June 21, 2009
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
After Gemma's mother is murdered, she is sent to Spence and finishing school in England. While there she realizes she has powers to go into other worlds. She slowly reveals this to her friends, Felicity, Ann and Pippa. When the power of being able to travel to other worlds and perform magic becomes to much for the girls horrible things begin to happen. All this happens while Gemma is trying to figure out the mystery of her mother's murder and the new things she discovers in her visions.
While an amusing book, A Great and Terrible was not one of my favorites. I felt the story dragged at points. Gemma was an annoying character. She was trying so hard to be accepted but did not want to reveal anything to her friends that it made it difficult to like her and to trust her, which is typical of teens today but not as much then. Overall, I enjoyed this book, but did not love it.
Posted by Lisa at June 21, 2009 12:56 PM