Romance, the Robinsonade, and the Cultivation of Adolescent Female Desire in Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens

Abstract

This chapter argues that Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens, a satirical riposte to the Robinsonade genre, draws on the broad tradition of codifying the desert island as a space for romantic interludes and posits the island as a distinctly experimental site for girls to navigate gendered behaviours, in order that they might question conservative social mores concerning female sexuality. It also argues for a critical perspective that reclaims women’s connection to nature by reconsidering the cultural construction of “woman” as one that is potentially transgressive within the narrative, and it schools young readers in finding pleasure in their own bodily, sexual desires.