Product Description

It's 1895, and after the death 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 being 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?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2299 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Synopsis
It's 1895, and after the death 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 being 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?

Customer Reviews

An enjoyable read
An enthralling novel, head and shoulders above its contemporaries, Gossip Girl and the abysmal Twilight series. Bray's narrative is fresh and very rarely loses tone. While I am unsure about some of the subplots discussed (cutting and lesbianism, both of which are handled in a way that feels more contemporary than Victorian), they are refreshing to read about in a YA novel. The basic storyline is reminiscent of a Frances Burnett novel - awkward girl is sent from India to a boarding school in England - but it has been reworked with an entertaining supernatural twist.

I note in passing that in terms of historical accuracy it is not especially remarkable: the novel claims to be set in 1895, but it doesn't really 'feel' like 1895 - a year of decadence, the trial of Oscar Wilde, the New Woman - more than any other Victorian year Bray could have chosen to set the novel in. In fact, the constant references to Tennyson would imply a more mid-century setting. However, I wasn't especially reading this for the historical details, and, to be fair, the glaring anachronisms are very few.

While the heroine, Gemma, is given much good dialogue - her snide, often self-deprecating asides are both funny and feel realistic for a teenage girl - it is Felicity, the charismatic antagonist/friend who really captivates the reader, and it is she whose character is best-crafted. Although the revelation about her family is quite predictable, it is built up to in such a way that it feels very believable.

All in all, a real page-turner of the book, which works well both as a solo novel and the first book in the series.

Beauty cannot exist on its own - everything must have its opposite
A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY is, quite simply, a fantastic novel. Although it is directed at young adults, older readers can easily find something in this cleverly written piece of work. As others have also said, A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY has many components - love, freindship, family betrayal, passion, desire, duty . . . the list could go on.

The story is about Gemma Doyle. At the age of 16, following the death of her mother, she is shipped off to London from her life in India to attend a boarding school. The girl that she shares a room with, Ann, is similar to Gemma in that they are both misfits at this well-to-do school. Ann is an orphan and Gemma feels as though she is an inconvenience to her father and brother.
Life at Spence, the school, is not an easy one for Gemma. She and Ann have to suffer being on the 'outside' of the popular group and so their isolation is more acute than some of the other girls. For Gemma, there is the added problem of her terrifying visions. She does not understand why she has them or how to control them, but they seem to have a horrible habit of coming true.
Yet someone has followed her from India, someone who knows that she has these visions, someone who is warning her that they are dangerous.

This is only part of the plot. There are many elements to this story that enhaance it, keeping you eager to carry on reading and reach the end. There are a few plot twists that are easy to figure out before they are confirmed within the story, but that does not take away from the enjoyment of reading.

What I really like about this book is that the characterisation is so well done. Gemma and her friends are not two dimensional; each has their own personality that has complex elements to make that character whole. No one is portrayed as necessarily all bad or all good - rather, the way they make decisions and react to situations in their life can be read as either good or bad, evil or not.

This is a fantastic read. A great way to start a series.

More than meets the eye
Yes, this book makes excellent historical fiction, but Gemma's magical experiences give it a shivery tension that makes it stand out from the rest. I was also struck when reading by the bleak future girls at that time had, having to marry who their parents chose and to suppress their own individuality. But it is Libba Bray's writing, filled with pathos and alive with imagery, that makes this story so compelling. Recommended and then some!