Scan barcode
A review by harleyrae
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
3.0
3.5/5 Stars
In all I enjoyed this book, but it was nothing like I expected. Going into this book I was imagining a book more along the lines of Hex Hall with there being a boarding school and our main character finds out she has some sort of magical ability, and the story would unfold from there. Well it was kind of like, our main character Gemma does go to a boarding school(more like a finishing school) and she does find out she has a power of sorts but that's the only similarities. This book takes on a more gothic approach, which I actually did enjoy, it gave the book a little something different. What I did t like though was Gemma, I felt half the chooses she made were not good ones, and in the end she became incredibly annoying. I also wish there was a bit of romance, not all hooks need that hint of romance but I kind of feel it would have helped this book a hit more. Plus I wanted a bit more of Kartik in the story anyway. I also would have like maybe some other POV, Kartik being one of them. He was a mysterious character and clearly knew something we didn't. I would have like two sides to the story, to possibly better understand what exactly is going on.
All in all this was a decent book but it was missing something that would have made this ten times better. I'm not sure if I will continue on or not yet.
In all I enjoyed this book, but it was nothing like I expected. Going into this book I was imagining a book more along the lines of Hex Hall with there being a boarding school and our main character finds out she has some sort of magical ability, and the story would unfold from there. Well it was kind of like, our main character Gemma does go to a boarding school(more like a finishing school) and she does find out she has a power of sorts but that's the only similarities. This book takes on a more gothic approach, which I actually did enjoy, it gave the book a little something different. What I did t like though was Gemma, I felt half the chooses she made were not good ones, and in the end she became incredibly annoying. I also wish there was a bit of romance, not all hooks need that hint of romance but I kind of feel it would have helped this book a hit more. Plus I wanted a bit more of Kartik in the story anyway. I also would have like maybe some other POV, Kartik being one of them. He was a mysterious character and clearly knew something we didn't. I would have like two sides to the story, to possibly better understand what exactly is going on.
All in all this was a decent book but it was missing something that would have made this ten times better. I'm not sure if I will continue on or not yet.