A Great and Terrible Beauty – Libba Bray

I’m not entirely sure what to think of this book. We start in colonial India, where Gemma is out with her mother, and witnesses her death. There’s very clearly something very sinister going on, but Gemma and her family go back to England, where officially, her mother died from cholera. Gemma is shipped off to boarding school.

At the school, Gemma makes some friends, and after she finds a diary in some nearby caves, they’re able to journey into some sort of parallel realm, where Gemma finds her mother, and some detail around why she died.

What I liked about the book – Gemma and her friends are real teenage girls. Their friendships aren’t always perfect, and that makes the story better. What I’m not so sure about – the plot around The Order, which is really the main plot. I’m just not fully onboard there, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. I think it’s underdeveloped, though you definitely get a whole load of plot at the end of the book. Still, I don’t think I’m going to be in a hurry to find the rest of this trilogy.