Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

If I could have coffee with any writer living or dead, high on my list of picks would be Libba Bray. Even if she didn't write witty, irreverant, and often intensely personal blogs and tweets (which she does), I would find her diverse range of characters and unorthodox plots irresistable . As we sat down for lattes, I'd ask her things like: "Libba, you describe A Great and Terrible Beauty as 'a gothic creepfest of a Victorian story with a heroine who could kick butt and take names all in a crinoline and corset' ...did you always want to write a Buffy the bustle wearer-type novel?" Or maybe, "Libba, how exactly does one decide to write a surrealist contemporary novel about a boy's Don Quixote-esque adventure as he descends into the insanity caused by mad cow disease?"
But after reading her latest novel Beauty Queens, I would start our conversation with a giant thank you for writing such a moving and honest book about young women--how they are perceived and what they perceive, how they are treated and how they treat each other.

The book begins with a plane crash (not unlike the popular TV show Lost, one of many pop culture icons parodied in the novel). The survivors are contestants in the Miss Teen Dream USA competition, but through chapters told from alternating characters' perspectives, we discover each young woman has more to offer than her beauty queen package. Unlike their Lord of the Flies and Lost counterparts, these young women manage to work together in suprising ways to survive and even thrive in hostile conditions. But as they begin to discover their own power, they are tested by temptations they discover on the island, temptations that reflect the challenges all young women face in trying to become strong, self-confident, empowered females.

By turns quirky, philosophical, fantastical, and touching, Beauty Queens is definitely the best book I read this summer. I foresee more awards coming Libba Bray's direction. Guess that means we'll have more to talk about when we finally sit down for coffee.

For a fun look at the making of the novel (and a glimpse of the author's personality), read this interview Libba Bray conducted with herself: http://www.omnivoracious.com/2011/04/ya-wednesday-a-conversation-between-libba-bray-and-libba-bray.html.

Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer

I find the nature of friendship fascinating--not unlike new love. There's the giddy beginnings when all the things you have in common with another seem an endless discovery and you want to spend every waking minute getting to know the other as you would yourself. There's the supremely delicate moments a friendship balances on, the ones you don't recognize while they're happening, but that will determine whether this will be a life-long bond of kindred spirits, a casual connection destined to fade, or a love-hate case of friends turned enemies.

The novel Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer explores this topic of friendship with great skill. Seniors Kathryn and Brooke are both talented singers preparing to compete in a prestigious competitition for fame, fortune, and a ticket out of their small town. In chapters alternating between the two girls' perspectives we learn that the bitter rivalry they share began as a friendship during junior year, and through a series of flashbacks the mystery of what went wrong is slowly revealed. On the surface, the girls are remarkably different. Kathryn is tiny and shy and drowning in stress as she tries to please her parents, scrape together money for college, and deal with constant bullying while Brooke is larger than life, popular without effort, searching for the attention of her distant but beloved father and for something more meaningful than the shallowness that is high school.

What I loved best about this book (and there were many things to love) was the depth of the characters. The author makes it impossible to take sides because you hear both girls' versions of what happened and see that they both behave badly, make poor decisions, and misunderstand--as do we all. I also found the ending richly satisfying, nicely balanced between sweet and realistic.

All told, a wonderfully timely tale that has a ripped from the headlines feel with its subjects of music competitions and female bullying (think Glee and Mean Girls for classical music). A great beginning for Sara Bennett Wealer--here's hoping for many more to come!

You can follow Sara Bennett Wealer on Twitter at @sbennettwealer or at her blog: http://sbennettwealer.livejournal.com/.