Gemma Doyle Trilogy--Pt. III

Umkay, this is going to be my final say on the series and then I shall mention them in my blog no more.


--A review that I did for my highschool paper and am now shamelessly posting on here.--

At first glance, A Great and Terrible Beauty appears to be just another cliche book lurking in the Teens section, but if you take out the time to pick it up it's actually worth a read. Gemma is a girl stuck in the Victorian age with the unfortunate afliction of independent thought. After the suicide of her mother she is sent from her home in India to Spence, a boarding school for young ladies, where she has to deal with petty girls and the unwanted attention of an Indian boy who followed her from home. She can also conjure a door of light that leads to a place called the Realms. While there she finds out that she is descended from a line of priestesses that governed the mysterious Realms and is the only one who can restore their secret society called The Order. At every turn there is another reason to question who she trusts and more people waiting to thwart her efforts at harnessing the magic.

The book captures the struggle of being a free spirited woman in a time when society wanted your body and mind both corseted. It also manages to throw in a classic batch of good versus evil in the form of ancient magic. A decent introductory book into the Gemma Doyle trilogy, it's followed up by Rebel Angels and The Sweet Far Thing. Both of which are much better than the first. It's dark and angsty, so if you don't do that sort of thing I would pass it by, but for all the rest of you...I would definitely go get myself a copy.

Back to me --> I know. Trying not to throw in exactly what I think complete with petty thoughts is almost physically painful, but I must restrain myself. They'd just get edited out of the paper anyhow. xD

I did REALLY like this series and to finish up this review I give you a comment from Wonder Duck --Which I just now noticed while scrolling down to see what I'd written on Gemma-- It really sums it up much more nicely than I can. Hopefully she doesn't mind.


DUDE. I love those books! And it's funny, because I had the same reservations as you did when I started reading them. Even the COVER of the book looked cliche, forget the description on the back. But the more I read the more I liked it. Couldn't figure out why at first, but I finally realized after I finished the second book that it's because of the characters. They're REAL girls. They're not all angels with a few token flaws to make them seem like real people. As much as I love the novel, they're not like the girls in Little Women, who do something naughty but always learn the moral at the end of the chapter. They're not always selfless and strong and particularly kind. They do snotty things and make bad decisions, and sometimes I find myself downright disliking them. But that's what makes them REAL. It's what makes them human. I've never met someone who never had a selfish thought or didn't ever do something with selfish intentions. It's the human condition. But even through the hefty character flaws, they still have zest and personality and vulnerability that's relatable. You can still find things to like about them.