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A Great and Terrible Beauty
 
 
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A Great and Terrible Beauty (Library Binding)

by Libba Bray (Author) "PLEASE TELL ME THAT'S NOT GOING TO BE PART OF MY birthday dinner this evening ..." (more)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)

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Product Description

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up–Libba Bray's new Gothic tale of a Victorian girls school with a deadly secret (Delacorte, 2003) is brought to life in Josephine Bailey's nuanced reading. At 16, Gemma must leave the only home she's known–colonial India–when her mother kills herself under bizarre circumstances and Gemma is both confused and intrigued by the details. Although she longed to see London while her family lived abroad, Gemma is disappointed to find that she's being packed off to finishing school there. At school, she stands up to the very circle of girls who seem to hold the most power, while also dealing with weird hallucinations and the furtive presence of the young man she first saw in Bombay on the day of her mother's death. The school and its administration hold fast to a secret about the class of 1871, which passed through it nearly a quarter century before Gemma's stay. As friendships develop between Gemma and three of the other students, and several of her teachers reveal interesting personal sides of themselves, the plot and the reader both tug the audience into the creepy depths beneath a cave on the school grounds. There the living girls find a pleasurable world populated by goddess figures–and Gemma's dead mother. How all this ultimately connects with that mysterious class of 1871 will delight Gothic fans and inspire those new to the genre to taste such classic writers in it as Daphne du Maurier. The audiobook is further enhanced with an afterword spoken by the author–a young Texas woman who describes how she researched the background details she needed to realize a story set in a place and time so far from her own daily experiences. Highly recommended for all collections serving high school students.–Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From AudioFile

Gemma, who has grown up in colonial India, returns to be educated in the ways of being a proper young woman at boarding school in Victorian London--but India might not be as far away as she thinks. The story has a pervasive, if contrived, atmosphere of lush sensuality--there's a little magic, a little romance, and a lot of intrigue. Listeners who are most familiar with Jo Wyatt as Lyra in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series will be impressed by her range and characterizations here. That the story sometimes feels choppy or abrupt may be the fault of the abridgment, and the ending seems ripe for a sequel. J.M.D. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
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75 Reviews
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4.3 out of 5 stars (75 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars 60% great, 20% terrible, 20% beautiful, May 20 2004
By E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: A Great and Terrible Beauty (Hardcover)
What, in your opinion, is more important: What an author has to say or how an author chooses to say it? Take, for example, Libby Bray's, "A Great and Terrible Beauty". Set in a Victorian era girl's boarding school, the book has the uneasy task of having a great voice and yet not much in the way of a plot. Bray struggles to weave together the different components that made up (wealthy) women's lives in 19th century Britain. At times she is exceedingly gifted. At others, she falls short of the mark.

Gemma Doyle was born and raised in India with her mother, father, and brother. Having just turned sixteen she is like any other adolescent girl, getting into squabbles with her mom and pouting that she cannot go to live in England. Deliverance for Gemma comes as a very mixed blessing when she witnesses her mother's suicide (in a vision, no less) and is sent to an all-girl's finishing school outside of London. Falling into the usual petty squabbles of popularity and independence, Gemma eventually comes to realize that there is more to the Spence Academy, and herself, than she could ever have known. In a madcap tale of gypsies, magical powers, and deep dark soul-sucking evil Gemma has to face up to her own personal demons as well as the very real spirits that wish her, and her friends, harm.

One one level, this is just your typical romantic bodice-ripper complete with virile dangerous young men and the comedy of manners that set the standards so long ago. Reading this book really seemed to me to be a kind of "The Craft" meets "The Little Princess". Gemma befriends both popular and unpopular alike and much of the book dwells on the problems haunting each of her friends. While Bray has an excellent voice for dialogue and situational comedy, I couldn't quite figure out what she was trying to say with her characters. One minute the two popular girls, Pippa and Felicity, would be playing incredibly cruel tricks on their classmates. Next, Gemma is their best friend and they all bare their souls over cups of whiskey. While the story really does make you feel as if these girls are getting closer, I found it very weird that when some of the girls go over the edge and deal in dark magics and (in a sense) murder, Gemma is perfectly willing to forgive them three pages later and never mention it again. There is no blame in this novel, a thing I found peculiar (especially when you're dealing with sixteen year-olds). When Gemma's friends get an innocent teacher fired, Gemma minds for maybe two hours and then, once more, forgets.

Then there's the fact that we never meet the villain. This book might have just as well plastered the words, "SEQUEL COMING SOON" on its cover for all that it alludes to future books. It is very rare to read an entire book about a villain whose name appears from page seven onwards, and yet we never meet them even once. The resolutions in this book are shaky at best and though the bookflap for "A Great and Terrible Beauty" states this this is "the story of a girl who saw another way" out of the standard roles written for women, by the end Gemma really hasn't changed anything in the least.

And finally there are the gypsies. Why is it that gypsies are always the standard ethnic group for magical doings? There are actual gypsies in the world, you know. This book, however, prefers the romantic version, choosing to forget that they are an actual culture with actual dealings in the world. Turning gypsies into the mythical magical people that exist only in the minds of over-romanticizing white people not only does real gypsies a disservice but it makes books like this one offensive. I won't even dwell on how Bray chose to display natives of India as well. Let's just say this book reads best if you like rooting for Anglo-Saxons.

I'm being harsh on this book, and for good reason. Bray is capable of wonderful writing. The slow building threat of Gemma's situation,and the fact that she is repeatedly told to cease and desist all magic or pay the consequences, all this is very good and dark. Unfortunately, there's never a payoff at the end. The gypsy Kartik tells Gemma to stop or else, but he never makes good on his threat. Gemma never really pays for anything she's done either. I was so confused by what was good and bad in this story that I spent three quarters of the book believing that Gemma's mother, for all intents and purposes, was an illusion or an evil creature in disguise. That's just me, but in all other ways the book is very bad at rewarding the reader for slogging through the foreshadowing. And boy oh boy is there a LOT of foreshadowing. In any case, I think with a little rewriting this could have been an excellent novel. Unfortunately, we'll never know now.

None of this is to say that "A Great and Terrible Beauty" isn't a great read. It really is exciting and interesting. I'm simply warning you that it is possible that you might feel a little let down or cheated at the end. The climaxes never climax as much as they could. The fearful moments are never quite fearful enough. It's a book of halfs, never a whole. But for any reader who wants to dwell in the darkness a little and read a tale about a girl who has the capability of giving herself a great deal of power, go to it. It is, above all things, rather fun.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Just couldn't believe it, April 7 2004
By B. McEwan "yellokat" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: A Great and Terrible Beauty (Hardcover)
I wanted to love this novel, I truly did. After all, it's written by a fellow Brooklynite and it's about topics I enjoy: psychic powers and female bonding. But, ultimately, I found this book only mildly satisfying, mostly because the action just isn't believeable, even for a story about the supernatural. The novel has some good points, which is why I give it three stars, but it certainly promises far more than it delivers. If you are interested in the interpersonal dynamics among young people, and also enjoy an element of mystery in your novels, try instead The Secret History by Donna Tart, which is a truly first-rate novel and far surpasses this pedestrian effort from Libba Bray.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars still not exactly sure how I feel about it...., July 3 2004
By M. Cookson (Colorado Springs) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: A Great and Terrible Beauty (Hardcover)
This book is about Gemma, a sixteen-year-old girl who lives in India with her mother and father. After her mother is murdered (something that Gemma witnesses in a strange and frightening vision), Gemma is sent to a finishing school in London. The story takes place in 1895. Gemma gradually gets to know the other girls at the school. Most of them are in some way emotionally damaged, and they deal with the hopelessness of their situations by taking everything out on those who happen to be weaker than themselves. What ends up tying Gemma to several of the girls is a diary she discovers, the diary of two girls who attended the school years ago and practiced magic. In a way, this book has the elements of a mystery, as Gemma discovers the link between her mother's murder, the two girls, and her own visions.

I'm still not sure if I like this book. For a great deal of the book, I had the feeling that I didn't really know any of the characters, not even Gemma, even though the book was from her point of view. Maybe this was intentional, but it was disconcerting. If you're looking for a book with nice, pleasant characters, you should look elsewhere, because there aren't really any here. They all do mean things, even Gemma, and the reasons they have for doing these things doesn't seem to detract much from the fact that they did them. Really, though, you'd think that, after reading all 403 pages of this book, that I'd feel like I knew more about the characters and events, but this book feels like it leaves more questions behind than it answers. I've heard that there will be more books about Gemma, which is good, since there needs to be more if the story is to be understood. The book leaves Gemma's powers, and her relationships with the people she calls her friends, in limbo.

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 		 Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Magic and Adventure
At 16, Gemma Doyle is suddenly afflicted by visions. She sees her mothers death moments before it happens, and then finds herself shipped off to boarding school while she wonders... Read more
Published 1 month ago by K. Edwards

3.0 out of 5 stars Wouldn't draw me in to Book II.
After witnessing (through second sight) the death of her Mother, and a mysterious stranger she met moments before, Gemma finds herself uprooted from everything she knows from her... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Darder

3.0 out of 5 stars A Great and Terrible Beauty
If you enjoy a Victorian Era novel, this is a good one to choose. It begins in India in the days of the Raj and continues on to England where the young heroine is sent to a... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Susan Ricketts

2.0 out of 5 stars Baffled by it's success
I think some people just have crap taste or something to love this book the way they do. It was so poorly done that I can't even begin to scratch the surface of the problems of... Read more
Published 7 months ago by T. Kharitonova

3.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable but predictable
This was a very light read for me, and found the story quite predictable. Non the less, I enjoyed it greatly and anticipate reading the sequels.
Published 7 months ago by Annie

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a solid story...
Going in, I was aware that this novel is geared towards young adults, and as such, I wasn't expecting it to have a particularly complex or sophisticated plot. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Why Not

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and Unique
Highly recommened!! I could not put this book down. It is a historical fantasy set in a Victorian girl's boarding school. The fantasy world is compelling and unique. Read more
Published on Oct 17 2007 by N. Manning

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good and I have other good books to share IF you liked this book or decoding books
I have 3 favorite books (soon to be four). They are A great and terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, and the Riddles of Epsilon (soon to be sweet far thing) A great and terrble beauty... Read more
Published on May 24 2007 by Grace

5.0 out of 5 stars loved it
I've read this book so many times because i love it. The characters seem real and relatable. I can understand Felicity's power crazed ways...and Gemma's sardonic attitude. Read more
Published on Feb 2 2007 by Kara

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read
I loved this book and I couldn't put it down (I read it in a day...literally could not put it down)! Read more
Published on Sep 18 2006 by GeekSquadofOne

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