Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

I've been wanting to read Beauty Queens by Libba Bray for a long time and I was lucky enough to find it at the local library when I was there with my son. Here's the Goodreads blurb:

The fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream pageant thought this was going to be a fun trip to the beach, where they could parade in their state-appropriate costumes and compete in front of the cameras. But sadly, their airplane had another idea, crashing on a desert island and leaving the survivors stranded with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner. What's a beauty queen to do? Continue to practice for the talent portion of the program - or wrestle snakes to the ground? Get a perfect tan - or learn to run wild? And what should happen when the sexy pirates show up? Welcome to the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. Your tour guide? None other than Libba Bray, the hilarious, sensational, Printz Award-winning author of A Great and Terrible Beauty and Going Bovine. The result is a novel that will make you laugh, make you think, and make you never see beauty the same way again.

This book was hilarious and thought provoking at the same time.  It took something as creepy and unrelatable (for me) as pageant girls and make them real.  I particularly loved  Petra and Jennifer.  Petra was definitely my favorite though.  Petra is such a brave and amazing character.  Jennifer was great because I could really identify with her as someone who was from the outside of this pageant world.  Jennifer was a comic girl whose mantra is "What Would Wonder Woman Do?"  I loved that.  Wonder Woman is a great female role model.  She has strength and power and she is not defined by her romantic interest.  My daughter's bedroom is decorated in Wonder Woman and she has a good collection of vintage comics going even though she's only 5.  Adina was interesting as well because she was someone that I could really get on board with.  She wanted to show the world and the other girls that there is so much more than looking pretty and marrying well- and there is.  Being from Ohio, I was a little less than happy with the representative from the Buckeye State but then she was really very much like my cousin who I share a birthday with but am polar opposite from.  I could care less about how OSU is doing and I will NEVER respond when someone yells OH at me.  Sorry.  Nerd Girls don't do sports.  Sorry.  It was pretty cool that Miss Ohio managed not to die in the plane wreck, though!  There is just so much that is wonderful about this book.  I really hope that you will all give it a try!

You can find out more about Libba Bray and her books on her website and on Twitter.  Click here to add Beauty Queens to your Goodreads.  Beauty Queens earns 4 Fairies for a great book that I loved to read.