of it right from the start, fortunately.
The story begins with fifty teen beauty queens, one from each US state, surviving a plane crash on a remote island, and their dealing with the aftermath. The first couple of chapters were so hilarious that I was pretty much ready to give this a 'worthy read' rating even if the rest of it was crappy!
Fortunately, it wasn't. The author creates a whole set of characters (not all fifty get a significant part, but a bunch of them do), and each has a distinct personality and behavior - and they all have interesting back-stories. There was some serious work went into this one. The sly, anarchic humor runs rampant through every chapter.
It's not simply stranded beauty queens, which is hilarious enough in itself, especially with the author's writing subtly undermining the whole concept of beauty pageants. It's also the behind-the-scenes machinations by the pageant organizers and, believe it or not, arms running! I fully and highly recommend this one - the audio version in particular.
