A Great and Terrible Beauty. It is a fitting title. I felt it was a great and terrible book. It has taken me some time to get through, reading it was more of a chore, but dang it, I paid the ten bucks for it, I was going to finish it. I should have kept my ten dollars.
A Great and Terrible Beauty is, like The Disreputable History of Frankie-Landau, a girl power story. It is often preachy and repetitive about it. Gemma Doyle is a Victorian era girl with a modern girl's sensibilities. Aren't they all? There's some clumsy, not at all "yummy" (as Abbie would say) romance to it. I actually found those scenes a bit "ew."
It was just strange. I guess it's like a platform movie, but this is a platform book. Libba Bray set out to tell a girl power story and that purpose dictated everything. And it got boring. I kept checking to see how many pages were left and nearly put it down when the big gasp moment passed me by. I had already figured it out. What was the point of continuing to torment myself with the remaining pages after the confirmation of my suspicions? Ten dollars. That was the point.
So I finished it.
It's like watching "Lady in the Water."
The book is well written. Bray has a good grasp of language and storytelling, but there was just something silly and off about the whole thing.
It's apparently going to be made into a series.
Life is so unfair. I would much rather spend my time with another Frankie Landau-Banks tale.
I will NOT be being books two and three of the Rebel Angels (The Gemma Doyle Stories). Boring and preachy.
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