A Great and Terrible Beauty
May 31, 2010 at 8:06 pm , by Cheap Discount Sale
- ISBN13: 9780385732314
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
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?
From the Hardcover edition.Amazon.com Review
A Victorian boarding school story, a Gothic mansion mystery, a gossipy romp about… More >>
Category Beauty / Tags: Tags: Beauty, Great, Terrible, /
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by J. Thatcher
On May 31, 2010 at 9:36 pm
This would have been a good book if not for the same sex omplications. I do not know why the author felt the need to add this in. I would not recommend this to anyone.
Rating: 1 / 5
by Anna
On May 31, 2010 at 10:20 pm
I wish I could give less than one star to this book for perpetuating the myth that the best response to a seizure is to force a spoon in someone’s mouth. It’s completely untrue and actually very dangerous.
You can’t swallow your own tongue (try it right now and see if you can!) but a spoon or any foreign object forced in the mouth can fracture teeth or choke a person. It’s probably one of the WORST things that you can do when a person has a seizure.
I wish that Ms. Bray had either done a little basic research before she included that scene, or included a more helpful response, like making sure there was nothing on the floor for the girl to hit, or to loosen her corset so she could breathe.
Rating: 1 / 5
by Mari
On June 1, 2010 at 12:12 am
This was absolutly the most horrible book I have ever read. I picked it up because it seemed interesting. I was so wrong. It not only was extremely boring, but the story didn’t make sense what-so-ever. Good try though.
Rating: 1 / 5
by Renee
On June 1, 2010 at 2:33 am
To start this review off, the book was well written. It was captivating and a page turner…but WHAT WAS SHE THINKING?! This book was so dark that i couldn’t believe what i was reading. I would never have guessed the contents of this book by reading the panels at the bookstore. It was intriguing but i was shocked by it. Sixteen-year-old Gemma Doyle has been gently reared in India all her life but when she runs away from her mother in the market place out of sheer frustration and anger she would never have guessed that her mother would kill herself to save her daughter. Gemma’s family falls apart she is finally sent to a boarding/finishing school in England. Spence Academy. Spence is deffinately not what anyone would have expected. Harboring secrets of the past that Gemma and her unlikely friends uncover.
The book was so depressing that i nearly cried several times.Gemma has such a depressingly sad and dark life and history that its almost disgusting. And the secrets she uncovers are just as bad.
It was a beautiful story and wonderfully captivativating but i have no idea what compelled Ms. Bray to write it.
Rating: 2 / 5
by M. Cookson
On June 1, 2010 at 5:07 am
This book is about Gemma, a sixteen-year-old girl who lives in India with her mother and father. After her mother is murdered (something that Gemma witnesses in a strange and frightening vision), Gemma is sent to a finishing school in London. The story takes place in 1895. Gemma gradually gets to know the other girls at the school. Most of them are in some way emotionally damaged, and they deal with the hopelessness of their situations by taking everything out on those who happen to be weaker than themselves. What ends up tying Gemma to several of the girls is a diary she discovers, the diary of two girls who attended the school years ago and practiced magic. In a way, this book has the elements of a mystery, as Gemma discovers the link between her mother’s murder, the two girls, and her own visions.
I’m still not sure if I like this book. For a great deal of the book, I had the feeling that I didn’t really know any of the characters, not even Gemma, even though the book was from her point of view. Maybe this was intentional, but it was disconcerting. If you’re looking for a book with nice, pleasant characters, you should look elsewhere, because there aren’t really any here. They all do mean things, even Gemma, and the reasons they have for doing these things doesn’t seem to detract much from the fact that they did them. Really, though, you’d think that, after reading all 403 pages of this book, that I’d feel like I knew more about the characters and events, but this book feels like it leaves more questions behind than it answers. I’ve heard that there will be more books about Gemma, which is good, since there needs to be more if the story is to be understood. The book leaves Gemma’s powers, and her relationships with the people she calls her friends, in limbo.
Rating: 3 / 5