Beauty Queens - Libba Bray

Summary:  The fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream Pageant thought this was going to be a fun trip to the beach, where they could parade in their state-appropriate costumes and compete in front of cameras.  But sadly, their airplane had another idea, crashing on a desert island and leaving the survivors stranded with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner.

What's a beauty queen to do? Continue to practice for the talent portion of the program -- or wrestle snakes to the ground? Get a perfect tan -- or learn to run wild? And what should happen when the sexy pirates show up? Welcome to the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. (Summary from book - Image from www.goodreads.com)

My Review:  This book was ranked eighth on the Indie Kid's Next List for Summer 2011, so what I'm about to say might shock you...

Eighty-six pages. That's all I could handle. I can't remember the last time I was so annoyed by a single book.  I wanted to stop reading by the third page. I wanted to poke my own eye out with a pencil by the sixth.  So, the fact that I made it to eighty-six without any serious bodily injury is a miracle.  Go ahead -- be impressed by my perseverance.

Basically, this book is an absurdly jumbled attempt at cleverness that, for me, fell far short of its mark.  I realize that the author was trying to be six kinds of slick with her flippancy.  Ordinarily, I’m all for the mockery of beauty pageants and  the stupidity of popular culture, but, in this instance, I was so annoyed by the vapid characters and senseless plot that I didn’t care to wait around for any insightful commentary, sexy pirates, or stunning messages that might have been waiting in the wings.  The odds of eye-poking were just too high. 

My Rating:  1 Star ( I didn't just hate what I read of this book -- I loathed it. )

For the sensitive reader: The first 86 pages contained some swearing, crass discussion of sexual matters, and I'm pretty sure one of the contestants is a guy...or was a guy at one point. 

Sum it up:  Ugh.  So annoying.  Eighty-six pages of my life I will never get back.