A Great and Terrible Beauty

A Great and Terrible Beauty By Libbas Bray “Women who have power are always feared.” This wisdom comes to Gemma through her teacher at an all-girls school in London. Set in the Victorian time period, Gemma must learn to deal with the loss of her mother, what it takes to become a proper lady, how to fight her way through the cliquey girls groups, and how to control her secret power of visions and the ability to enter a world of magic. A Great and Terrible Beauty is the first in a series of three books. This book has been labeled Victorian Goth, as well as Historical Fantasy. Both labels are good attempts at defining the genre. I have to say it's still more than that, though. I typically shy away from fantasy, but what I like about this trilogy is that fantasy is an element but not the entire book. Gemma and her friends discover the magical world and travel between it and the "real" world. They still have their everyday problems, and even though the setting is in the 1890s, those problems are still very real for teens today: the death of a parent, parent drug and alcohol addiction, rebuilding a family unit, struggling to fit in among peers, abuse, cutting, fighting socio-economic class, wondering about the relevance of school, and finding one's place in life. The icing on the cake really is the fantasy element, as Gemma is fated to be the supernatural heroine much like a Clark Kent/Superman role. Recently discovered by our librarian, the series is already causing a buzz in our high school, and I predict many more readers to come.