Beauty Queens by Libba Bray 396

This is the most out there feminist satire for young adults that I have read. Fifty contestants of the Miss Teen Dream Pageant take off for a short beach trip. Their plane crashes and not all of them survive. A few make it to what looks like a deserted island. They have to come to their senses and organize a survival plan since none of the chaperons survived. Of course, it turns political and a bit of a rant against the beauty industry, the pageant industry, the advertising industry and more. Some of the contestants, well most of them, turn out to be fakes in ways you could not imagine. (One is the former lead singer of a pop boys band). A pirate ship that turns out to be a fake pirate ship for a reality show crashes on the island. Romance flourishes amongst contestants, and contestants and pirates, and contestants and an evil villain. There is a bit of confusion as the author switches between calling contestants by the state they represent and their actual names. By the end, all the surviving contestants become true winners as they learn more about themselves and how to take care of themselves as well.