Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Book Recommendation - A Great and Terrible Beauty

A Great and Terrible Beauty
By Libba Bray

Book Blurb from Libba Bray's website: "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?"

This is an entrancing story that leads you along like a puppet on a string. For most of the book we're left wondering- what the heck is going on? Gemma keeps having visions, the strange man in a black cloak keeps appearing, and we have no answers for a long time.

The book sends a good message, that everything you do is a choice. Every choice you make effects your life and those around you. I think it's awesome when a book can pull a message into the story that way, without being preachy. Libba also does an excellent job letting us into the heads of her characters, sharing their fears and struggles. It really endears the characters to you, and even when they go a little nuts, you're still pulling for them.

It's a great book to read for an escape from the norm. I've already started the next in the series, Rebel Angels.

No comments: