A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, #1) in Aussie Readers

Aug 02, 2010 Rachel (The Rest Is Still Unwritten) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: i-own, bought-by-me

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Before I began this book I wasn’t sure what I’d discover. I’d put off reading the trilogy, believing that the era the book is set in and characters wouldn’t be to my liking. I was surprised to find that, after reading so many other modern day supernatural novels, that I found the world a breath a fresh air.
It was like being transported back in time. The characters attitudes towards things and their lives were so unlike my own that it was actually entertaining.
The plot was very interesting and I ...more

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Oct 08, 2008 Tien rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, young-adult, fantasy

Gemma Doyle, 16, saw her mother die in India and then was packed off to school. She always wanted to go to school in England but not under these set of circumstances. Added to that, her horror of discovering something strange within her. We then follow Gemma as she tries to assimilate herself in the school, gaining friends, making enemies, and at the same time, discovering who she really is.

I have to admit that the beginning annoys me a bit, she's so adolescent. The characters are actually quite ...more

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May 02, 2010 Aphie rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: children-s, young-adult

Appalling.
Libba Bray appears to have gotten her information on the mores and social niceties of Victorian society from the back of cereal boxes. Her characterisation is as flat and insipid as this would suggest, despite girls and women regularly spouting thoroughly modern ideas about emancipation and women's roles and sexuality.
The protagonist is unlikeable, way too modern in behaviour and beliefs (yes, for a "bohemian" upbringing in India in this time) and the racism betrayed not so much by the ...more

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