Age: Middle - High School

Heading to the Miss Teen Dream Pageant, 50 contestants encounter something unimaginable: island humidity without product. After their plane crashes on a seemingly deserted island, 13 survivors must figure out how to survive on their own faced up against a hostile environment and an ominous presence.

Let me begin with what I liked. First and foremost, it had some beautiful moments by presenting feminist ideas including this insightful passage:

“I’ve been thinking about that book about the boys who crash on an island,” Mary Lou said to Adina one afternoon as they rested on their elbows taking bites from the same papaya.

“Lord of the Flies. What about it?”

You know how you said it wasn’t a true measure of humanity because there were no girls and you wondered how it would be different if there had been girls?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one’s watching them so they can be who they really are.”

There was something about the island that made the girls forget who they had been. All those rules and shalt nots. They were no longer waiting for some arbitrary grade. They were no longer performing. Waiting. Hoping.

They were becoming.

They were.

Additionally, Bray presents a wide array of female identities: deviant, transgendered, lesbian, caught between two cultures, sexually restrained, deaf, ambitious, and sincere. Teen readers can find parts of themselves and relate to at least one character. For the length of the novel, I feel like all characters were explored sufficiently. The plot was intriguing and it was well-paced. The humor existed solely on beautiful babes trying to survive on an island. Satire was most prevalent in Taylor, Miss Texas, and her insistence on practicing for the pageant instead of finding food and building shelter.

At the end of the book, I felt half-full. What a great premise to really look at teenage girl's identities, as the quote discusses above! But Girl Power was reached without the beauty queens questioning the concept, without reluctance, giving it a superficial quality--one that won't stick when they leave. The only person truly distraught by having to confront her identity is Taylor, soon followed by a poisoned dart that makes her crazy. Son of a bitch! So close to addressing the issue! Also, what the fuck were those pirates doing in this book? It's like the publisher got nervous that there were no love interests in a teen novel and forced this severely disruptive side-plot.

Overall, I'm glad I read it and it's a great book for addressing issues of teen girl identity, especially identities created by culture and not individual interest. But I wish it went further.