A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

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 After the murder of her mother, Gemma Doyle is shipped off to Spence Academy in England. Gemma starts getting strange visions of the future. To make things worse, a strange man has been watching her. As Gemma embraces her newfound power, she starts to uncover the dark secrets surrounding Spence.

I kind of read this series out of order, but let's just ignore that tiny fact.

The main reason I decided to read this book is because I've heard so many great things about Libba Bray's books! I found this book and the third one at Reread Books for a total of $10. I got book 2 for free so I figured might as well read the whole trilogy! A Great and Terrible Beauty left me a little disappointed.

As usual, I'll start off by talking about what I liked. A Great and Terrible Beauty is a gothic fantasy set in 1893, England. The plot of this book was super intriguing. I liked getting to investigate the mystery of Mary Dowd through reading her journals. Though it was a little slow, I thought the story flowed fairly well. It had a lot of potentials and for a debut, it wasn't too bad.

Gemma was a pretty okay character. She was really stubborn. I didn't really hate any of the characters in this book.

The world-building is great and only gets better as the series goes on! I loved the setting of Victorian London. I also liked getting to explore the Realms.

Now onto what I don't like. This book was a bit racial content. The male lead for this book is a young man from India. He was sexualized quite a bit for his "exotic" appearance. All the other Indian characters in the book were either submissive and quiet or violent. I realize that society's come a long way from when this book was published in the early 2000s, but still, it wasn't the best representation.

I couldn't care less for the friendships built in this book. Compared to a lot of the other books I've read, Gemma never seemed as close with Felicity, Pippa, and Ann as other protagonists do with their friends. Felicity herself was so selfish and annoying.

The plot twists in this book were nothing exciting. It's not that I saw them coming, I just wasn't very excited or shocked about them.

Page count: 403 pages

Published: December 9, 2003

Genre: fantasy, historical fiction

Series: Gemma Doyle book 1

My rating: 3 stars

Trigger warnings: murder

Buy this book

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Also by Libba Bray:

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