Growing up in the 1800s, women are expected to be beautiful, well mannered and ladylike arm candy for the men who wish to claim them as wives like prizes and trophies. They should speak when spoken to, curtsy, smile and nod while being prisoners of their corsets. Too bad sixteen year old Gemma Doyle is anything but, she's rough around the edges with her own opinions and her poor manners.

While walking around the markets of Bombay, India with the unbearable heat beating down on her, Gemma is longing to be in cool and green London, England where every young lady must be to increase her chances in the prim and proper Victorian society to become a suitable wife. After having a terrible vision of her Mother's questionable death which ends up becoming tragically true, it seems that she finally gets her wish.

Now on the next train to London to attend the Spence Academy for Young Ladies, this dream of Gemma's is slowly turning into a nightmare. Not only is she trying to adjust to her new way of life at school with a bunch of catty girls that make her an outcast, she also has her visions to deal with and a mysterious and beautiful Indian boy, Kartik, that has followed her from India and warns her to stop her visions altogether - or else.

To be one that doesn't take kindly to orders, Gemma obviously doesn't listen. In one of her forbidden visions, she is led by a little girl to the East Wing of Spence that was taken by a fire years ago and claimed the lives of three people. In the East Wing is where Gemma discovers the diary of Mary Dowd, which reveals secrets about her visions and a group of women who look after another world and its power called The Order.

This other world is called The Realms, where everything is beautiful and anything is possible. Gemma and her unexpected friends come together to form an Order of their own and embark on a journey side by side, quickly learning that with something so beautiful comes with something very ugly. The girls learn some dark secrets and must resist temptation, restore order back in The Realms and come out of it unharmed to tell the tale.

It's an awesome story of young women in a different time period where they're trapped but let their minds run free, searching for more than just being married off to the highest bidder. They want more things in life than just keeping a man happy. They want love, hope and adventure for their future. The characters are bitchy and sometimes naive but they slowly become best friends through their flaws and dreams. The magical world that Libba Bray paints for you is amazing. They touch upon it a little in the first installment but it really takes off in the rest of the series. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did.

Next book is Rebel Angels.

Great series! I was hooked from the beginning. Sometimes its hard to understand what's going on and you may have to reread it but it was a great read.

Gemma Doyle is always arguing with her mother. She wants to go to London where there is lush green and exciting balls and tea dances, she feels that India is hot and boring. She witnessess her mother's suicide and meets a young Indian man shortly after. Gemma is sent away to London but is followed by this stranger who makes her life more complicated as she tries to deal with visions and girls at school.

I love this book so much. I've picked it up a few times since I had first read it when it came out. I finished this in a day when i first read it, i couldn't put it down because i was so compelled. Even teachers from my junior high love this book. The first book is the best out of the whole triology. The characters are well developed and the way the author wrote the book was creative and fresh, not like other fantasy novels about magic. I think Harry Potter fans will like this.

Very enjoyable. The characters are real, exciting, and always on the go. Gemma is a very strong minded, and stubborn girl - who should learn to put her foot down more often. Her new found friends, who are bound by secrets, and the need to survive in a 'cut throat' school. A school were the young elite older girls really have a say in almost anything. Her friends push her to her limits and make her question what she came to the school for, and is she really prepared?

Kartik - a devastatingly, in my opinion - handsome guy, tries to lead her in the right, or wrong path. They both are tempted and lead astray by different needs and in most cases - peole. Gemma is thrown into a world, and Kartik is her compass to into a beautiful would that her mother knew was terrible to behold.This really is a great and terrible beauty.

EGH
Good book, good idea. But the auther added some unecesary details....Which at some parts made me want to put the book down and do something else.
AMAZING
The way she thought up the other world, was amazing!
And it inthralled me to read more

I cannot do anything else but praise this book. It had the most fresh ways of magic and new seductive writing style that I've read yet! If your a fan of Harry Potter or the Twilight Saga, you might want to give this a chance! I couldn't put it down and was absolutely thrilled to find out that there were two more books in the series waiting to hold me captive!

If there was one book that i can say was simply beautiful or completely different. It would be this one. It is an amazingly well written book and I think libba bray has the most amazing imagination to be able to wright something like this.

After witnessing (through second sight) the death of her Mother, and a mysterious stranger she met moments before, Gemma finds herself uprooted from everything she knows from her life in India to the very place she was begging her Mother to go the day she died. London.
Here in Spense Academy, Gemma must deal with fitting in while coming to grips with the mysteries lying around her Mothers death and her new found ability. To complicate things more, she has been followed by Kartik, who is encouraging her to suppress her power should she open up the realms to a dark and menacing force.
Caught between her new friends, Kartik, and her own misgivings about who she really is, Gemma must decide whether to pursue answers or take the word of a stranger and shut herself off from this power.

A believer that any storyline has potential, I really wanted to be pulled into this book. I did not find the plot to be gripping and, worst of all, the character relationships to be compelling. I admit that the female characters were well developed and believable (considering the time period they lived in), and Bray is a talented in her writing style, I just felt that alone was not enough to draw me into the book. I would have preferred more time be taken with Kartik or even Miss Moore (one of the teachers).
Perhaps this is meant to be developed in the sequels, but honestly, if I hadn't purchased them already this book would not have compelled me to continue on in the series.

*** This being said, I am now half-way through Rebel Angels (Book II) and am enjoying it much more!!!! ***

I'm about to start the next book, but I thought about writing a review on this :D. It was pretty good , I heard there would be some magic involved but I really at first didn't know what was going to happen. I started reading and I'm like wow? Some girl in the 1800's going to an English school, while I wanted something about Vampires?! I love Dramatic British films, but a book about it? I questioned myself on what kind of books I liked. But this indeed does have some magic in it. For those who love magic, but also a little British love... :D I recommand this book. It was great

I found this title on a book list entitled "Teen Books Adults Will Love". I have read other titles on the list, such as The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Looking for Alaska by John Green and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. With other well known titles such as Harry Potter and Twilight, I figured I couldn't go wrong! I work with teenagers on a regular basis, so one thing I like to be able to relate to them on is the topic of books. Not all teens read, so it's nice to be able to compare a real life situation to a novel they may have read. Not to mention the description of this novel as a Gothic. After having studied Jane Eyre in my university English classes - I was intrigued.

A Great and Terrible Beauty is the story of sixteen-year-old Gemma, told after the suspicious death of her mother in 1895, when she returns to England after many years in India to attend a finishing school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see into the spirit world. I found some of Libba Bray's descriptions of Gemma's visions a little confusing. It's difficult to write about magic and the supernatural, but it shouldn't be hard to read about. There were points where I wondered if the girls were within a vision, whether Gemma was dreaming in her bed, or whether these things were actually occurring. Bray some work into giving her audience details of the Order's past, but I was still left unsatisfied by her novel's conclusion. Did Bray end this way just so she could turn Gemma Doyle's story into a trilogy?

I do think that Libba Bray did a wonderful job writing about life in 19th century England. This can sometimes be difficult for contemporary authors. They can create a very detailed setting that takes away from their storyline, or a storyline that gets lost somewhere between the past and the present. I felt that Bray created a story in the ideal 19th century world, complete with social life and customs. Even Gemma's boarding school was well described and a wonderful addition to the story. It added character to the girls friendship.

Overall, I enjoyed the novel. It's nice to read books outside of your usual genre every once in awhile. Will I continue to read the rest of Libba Bray's trilogy? Probably not. However, I am happy that I gave A Great and Terrible Beauty a shot!

i loved it. it had action, suspence, mystery it was perfect. set in one of my favourite era's (victorian) and with magic! the charactors and amazing with real depth. i loved this book a must read

A Great and Terrible Beauty the first installment in the Gemma Doyle Series is amazing. The story begins in India where we meet Gemma. Gemma is soon swept away to England to a finishing school for girls called Spence. It is here that she meets her friends and we find out what secret powers our heroine has.

I found this book well planned, with a swift plot that made me not want to put the book down. I can't wait to read the second book in the series Rebel Angels.

I loved this book. Once I started it I couldn't put it down. Libba Bray's writting in this book was amazing, the plot was interesting and full of twists and turns and the characters very well developed and all unique. I recommend this book to anyone who loves a good fantisey, you will fall in love with it right from the beginning.

I liked this book a lot. I didn't think it would be written as well as it was.It was different from what I had thought. It was beautifully mysterious.Some parts were boring but then the pace quickened and it became better. Not like any book I have ever read.Different in a good way.

Going in, I was aware that this novel is geared towards young adults, and as such, I wasn't expecting it to have a particularly complex or sophisticated plot. A Great and Terrible Beauty failed to live up to even my meagre expectations however, as I found the storyline to be rudimentary, scattered, unconvincing and shallow. I never really cared for or felt I could relate to any of the characters - if anything, I found them to be quite unsympathetic and unlikeable! Aside from certain elements of adolescent subject matter, the unrefined story was more in line with something I might expect to enthrawl 7-8 year-olds. The purpose of the magical realm and the rules that governed its existence were never really made clear in a satisfying manner; there just didn't seem to be much of a logical backbone to support and explain the fantasy elements of the tale. All in all, I was left feeling thoroughly unimpressed.

This book left me wanting more. I am currently reading the second. It's not an overdose of fantasy - just a perfect amount (I am not an avid fantasy reader) - and it's got a hint of romance too! I love the main character, the author does a good job of building her up...truly witty. Even though the setting is in the 1800s, I can still relate to Gemma and her troubles. I've read the Twilight series and have been on the search to finding something similar, though this isn't really similar, it does put up a good fight to be on the same level. There were some nights I stayed up till 3am reading...something i did with Twilight as well. If you liked twilight, I think you'll like this too. Very worth the time and money :)

This book has all the elements of a wonderful dark fantasy. The characters all have well-defined and believable personalities, (with their own strengths and flaws), there is an engaging sense of danger and mystery, and the dream-like realms is a facinating place. And there is just the right hint of romance...not non-existent, but not all-consuming, either! The only thing I'd change is that the plot could be tightened up a bit.

A Great and Terrible Beauty is the first book about Gemma Doyle, a young girl who looses her mother and finds out she has a special power... magical power. It's a beautiful adventure that starts then. Divided into three books, A Great and Terrible Beauty takes place in a private school for girls near London. Fill with mystery, drama and excitement, this book, once you finish it, will make you want to get the second book, "Rebel Angels", to continue with Gemma's adventure.

Taking place in London 1895, it follows the beginning of sixteen-year-old Gemma Doyle's life at Spence Academy, a boarding school where proper young ladies are groomed to become the wives of rich men. However, Miss Doyle isn't like other girls, and not just because she doesn't have impeccable manners. She has mysterious visions that seem to have a habit of coming true.

Visions of the future, a gothic mansion filled to the brim with young girls, a secret Order, four unlikely friends sneaking out under the cover of darkness, and a love interest to boot. How could this novel be anything but good?

This tale does a great job at keeping you entertained. The story starts off quickly and maintains a steady pace throughout the entire novel. But, this balanced pace left the story feeling like it was building up to something amazing and ground-breaking for a long time, yet when the climax hit it wasn't as spectacular as I was anticipating. Overall, this is a great first novel for Libba Bray.

Recommended For: 11+

this is a great read and one of my favourite books! I read this a while ago and i loved it! i was hooked! i read the rest of the trilogy and i definitely recommend it for teen readers.