This book was marketed as YA, but I'm curious what the author's intended audience was. The lastest trend in publishing is to market any book with teen protagonists as YA or for children when really that's not the audience that the book was intended for. I say this, not because the content was so horrendous that a teen couldn't read it, but more because I feel that the social commentary that is at the soul of the book is more appropriate for adults. I'm not sure if Teens have been removed enough from questions of identity to truly appreciate the satire.
I didn't dislike the book as I am an adult reading it. I got tired of the commercial breaks and the overhanded references that didn't really need footnotes because only a handful of the footnotes were funny, but I did like the writing and the story in the moments that were written in third person and actually had plot. I even loved this next section:
"I've been thinking about that book about boys who crash on the island," Mary Lou said to Adina one afternoon as they rested on their elbows taking bites from the same papaya.
"Lord of the Flies. What about it?"
"You know how you said it wasn't a true measure of humanity because there were no girls and you wondered how it would be different if there had been girls?"
"Yeah."
Mary Lou wiped fruit juice from her mouth with the back of her hand. "Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one's watching them so they can be who they really are."...
There was something about the island that made the girls forget who they had been. All those rules and shalt nots. They were no longer waiting for some arbitrary grade. They were no longer performing. Waiting. Hoping.
They were becoming.
They were.
The book definitely made me think about stuff and want to discuss issues it brought up and tell people about it and argue with it, which is a sign of a good book. But I also didn't dive into reading it and put it down more often then I wanted to pick it up so it was a mixed bag, but here is the synopsis:
A plane of beauty queens are on an airplane together on their way to the Teen Dream pageant when it crashes on an island that they think is deserted. They must learn to survive for themselves but soon find in the process that their identity as beauty queen is unraveling and their idea of womanhood is opening up. Soon they find a plot that threatens their life and their dreams on the island and when a ship of cute male pirates crash lands on their shores, their new standards are put to the test. Now take all that, and put it through a lens of satire.
Intended reading level: YA (and on the high school level)
Genre: Survival, Satire, Adventure
Comparable Titles: Lord of the Flies
Book Connections: Women's Rights and Identity, Sexual objectification, Beauty Pageants, Survival skills, Media Studies
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