Beauty and the best

Fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream Pageant—sponsored by The Corporation (“Because Your Life Can Always Be Better”)—board a plane bound for the beach. When the plane crashes on a desert island, the surviving contestants are lost and confused—and badly in need of lip gloss and skin care products. At first, Taylor (a.k.a. Miss Texas) takes the lead, organizing the girls into groups and insisting that being stranded is actually the perfect opportunity to practice for the pageant. But one by one, the girls began to break away and embrace the weird, rough, and crazy wilderness. Adina, who loathes Miss Teen Dream for its impossible ideals, learns how to fish and how to make friends. Nicole, the only black girl, makes a truce with Shanti, the only brown girl. Girly-girl Tiara gets a surprising but welcomed makeover, and Jennifer finds love with the requisite deaf contestant. But then the girls stumble onto some hints that not only are they not the only ones on the island, but that The Corporation is hiding something. And it all has to do with a political conspiracy, a whacked-out foreign dictator, and potentially explosive hair removal cream.

It’s really weird when you expect light fluff only to get hit with unrelenting satire. Because that’s a lot of what Beauty Queens is—an energetic, enthusiastic critique on girl culture and its many pitfalls. There’s a lot that Libba Bray wants to explore here, and she does so with what I can’t help but picture as a mad glint in her eye. This isn’t to say these girls are at the mercy of the author’s agenda; in fact, the heart of the book comes from the bonding and self-exploration that the characters go through. Their stories are so diverse that I imagine each reader will have her favorite. To be honest, some characters have meatier story lines while others get the short shrift. Petra, for example, doesn’t have much to do after her secret is discovered other than to bask in the acceptance of others. On the other hand, Taylor begins as the alpha bitch only to gradually go crazy and let out her inner warrior goddess. For the most part, every character gets her moment in the sun.

Bray also keeps things funny, with crack timing, clever verbing, and a spirit of high-octane adventure. The capital-I Important message—girls should stick together, not hold one another down—comes across as, if not organic, than at least sincere. There are a lot of goodies to be had here in addition to the (mostly) well-rounded characters and slick plot.

Rating: 4.5 lip gloss tubes out of 5