Pretty Monsters

There’s nothing more monstrous than perfection in J. S. Lemon’s masterful and haunting work of middle grade speculative fiction, a cautionary tale about the commodification of beauty.

Beauty queens don’t eat candy.

Ruby Driscoll became a beauty queen at the age of four. Since then, she’s worked hard to be a flawless pageant girl—a toxic goal that takes on a sinister truth when Ruby’s arms start moving strangely at her latest competition. Less like a human girl’s and more like . . . a Barbie doll’s. Soon Ruby’s already smooth skin becomes poreless, and her already shiny hair becomes impossibly glossy.

As Ruby’s frightening transformation progresses, the better Ruby does at her beauty pageants, and the prouder her mother is. But when this newfound “perfection” turns into a nightmare, Ruby must find a way to regain her humanity, or risk becoming nothing more than a pretty monster.