School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Libba Bray takes vicious aim at American corporate culture, politics, our perceptions of physical attractiveness, and much more in this scathingly humorous tale (Scholastic, 2011) of a beauty pageant gone wrong. Fifty "Miss Teen Dream" beauty pageant contestants and all of their "people" are headed for a fun in the sun promotional photo shoot. Those plans literally go up in smoke when their plane crash-lands on a desert island and only a handful of the girls survive. This is by far Bray's best written work. She pulls no punches as she takes on everything from tea party politics to reality TV. She trumps her incredible storytelling skills with her narration. Each contestant has a distinctive personality, and Bray she masters a variety of accents from a Texan twang to a California Valley girl. Her male voices, including a crazy dictator, are flawlessly convincing. Bray even improvises by having a breathy Marilyn Monroe-like teen queen introduce each disc number with one of her hilarious observations. "The Corporation," the sponsor of the pageant, provides commercial breaks throughout the story that is far more effective in audio format. The best of the best!-Shari Fesko, Southfield Public Library, MI (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Bray follows her Printz Award-winner, Going Bovine, with an only slightly less absurd premise in this out-there satire about a planeload of teen beauty queens who crash onto a (not so) deserted island. Lord of the Flies with an evening gown competition, anyone? Led by the indefatigable Miss Texas, Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins, the 14 surviving contestants must rely on competitive moxie. Despite the large cast, Bray makes the Misses distinctive, though each is more a stand-in for a particular brand of diversity than a fully dimensional teenager (one's black, one's deaf, one's gay, one is a boy in the process of becoming a girl). Poor Miss New Mexico stands out because she has a serving tray embedded in her forehead. ("Bangs are the new black!") Halfway through the ordeal, a boat full of shirtless, reality TV pirates runs aground, allowing for some smoking hot scenes. Fun footnotes, contestant profiles, and scripted commercial breaks are interspersed. There's a lot of message, but every time the story veers toward sermonizing, Bray corrects with another crack about our media-saturated, appearance-obsessed, consumer-driven society. Ages 13-up. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.