Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - Catherine House

Call Your Dad, You're In a Cult
Honestly this is the sort of book that you need to read and then talk about for a while. Or think about for just a really long time.

Like, how so many behaviors of the students strike me as "yeah college kids do that" (igloo, stupid sex, drinking, all nighters) and an overlapping subset of behaviors scream Cult (chanting, alcohol literally always available, group think like consensus over house issues).
Or how the gothic theme of the house Decaying gets dropped after the first real batch of brain washing and is replaced with the sense of the house not decaying after death but Watching and Trapping students like a living thing.
Or how Yaya rules.
Or how clearly the school is filtering for people who would be vulnerable to high control groups but still manages to have such a prestigious reputation.
Or why the repairing magic isn't used to fix the house.
Or how timeless this feels even though this is set in 96-99, and feels very fluid in the timeline as we go. Dreamy, disassociated.
Or how we never see Theo's interior motivations- when did his love turn to something that wanted to kill/freeze his beloved? When did he Turn?
Or how the main character's feelings and motivations change so drastically from semester to semester without alarm from the narrator- her attitude towards attending sessions, towards class work, towards connecting emotionally with other students. It clearly coincidences with the stint in the Tower and the brain washing, but it's like even with clearer hindsight the magnitude doesn't hit. Like the narration is disassociating from the story.
Or how Ines's strongest defense was her disassociation and when she lost that (clearly damaging, bad) habit, she was left vulnerable to being taken over by the House.
Or what made Ines such a good candidate- her thesis was apparently "incomprehensible" and she thought "sideways"- I don't quite get what that means.
Or how intimate it is to refer to the place, the mentality, the Whole simply as Catherine. And how other colleges/orgs have similar intimacy.
There's more but yeah- it's the sort of book you need to mull over

I would honestly read analysis essays about this just because the story feels like a hazy surface over depths that we can just barely reach.

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alessiareads's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Caterine House is deffo not a book for everyone. If you’re into dark academia or mainly into books with a lot of academic problems then this book would suit you. It’s a very easy read , I finished it in two days.

The book is about a problematic girl who ends up being accepted in a ghost-like school (more selective than any Ivy League school) with very strict rules and with very low chances that students can contact their friends of family for three years during their stay. She feels trapped but knowing she has nowhere to go and nothing to lose she accepts looking into the secrets of the school. The place has one priority and that is plasma, what it is and why it’s important is very little explained and that’s where I want to add a warning, you won’t get much closure from this book since it’s very mysterious and doesn’t give much details. It’s entertaining and fun but there aren’t any details presented almost at all. The ending is very dissapointing since it seems forced, overall I enjoyed it and highly recommend it! It could’ve had more pages though, 200 more pages maybe where the action went a bit further could’ve made the book better!

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uhhlexiconic's review

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mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Catherine House never seduces the reader enough to make some of the characters' attachments make sense, nor did the lead character's emotions come through strongly enough to make any twists land. A profound disappointment

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penofpossibilities's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

3.0

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aseel_reads's review

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challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I don't really understand this book... it reminds of this dark academia/fantasy/translated East European book I read, the plasma (if that's the right spelling) was just werid as. the pacing was a bit off and I felt like the short snippets of everything made it really hard to understand the characters. I was interested in the mental state of the characters likes ines or baby but mm, done pretty poorly. the ending was just like 'ah okay then'.

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meganelise's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book gave me serious Magicians meets Mexican Gothic vibes. Something is very clearly OFF about Catherine House from the start, but despite that, the characters are also doing typical college student antics (drinking too much, lots of casual sex, etc.).

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sunsetcity's review

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Take that review with a grain of salt. This book was super bizarre and I'm not sure I ever really knew what was going on, but I read through it really quickly and enjoyed my time reading it. I think the ending was super unsatisfying and way too open ended for this kind of story.

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coolmombeck's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I can understand why many seem to dislike this book because it's not for everyone. The writing does seem disjointed, and the characters can seem unlikable. I see it as Ines is also disjointed and doesn't seem to be able to like or forgive herself for past mistakes. She believes that hiding at Catherine House and her addiction to sex will heal and help her forget her past. While, at times, the book seemed to drag, it was well written and kept me interested. I would read another book from Elisabeth Thomas, as I enjoyed this one quite a bit.

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