Title: A Great and Terrible Beauty  

Author: Libba Bray

Genre: Fantasy, Historical, Young Adult

Publisher: Simon and Schuster  

Format: Paperback

Pages: 403

Rating: 4/5 stars

Synopsis (Goodreads):

In this debut gothic novel mysterious visions, dark family secrets and a long-lost diary thrust Gemma and her classmates back into the horrors that followed her from India. (Ages 12+)

It’s 1895, and after the suicide 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 been 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?

Review:

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. A young adult fantasy/historical fiction- I was a bit skeptical about whether or not this would mesh well together, or if it would work as well as Cassandra Clare’s Infernal Devices series. But I really enjoyed this book!

Gemma grew up in India, and when her mother dies mysteriously she is sent to London to boarding school. There she starts to uncover a bunch of secrets about herself, her family, the school, and the spirit world!

I had a lot of fun getting to know the characters in the book. When Gemma arrives at the school, she makes a friend and then turns the mean girls into her enemies. I thought “oh how original, the new girl makes enemies with the bullies of the school” but the relationship between characters becomes not what I expected!! So to say this book surprised me would be an understatement. If you are interested in reading a fun ya/fantasy/historical fiction book, then I definitely recommend you check this out!

Happy reading!