Beauty Queens

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray is a 2011 story brought to you by The Corporation.

A plane of Beauty Pageant contestants crash-lands on an uncharted island, where only a dozen women out of 50 survive. Along the way, they meet a bunch of guys pretending to be pirates (on a TV show brought to you by The Corporation), go insane and learn to survive.

Not to be confused with the Serbian girlband of the same name.

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Tropes used in Beauty Queens include:

• Action Girl: By the end, all of the women. Taylor and Adina especially.
• Acme Products: The Corporation.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Frequent.
• Beauty Pageant: Duh.
• Big Damn Heroes: The end. Everyone.
• Bland-Name Product: Babez dolls. And more.
• Brainless Beauties: Miss Alabama and Miss Mississippi.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Tiara, and to a lesser extent, Mary-Lou.
• Desert Island
• Evil, Inc.: The Corporation.
• Five-Man Band
• Improbable Weapon: They make a catapult out of a shoe.
• Mushroom Samba: Weird, hallucinogenic fruit samba.
• Product Placement: In-universe, there's a whole TV show based on it.
• Quicksand Sucks: It gets Nicole and Shanti.
• Rule of Symbolism: Just about everything is symbolic. Seriously.
• Sassy Black Woman / Black Best Friend: Nicole doesn't want to be one.
• Straw Feminist: Adina. She gets called on it.
• Token Minority: Deconstructed with Nicole and Shanti.