Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

(Age: 15+) Highly recommended. A group of beauty queens competing for Miss Teen Dream are thrown into danger when their plane crashes on a beautiful and deserted tropical island. With the film crew and the pilot dead and only a handful of beauty queen contestants surviving, they must learn how to battle the elements and survive.
As if that wasn't enough, they must also deal with jealousy, love, and a few truly strange beauty queens.
And a group of reality TV pirates.
And also a massive conspiracy involving The Corporation, a company that sort-of owns the world and has thousands of reality TV shows, including one about the beauty queens. Their whole ideal is perfection, and their motto is: Because Your Life Can Always Be Better.
The really fantastic books are the ones that change the way you view or think about the world, and this is definitely one of them. It's highly original and spectacularly amusing at the same time. Some people may find it slightly surprising because of some of the things that are mentioned or happen in the book. These include death, lesbian love, feminism, a few sudden sexual scenes, swearing, some violence, conspiracy theories, and also The Corporation, a very interesting company that insists everyone has to be perfect, and apparently, it's impossible to be perfect without makeup, surgery, a fake tan, hair extensions and saying anything that would be considered 'individual'.
The writer has done a fantastic job of mimicking the way the world is in real life, by exaggerating some of the themes that actually do take place.
However, towards the end this book began to be a little too crazy, what with the ridiculous conspiracy, perfect coincidences and strangely TV/movie-like ending.
Stunningly original and very funny in parts, but definitely for over 15 because of some surprisingly adult themes, and definitely for girls.
I highly recommend this book.
Rebecca Adams (Student)