Review: Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Title: Beauty Queens
Author: Libba Bray
Publisher: Scholastic
Age Group: Young Adult
Category:  Adventure/ Humor
Release date: May 24th, 2011
Pages: 390 (ARC)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Source: Won
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The fifty 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?

When faced with the question, If you were trapped on a deserted island, would you be able to survive?, many answers would be "HELL no!";  I know mine would be.  Libba Bray takes her readers and 13 surviving pageant contestants on a hilarious adventure through wilderness, where the girls are faced with much more than you can imagine.  After all, these beauty queens aren't alone.

After a plane crash and losing more than half of the girls they were planning on competing with in the Miss Teen Dream pageant, the remaining contestants are faced with having to survive on very little survival skills until someone comes to rescue them.  Even when days pass, they never lose hope, which is admirable.  Meanwhile, as the girls were gathering evening gowns to catch rain water with and using makeup as weapons, we learn more about each of their motives for joining Miss Teen Dream.

At first I had the idea that one single character would stick out from the rest and become my favorite, but that wasn't the case at all.  By the end of the book, we learn each of the girls had their unique qualities, making it difficult to favor just one.  They grow on you and you find yourself attached to even the airhead of the group.  That being said, each of these girls learn to work together to find food, drinkable water and eventually, a way off the island.

The author created such an exciting, hilarious and compelling story that you won't want to put down.  We learn that when faced with the toughest moments, people pull together and do what they need to stay alive.  It doesn't matter if you're Tarzan or a beauty queen, you can learn how to survive in a jungle.