Center for Teaching & Learning

Miss Teen Dream contestants stuck on an isolated tropical island after a horrific plane crash: as if beauty pageants didn’t have enough drama. That’s the idea behind Libba Bray’s novel Beauty Queens, published in 2011. It starts with a word from the Corporation, reassuring us that this is a happy story, despite some of girls having their “living options curtailed.” And in then. true Bray fashion, it actually is a highly humorous novel.
A contemporary parody of Lord of the Flies, Beauty Queens starts out with fifty beauty pageant contestants on a plane to the forty-first annual Miss Teen Dream pageant. Suddenly, their plane isn’t flying to Paradise Cove anymore, but diving towards a smallish island, its right engine in flames and one of the girls leading the rest of the beauty queens in a song about Jesus being her copilot. Once the few living pageanters dazedly drag themselves out of the burning wreckage—no adults make it, of course—it’s a matter of surviving until rescue. Along with competing for the best tan, because you never know when the shmexy pirates are gonna show up, they’re surprisingly adept at survival. But there might be something on this island more ominous than having to eat grubs and battle giant snakes (duh duh DUH).
Okay, I know the plot sounds stupid. But there are so many important themes in this book, it’s hard to keep track of them. As the third-person narrative jumps from one beauty queen to the next, Bray explores themes such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and almost every family issue a kid can experience, but without the angst and drama of books that focus solely on those subjects. This novel is a serious critique of society, disguised as a hilarious parody of a classic. And for that I rated it an absolute ten.
I’ve read all 390 pages of it twice, the first time racing along with the story and the second time a bit slower, taking in everything and giving myself time to reflect. Beauty Queens is, in fact, a relatively fast read, one I’d recommend to anyone, boy or girl, which may be surprising considering the cover of the hardcover copy. But it’s a brilliant concept and there’s not a boring page in the book. Go Sparkle Ponies!
Scholastic Press, 390 pages
Sam (who is of the x chromosome)