A Great and Terrible Beauty

' "Shall I tell you a story? A new and terrible one? A ghost story? ... Are you ready? Shall I begin? Once upon a time there were four girls. One was pretty. One was clever. One charming, and one...one was mysterious. But they were all damaged, you see. Something not right about the lot of them. Bad blood. Big dreams. Oh, I left that part out. Sorry, that should have come before. They were all dreamers, these girls."

"One by one, night after night, the girls came together. And they sinned. Do you know what that sin was? No one? ... Their sin was that they believed. Believed they could be different. Special. They believed they could change what they were - damaged, unloved. Cast-off things. They would be alive, adored, needed. Necessary. But it wasn't true. This is a ghost story, remember? A tragedy. ... They were misled. Betrayed by their own stupid hopes. Things couldn't be different for them, because they weren't special after all. So life took them, led them, and they went along, you see? They faded before their own eyes, till they were nothing more than living ghosts, haunting each other with what could be. What can't be. ... There, now. Isn't that the scariest story you've ever heard?" ' (pgs 314-316).

The above quote came from A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray, a book about a Victorian era girl who is sent to a finishing school in London after her mother dies tragically. Gemma Doyle, the heroine, is a 16 year old outcast who sees terrible things happen in visions - and then it comes true. Her roommate, Ann, is a scholarship student (read: poor) who wants nothing more than to be seen - and to be beautiful. Her unlikely ally, Felicity, is the school leader and bully until Gemma saves her from expulsion by shoving her in a lake - thus allowing her gypsy admirer to escape unnoticed. And Pippa, beautiful Pippa, wishes only for true love - which her parents can't allow to happen in case her seizures become public notice (and thus expose her genetic defect which would prevent any future offers of marriage).

However, they live in a time when "a man wants a woman who will make life easy for him. She should be attractive, well groomed, knowledgeable in music, painting, and running a house, but above all, she should keep his name above scandal and never call attention to herself" (pg 27). This stifling attitude prevents the four girls (or, really, any at all) from doing what they wish. As evidenced by one of the characters, "Well, it's not as if we can do what we want, is it?" (pg 163), when Felicity comments on how Pippa doesn't wish to marry the first man that comes along with a sizeable fortune.

In a drunken pity-fest, the girls re-create The Order after reading the diary of Mary Dowd, which describes a magical garden of power. They take a blood oath and "swear loyalty to each other, to keep secret the rites of [their] Order, to taste freedom and let no one betray [them]. No one. ... This is [their] sanctuary. And as long as [they're] here, [they] will speak only truth" (pg 153).

And so begins their true journey into self-discovery. Their characters deepen as you learn more about them: Pippa is being used by her parents simply to alleviate her father's gambling debts; Ann self-mutilates so she knows that she can still feel; and Felicity has been abandoned by her parents and for power in a powerless situation. It is at this point that the ghost story is told. The girls are at their lowest points and feel absolute failure coming upon them.

Weaving itself into the story is the poem, The Lady of Shallott by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. In the poem the Lady of Shallott is cursed to view the world outside her window through a mirror. One day she decides that she is "half sick of shadows" and looks out the window. When her mirror cracks, she leaves her tower, climbs into a boat and floats down to Camelot, where she dies.

Setting the pace for the rest of the book, the school teacher Miss Moore finally reaches the heart of the story when she talks about the poem and that "the lady dies not because she leaves the tower for the outside world, but because she lets herself float through the world, pulled by the current after a dream" (pg 102).

In essence, I believe that this book is about the characters striving to live life to the fullest and to attempt to break the bonds of society's demands to do what they want to do: which is to make their own choices.

I was captivated by this book right from the start and despite owning the rest of the books in this trilogy, I'm terrified that the rest of the books won't be as good. Having peaked my interest for what is going on in this book and the lives of these girls, I'm worried that the author will have opted for an easy way out. Or that in the end, they fail miserably.

Gemma and her friends, despite living in an age long past, still face issues that are relevant for today: peer pressure, the urge to fit in, sexual curiosity, the need to please and the desire to be free. While Gemma may not know her own mind, she does refuse to give in to society's pressures and I do believe that she does a good job as a strong female lead character. Even Pippa, who takes the easy road out in the end, still makes a choice that she believes is right for her.

Need I say more? I love this story and I think everyone should read it. It reminds me of the magical sisterhood found in the movie The Craft as well as a subdued version of the sexually charged friendship found in Summer Sisters by Judy Blume.