A Great and Terrible Beauty FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
A British girl uncovers the mystery of her mother's death -- and discovers powers she never knew she possessed -- in this engrossing, imaginative Victorian-era novel by Libba Bray.
Two months after her mother's sudden and puzzling suicide, Gemma Doyle travels from India, where she was raised, to England for her new life at an all-girls preparatory school. At Spence Academy, Gemma feels dispirited by the stringent etiquette and her classmates' cruel pecking order, but she finds herself befriended by a group of girls with aspirations of being more than "proper ladies." Aside from school troubles, Gemma is also preoccupied with nightmarish visions, and following her discovery of a long-lost diary that describes "the Order," she learns that she has supernatural abilities that link her to the spirit world, her mother, and an evil force that wants to usurp Gemma's powers. And it's almost too late before Gemma realizes that she holds the key to her own and her friends' destinies.
Weaving Merchant/Ivory-type scenes with magical turns of events, Bray's tale is hard to put down. The author's intriguing look at 19th-century society, sexuality, and teen issues makes the book a compelling read that will appeal to both history and "chick lit" fans; yet with the deft inclusion of fantastical elements, Bray takes her novel to another level that's sure to grab an even wider audience. An unconventional book that entertains to the end and stays with you long after. Shana Taylor
ANNOTATION
After the suspicious death of her mother in 1895, sixteen-year-old Gemma returns to England, after many years in India, to attend a finishing school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see into the spirit world.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
After the suspicious death of her mother in 1895, sixteen-year-old Gemma returns to England, after many years in India, to attend a finishing school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see into the spirit world.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
British actress Wyatt has already proved herself keenly adept at handling a complex audiobook role, as Lyra in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Here, she effortlessly becomes 16-year-old Gemma, a 19th-century British girl who finds herself possessed of the frightening and supernatural ability to see dark visions of the future, including the violent death of her mother. Bray's gripping and suspenseful debut novel provides the perfect canvas for Wyatt, who alternately conveys fear, agitation and guilt and sometimes invokes the hissing tone of all things sinister. Gemma's journey from her childhood home in India to a posh London boarding school, combined with her forays into a chilling otherworld, will likely take hold of many teen listeners (and general fiction fans as well). Colorful details of Indian bazaars and the Spence School in London make this outing all the more compelling. Ages 12-up. (Dec. 2003) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Children's Literature - Valerie O. Patterson
Raised in India until her mother is killed and she is sent to a private girls' school in England, sixteen year-old Gemma struggles to come to terms with her mother's tragic death and the fear that her own visions portend doom. That's she being followed by a young man from India named Kartik adds to the mystery, especially as he seeks to warn her about keeping the visions at bay. Making friends among the class-conscious and competitive girls at the Spence Academy does not prove easy either. She finds—or is led to find by a ghostly child figure—a diary belonging to one of the girls who died in a tragic fire years before at Spence Academy, in the destroyed east wing that has never been reopened. Gemma and the clique of girls she joins delve into the story of the fire and the strange goings on. Gemma discovers that her own mother was connected to the mystery and to the occult through something called the Order. Gemma ventures to the other side to find out what happened to her mother and to learn about her own story. A well written page turner, with strong characterization and dialogue, this Victorian-era gothic novel will find many readers unable to put it down until the very last page. 2003, Delacorte Press, Ages 12 up.
VOYA - Ann Welton
Despite having argued long and hard to be allowed to go to London, the Gemma Doyle that arrives on the doorstep of the city's fashionable Spence Academy is not the discontented teenager from Bombay who had her hopes set on the big city. Mourning the tragic death of her mother, she is unable tell anyone the truth. Saddened by her father's retreat into laudanum and her oh-so-proper brother's insistence that she be the prim Victorian miss that she is not, Gemma despairs of fitting in. Her role as an outsider seems assured when beautiful Pippa and sophisticated Felicity lump her with her roommate, Ann, a scholarship student. To top it off, one of the mysterious men present when her mother died seems to be following her. Her bleak prospects change when she is led to the diary of Mary Dowd, a former Spence girl who penetrated the secrets of The Realm that now link Gemma, her mother, Felicity, Ann, and Pippa with a life and death struggle. This classic boarding school drama with gothic tones deals with real issues—a woman's place, the question of self-determinism, the impact on young lives of a lack of parental love and attention—within an excitingly supernatural framework. Plot, setting, and characterization are all strong. Questions of life, love, maturity, responsibility, and the harrowing nature of choices are seamlessly worked into a compulsively readable story, open ended enough to hint at the possibility of a sequel. Soundly researched and credible, this exhilarating and thought-provoking read is for the junior high level up, especially for girls who have enjoyed Mary Hoffman's Stravaganza series and are ready for something a bit more challenging and mature. VOYA Codes: 4Q 3P SA/YA (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Will appeal with pushing; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult-marketed book recommended for Young Adults). 2004, Delacorte, 416p., and PLB Ages 15 to Adult.
KLIATT - Claire Rosser
The cover is compelling: a photograph of the back of a young woman dressed in old-fashioned corsets. It is historical fiction, perhaps better described as gothic fiction. The time is 1895; the action begins in India, then continues in England at a select school for girls. The narrator is Gemma, a 16-year-old who abruptly must leave India with her opium-addicted father after the murder of her mother. This murder begins the story, and it is shrouded in strange occurrences that hint of the occult. Gemma is admonished to tell no one of the murder; rather, word is spread among their acquaintances, and later told to the school authorities, that her mother died of cholera. When Gemma is delivered to the school and meets her roommate and the other girls in her class, the story takes on some of the familiar themes of school stories: new girl horrors, cliques of friends, pressure to conform, sneaking about after hours, secret societies. Gemma and a small group of girls capitalize on Gemma's strange gifts to connect them to a spirit world, and for Gemma the most precious connection is with her dead mother. It turns out the mother once was a student at this school, that strange deaths happened at the school while she was there, and that the gift Gemma has seems to have come to her from her mother. The plight of young women at that time is most acutely felt in one friend of Gemma's, Pippa, a beautiful girl whose greedy parents are trying to marry her off to the richest man they can find, all the while hiding her epilepsy. Pippa loves the fantasy world Gemma has connected them to more than the reality of her life, especially after her engagement to a middle-aged bore is announced, and her death seemsinevitable. There is much that is appealing in this story. It reads like an adult novel, except that the characters are teenagers; the character development and vocabulary are rich and meaty. A mysterious young man, present at the death of Gemma's mother in India, and now close by the school where Gemma is enrolled in England, provides added intrigue. Bray is totally successful in placing her readers in the confinement of Victorian England and also in the freedom of the strange spirit world Gemma finds. KLIATT Codes: JS-Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2004, Random House, Delacorte, 403p., Ages 12 to 18.
Library Journal
Gr 9 Up-An interesting combination of fantasy, light horror, and historical fiction, with a dash of romance thrown in for good measure. On her 16th birthday, Gemma Doyle fights with her mother. She wants to leave India where her family is living, runs off when her mother refuses to send her to London to school, has a dreadful vision and witnesses her mother's death. Two months later, Gemma is enrolled in London's Spence School, still troubled by visions, and unable to share her grief and guilt over her loss. She gradually learns to control her vision and enter the "realms" where magical powers can make anything happen and where her mother waits to instruct her. Gradually she and her new friends learn about the Order, an ancient group of women who maintained the realms and regulated their power, and how two students unleashed an evil creature from the realms by killing a Gypsy girl. Gemma uncovers her mother's connection to those events and learns what she now must do. The fantasy element is obvious, and the boarding-school setting gives a glimpse into a time when girls were taught gentility and the importance of appearances. The author also makes a point about the position of women in Victorian society. Bray's characters are types-Felicity, clever and powerful; Ann, plain and timid; Pippa, beautiful and occasionally thoughtless; Gemma, spirited and chafing under society's rules-but not offensively so, and they do change as the story progresses. The ending leaves open the likelihood of a sequel. Recommend this to fantasy fans who also like Sherlock Holmes or Mary Russell.-Lisa Prolman, Greenfield Public Library, MA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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