A Great and Terrible Beauty (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy)
Delacorte Books for Young Readers - Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Release date: 2005-03-22
Paperback
Author: Libba Bray
Historical Fiction (Young Adult), Juvenile Fiction, Children's 12-Up - Fiction - Science Fiction, Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9), Juvenile Fiction / Historical / General, Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Magic, Historical - Europe, School & Education, Boarding schools, Fiction, Magic, Supernatural
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A Great and Terrible Beauty (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy)
Date undefinedI didn't immediately fall in love with this book. The problem is that Book #1 mainly sets up the whole story but real action is not taken until book #2, Rebel Angels. Just hold on, the last 2 books are wonderful!
A Great and Terrible Beauty (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy)
Date undefinedIf you are a fan of fantasy, adventure, magic, romance and mystery this is the book and the trilogy for you. Gemma Doyle won my heart over very quickly and I fell easily into her world. The characters in this book are entertaining and multi-faceted. I have always been a sci-fi/ fantasy fan, but I have also always been a fan of historical romance books such as Jane Austen novels. The Gemma Doyle trilogy is the perfect blend of both genre's. Once I got into the story I couldn't put this book down. In fact I was launched into a general book addiction because I enjoyed reading this trilogy so very much.
A Great and Terrible Beauty (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy)
Date undefined`A Great and Terrible Beauty' is one of those books you cannot put down, to the point where you are eating lunch with one hand and turning pages with the other and your friends are waving their hands in front of your face and trying to take the book away, much to your annoyance.
Set in the Victorian era, sixteen year old Gemma Doyle sees her mother murder herself to escape a soul-eating tracker in a vision. She soon is whisked away to Spence Academy for Young Ladies, a boarding school specializing in molding young ladies for their future husbands, whether the girls want to be molded or not. Gemma makes friends(?) with Felicity, Pippa, and Ann. And then there's Kartik, a mysterious Indian boy and a member of the mysterious and infamous Rakshana, following Gemma and warning her to close her mind to her visions, and threatening her father's already declining health if she fails to do so.
This book has varying layers of illusion, from the somewhat figurative illusions of London's society, people lying and spinning illusions to protect their ever important reputations, people hiding behind masks to conceal their true ambitions, desires, hopes, dreams(because having a personality would be oh so scandalous), to the more literal illusions of the realms. `Circe will make you see a monster when there is only a kitten and vice versa'--`A Great and Terrible Beauty'.
The characters in this book feel very real, with a perfect balance of faults and virtues, keeping them from seeming too much a villain or too much hero, which leaves you questioning which side is really the `right' side, the `good' side.
One of my favorites, I recommend this book highly to anyone who enjoys fantasy or the like.
