A Great and Terrible Beauty: Summary and book reviews of A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray, plus links to an excerpt from A Great and Terrible Beauty and a biography of Libba Bray.
A Great and Terrible Beauty
by Libba Bray
Hardcover: Dec 2003,
416 pages.
Paperback: Mar 2005,
432 pages.
It's 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?
BOOK REVIEWS
Media Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
Mysterious continued visions, dark family secrets, and a long-lost diary thrust Gemma and her classmates back into the horrors that followed her from India. A Gothic touched by modern conceptions of adolescence, shivery with both passion and terror. (Fiction. YA)
Publishers Weekly
While aimed at female readers, it will be just as delectable to boys brave enough to be seen carrying a book sporting a corset-clad girl on the cover. The pace is swift, the finale gripping. A delicious, elegant gothic. Ages 12-up.
Booklist - Stephanie Zvirin
Gr. 8-12. The Realms and the mystery surrounding the diary are less well handled, yet there's no doubt the mystical elements, along with a touch of forbidden romance, will draw a large, enthusiastic audience, who will come away wanting more about stubborn, willful Gemma and the strange world whose doors she can open at will.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by SIVER Awesome I just learned English and this book makes the language sound so much fun. I feel like I am gemma doyle.
Rated of 5
by em Fantastic series This trilogy is my absolute favourite. I would recommend it for anyone aged 13 and up. These books are well-written, intriguing, captivating and suspenseful. They will leave you wanting more. Bray meticulously describes both setting and character,... Read More
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Kirkus Reviews
of 5
by SIVER
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