Great Beauty-Terrible Beauty

Hello Everyone,

We had a wonderful, quiet evening at Andrea's house Thursday night. Andrea served hummus with crackers and vegetables as an appetizer, followed by a marvelously tender roast with potatoes, carrots and green beans. Along side this was Yorkshire Pudding (many of us have made this under the name of a popover puff or German pancakes, but hers was made with the grease from the roast instead of bu tter.) The Yorkshire Pudding was served with either gravy or jam, both of which were very tasty. For dessert, Andrea served an English Trifle, with layers of yellow cake, rasberries, blueberries and other fruit as well as whipped cream and delicious tapioca pudding. It was wonderful. Thank you so much, Andrea, for such a delicious meal.

I led the discussion on Libba Bray's "A Great and Terrible Beauty." In the discussion, it was pointed out that the great and terrible beauty is power and how the girls in the book really didn't use the power that they were given for good. They really didn't learn or grow much from the experiences that they had, and didn't try to do anything with the magic they had except tease and torture people who had been unkind to them.

We also discussed girls and the issues that teenagers and adults run into. In the book, each of the 4 m ain gi rls had insecurities that they faced, but didn't handle very well. For example, Pippa was terrified over getting engaged to Mr. Bumble, and when she tells Felicity, Felicity is so consumed by the fact that her father hasn't come to visit her for Asembly Day, that she totally brushes off Pippa, who is supposedly her best friend. Each of us has insecuirities, and we discussed how sometimes, teenagers and even adult women will act or react a certain (negative)way based on their own feelings of insecurity.

Overall, I think that this book was hard for several of the people who came, to relate to, and therefore they didn't enjoy it as much as some of the others we have read in the past. Thank you to everyone that came and for the great company and discussion.


--Janeeece