Beauty Queens
Libba Bray
Libba Bray is either an unconquerable genius or a total loony-toon. Either way, she’s hilarious. Beauty Queens is a must-read, and if you can get it on audio (read by the author!), all the better. Think: the television series Lost, the movie Miss Congeniality, thrown in with some Lord of the Flies and your favorite chick lit . . .
While believing that they were on their way to a super fun beach vacation, fifty contestants for the Miss Teen Dream beauty pageant have been stranded on a desert island with no communication and no chaperones. Miss New Mexico is left with an airline serving tray stuck in her forehead, Miss Texas AKA Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins is the official leader of the bunch (until she goes completely mad), and Miss Rhode Island is actually a boy. They have to figure out how to work together to survive and try to get themselves rescued, while navigating the unforeseen complications presented by a group of sexy pirates . . . and, of course, ultimately avoiding being killed at the hands of the Corporation.
This novel is complete satire, and it’s completely hilarious. At times it seems to be overdone, parts are predictable, and it’s absolutely berating pop culture and politics – but then it turns around and convinces the reader that that was the whole point all along. This title isn’t for everyone, but might be the perfectly humorous listen for some high school readers!
The Kissing Game : Short Stories
Aidan Chambers
In a note from the author, he talks a little bit about the style of “flash fiction.” As he explains it, flash fictions “are like a flash of light, a spark, which allows one quick view of a whole scene or person or event.” “They can be prose with or without dialogue, or only dialogue.” “Some of the greatest authors of literature wrote flash fictions. For example, Kafka, Chekhov, Hemingway, Raymond Carver, Italo Calvino, and Kawabata, which he called ‘palm-of-the-hand’ stories.” Flash fictions are often very short stories, usually weighing in at 1,000 words or less.
In this collection of flash fictions, Aidan Chambers presents a variety of scenarios and emotions, including revenge, anger, and hypocrisy, mixed in alongside individuals’ needs to guard what we love, fight back against our fears, and project airs of self-confidence in the view of those we want to appreciate us. Love can be uncomprehendingly confusing, or heartbreakingly simple, often simultaneously. These stories combine conflicting feelings and intentions to present unflinching looks at love and relationships from the perspective of the individual (rather than focusing on just the idea of “love”).
Britten and Brulightly
Hannah Berry
Fernandez Britten is a private investigator, a self-proclaimed “researcher,” commonly known in the field as “The Heartbreaker” because of the heartache he has brought to many of his clients by surfacing the truth. When he gets a call from Charlotte Maughton, daughter of a wealthy owner of a large publishing house, about her husband’s murder, Britten is intrigued enough to take the case. Throughout the mystery, Britten proves his intelligence and his supreme observatory skills, though he comes across as desperate and depressing . . . the insanely hilarious bright spot is Britten’s only friend, his partner Stewart Brulightly, a teabag. Literally.
Recommended to all. Especially recommended to those with an attraction to irony and sarcasm.
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Katherine Vasilik, A/YA Librarian
J. F. Kennedy Library
Piscataway, NJ
telephone: 732-463-1633 x6
email: kvasilik@piscatawaylibrary.org or kate_thelibrarian@yahoo.com
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