A Great and Terrible Beauty, by Libba Bray

A Great and Terrible Beauty, by Libba Bray, is about a sixteen year old girl named Gemma Doyle. Gemma has grown up in India with her mother and father, but she desperately wants to go to England for schooling. When her mother is killed, she gets her wish. She is sent to England, and then to a boarding school. Initially snubbed by the popular girls in the school, she blackmails herself and her roommate into the clique. She deals with visions, a mysterious and ghostly young girl who leads her to a diary, and eventually with powers she does not completely understand.

From the blurb on the back, it seemed like an interesting story, but even after my purchase I was somewhat reluctant to start the book. It got pushed to the bottom of my reading stack, and continued getting pushed down as I purchased more books. When I finally got around to starting it, I didn't want to put it down.

A Great and Terrible Beauty may be set as a gothic, but it doesn't read like one. Bray does an excellent job of weaving together the various stories of the difficulties of being in a finishing school at that time, the girls' loves and lives, and Gemma's powers. Gemma is a very likeable girl, and her problems in the school are in many ways problems most of us have faced. I never thought I'd like to read about girls in a finishing school in the late 1800s, but the author not only kept me interested, but kept me wishing I had more time to read. Rarely was I ready to put the book down.

But it isn't just a history. Something is going on, and it's not until late in the book that we really understand just what that something is. Gemma struggles with her decisions and her abilities and makes choices, and not always the best choices.

A Great and Terrible Beauty, now subtitled The Gemma Doyle Trilogy, is followed by Rebel Angels, and The Sweet Far Thing.

While perhaps this book wasn't generally exciting, it is constantly interesting and compelling. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and enough that I purchased the second book in the trilogy.

Rating: 7.5/10