Reviews with content warning for Child death - Plain Bad Heroines

The premise was fine, but the length of this book is absurd considering the absolute nothing that happens. I cannot stand the shifting perspective of the story. It makes it clunky instead of intriguing, and I really think it could have been a shorter, better story if it had been told from only one perspective. But we have four; Audrey, Harper Harper, Merritt, and an omniscient narrator that refuses to identify themselves (but I suspect is Merritt, based only on the fact we are reading a story about a book and one of the characters is the author of said book.)The modern storylines are boring (the three heroines don't even meet face to face until 200 pages into the story) and tedious to get through. The characters are either flat, bland, or just plain unenjoyable. They do a whole lot of nothing for twenty pages, then cut to another whole lot of nothing but this time, there's /wasps/ and shadows.

Audrey is fine, and if I had to choose one perspective to keep out of the three main characters, she's the easy pick. She's got an interesting enough backstory that could probably be better explored, a lot of characters in her personal life that we know a little bit about, and her personality is one that makes you want to root for her. Harper Harper's character is basically rich young hot "celesbian" with some deeper stuff under the surface but even 200 pages in you don't really care about her anyway. She reads like a caricature. Merritt seemingly has no redeeming characteristics that Danforth decides to show us to off-set the general callousness she shows everyone and everything around her, with a dash of self-confidence issues that excuse it all, that makes her the queer not-like-other-girls-girl. We're supposed to be inspired and surprised that she, as a mere 16 year old infant, was able to write a story and it was good. Because of that everything else about her is special, so she can be selfish and not care about others. I'm not saying that all characters can and should be likable, but in a nearly 700 page book, surely you could do without some of that.

The horror/suspense elements don't work, because I didn't care about these characters and the atmospheric storytelling is lacking. The historical timeline would have probably gotten tedious too but that was the only part of the book that had me thinking it would turn around.

Eventually, though, the whole audition scene was what did me in. I felt 0 chemistry between the characters once they were on page, and I genuinely didn't think it was worth pushing through if that was all there was ahead.

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haleysversion's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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whatadoll2014's review against another edition

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Really wanted to get into this but felt like it was a bit lengthy. I could see myself maybe coming back to this if I’m in a different mood for reading but for now this one will go on the shelf.

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nadia's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

I really liked this book! I was worried that it wouldn't be suitable as an audiobook but I think it worked really well. I was engaged the whole way through and enjoyed both of the main storylines/time periods. Also, loved the creepy vibes! It just had a bunch of things I love in a novel.

I'd heard that this book had a lot of footnotes and that that, combined with the different timelines, might be confusing on audio, but it flowed well. Maybe even better than if I'd been reading it in print! Also, pretty impressed with how I hardly got lost amongst what was a large cast of characters.

I'm only sad that I missed out on the illustrations. I took a little peek in a bookstore when I was about 60% through and was hoping to find them all online in the PDF attachment that came with the audiobook, but it only had the map of the school! Will have to go back to another bookstore and see! (This disappointment had no impact on my rating, mind.)

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