Review: A Great and Terrible Beauty

by Libba Bray
publisher: Delacorte BFYR
date published: December 9, 2003
format: hardcover
pages: 403
source: library
Amazon / Goodreads / B&N

From Goodreads:

Gemma Doyle isn't like other girls. Girls with impeccable manners, who speak when spoken to, who remember their station, who dance with grace, and who will lie back and think of England when it's required of them.

No, sixteen-year-old Gemma is an island unto herself, sent to the Spence Academy in London after tragedy strikes her family in India. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma finds her reception a chilly one. She's not completely alone, though... she's been followed by a mysterious young man, sent to warn her to close her mind against the visions.

For it's at Spence that Gemma's power to attract the supernatural unfolds: there she becomes entangled with the school's most powerful girls and discovers her mother's connection to a shadowy, timeless group called the Order. It's there that her destiny waits... if only Gemma can believe in it.

A Great and Terrible Beauty is a curl-up-under-the-covers kind of book... a vast canvas of rustling skirts and dancing shadows and things that go bump in the night. It's a vividly drawn portrait of the Victorian age, a time of strict morality and barely repressed sensuality, when girls were groomed for lives as rich men's wives... and the story of a girl who saw another way.

What I Thought

I just have one question after reading A Great and Terrible Beauty: how did I not know about this series before this year!? This is the type of book I used to read all the time, yet I had somehow overlooked it. I don't know how this happened, but I am glad that the situation has been rectified. A Great and Terrible Beauty is a wonderful blend of Victorian, Gothic, and paranormal. I really enjoyed most of the aspects of this book from the main character (a stubborn, head-strong, red-headed girl; I can relate!) to the existence of magic in a Victorian girls' boarding school. This book had so much to absorb.

Gemma is a very conflicted character. She wants nothing more than to have more freedom. Unfortunately for her, she is in the thick of the Victorian era, where women have limited options, duty being the first and foremost. She struggles with reigning in her impressive temper, attempting to fit in at her school without selling herself short, and uncovering the truth behind the sudden onset of the mysterious visions she experienced while in India. It's a lot for a girl to juggle, but Gemma manages to do so with aplomb most of the time. All the while, she is sassy, head-strong, stubborn, and yet kind. It is quite the package and you can't help but wonder how much she will grow as the story progresses.

The concept of the realms was an interesting one. The idea of a world to which one can escape and use magic at will is well beyond intriguing. I wish that there had been more of an otherworldly atmosphere in the description of the Realm, but I enjoyed this aspect, overall. I found the actions that could be accomplished there to be worthy of a lovely dream and these scenes quickly became some of my favorites in the book.

The threat that faces Gemma in this book is a chilling one. Circe, a mysterious figure who is seemingly out to gather souls, often made my blood run cold in her few face-to-face encounters with Gemma. I couldn't wait to find out who Circe really was and what her motivations were. It all added a fantastic measure of foreboding to the story. In fact, the Gothic feel throughout the non-supernatural portions of the book gives Ann Radcliffe a run for her money (though without so much weeping and teary eyes).

This was a book that made me wish for a dark and stormy night. It just called for a cozy blanket and a mug of something warm to drink. I have the second book all ready to go and can't wait to see what other adventures Gemma will be faced with. I will definitely be getting a set of these of my own so I can have that experience. I give A Great and Terrible Beauty 5 hoots.