Tag Archives: beauty queens

… written by Libba Bray

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Libba Bray @ The Scholastic Store in SoHo

 

After reading the Gemma Doyle trilogy, I was absolutely enthralled with Libba Bray‘s storytelling style. It was imaginative, it was magical, it sucked me in and made me struggle to take my time to savour the tale because I wanted, so badly, to devour it.

Later, I picked up her Going Bovine standalone and was both impressed and perplexed. Perplexed with the surrealness of the story itself (what’s real/what’s in his head), and impressed by her ability to string the absolutely absurd together in such a way that makes you want to keep on reading.

Then, Beauty Queens was released by Scholastic and I was privileged to attend a signing done at the Scholastic Store (pictured above). Beauty Queens was satire and wit. There are a lot of characters, but they never felt flat. It’s definitely absurd, but that absurdity helps to expose the reader to a thoughtful narrative on popular culture, and modern society.

From this point, I pretty much vowed to buy everything Libba released, so when The Diviners came out, I was ready for anything. The Diviners had a lot of things I loved; the roaring 20s, mystery and a touch of the supernatural. Ok, a lot of the supernatural, so much so that I stopped reading this book before I went to bed because it was hard to turn off my imaginings. The main protagonist (Evie) was self-centered, and while I am not a fan of books with main characters like that, she didn’t annoy me as much as I thought she would (though she tried to really hard in the end).

So, after reading an 1800s fantasy series set in England, a surreal dark comedy set in NOLA, an absurd satire, and a 1920s paranormal/historical series set in New York, I think it’s safe to say that Libba Bray is a versatile author; and I’m probably still going to read everything she publishes.

~*~

This is Teen – a Scholastics Book Signing Event

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The Scholastics Store hosted Libba Bray, Meg Cabot and Maggie Stiefvater for a Q/A session and book signing as part of the This is Teen tour. (Yes, I know, I’m far from my teenage years, but listen, Libba Bray was going to be there and I’ve yet to meet Meg Cabot – who’s Princess Diaries I enjoyed as a teen – and Maggie Stiefvater – who’s books I’ve heard good things about, you would have gone if you were me. Stop judging!)

  

They shared a few fun things with us; Maggie loves researching, Meg loves writing in her diaries and Libba loves to steal Maggie’s research and Meg’s diaries. Meg has a crush on Hades . (Ok, this is how rumours start, don’t believe a word I said, you just had to be there.)

Then they had the signings. Libba remembered me from Twitter handle – thumbs up my “unique” name – and I have decided to label that fangirl moment #3.

 She also humoured me in holding up a peace sign.

Meg commented on my name – I’ve never thought of my name being different or nice in any way, but I suppose I’ve grown up hearing it often and familiarity causes it to lose it’s uniqueness.

And I caught the tail-end of Maggie’s line as we chatted about her books and the fact that there are only few people whose recommendations we trust. (See those books on the desk? They were being signed, I’m sure the Scholastics Store might have a few signed copies, so go and take a look if you want one.)

I’m looking forward to reading these books – stranded beauty queens, wolves and greek myths retold? What’s not to love!?