Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, Bk 1)

A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, Bk 1)
reviewed on + 2 more book reviews


Beware! I bought A Great and Terrible Beauty thinking it would be a fun book for my daughter to read. The kind that's about 'a girl like me' she would say, that has powers, and goes on adventures. A sort of teenage fairy tale. If this is what you think, you should reconsider getting this book. It is about a young lady set the late 19th century who discovers that she is the daughter of a witch, and has those same powers herself. There are murders committed by girls at a finishing school, suicides, sacrifice to goddesses (human and animal alike), under aged drunkenness, references to sexual things, and more.