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issiwerro's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
This book was just... wow! With the gothic and spooky setting, witty footnotes and cast of queer characters it was everything I love in a novel and more! I was intimidated by the size of this book but each and every page was important and provided the beautiful richness of this story. This is my favourite read of 2021 and I will definitely be rereading it in the future! Please write more beautiful and creepy books Emily M. Danforth!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Suicide and Death of parent
reviewsandreadathons's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Drug use, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Death of parent
Moderate: Alcoholism, Homophobia, Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, and Car accident
terpsichore1674's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This time jumping, atmospheric, romantic sprawl of a horror (?) novel upends convention -- much like its rotating cast of plain, bad heroines. Though it lags in some places and races breakneck (Readers, I used that word for a reason!) through others, it somehow all works. Except for the ending. Which doesn't NOT work, it's just ... It feels rushed and missing context, like a Scooby Doo villain reveal during the historical portion and a little too pat and tidy in the modern day scenes. That being said, the characters are richly drawn, the scares aren't too scary, the plot is built like a Matryoshka doll, and the narrative rides like a vintage Jaguar.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Suicide, Violence, Vomit, and Death of parent
Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Sexual violence
Minor: Pregnancy
erinsbookshelves's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-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
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Drug use, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Suicide, Violence, and Vomit
Moderate: Body horror, Gore, Homophobia, and Grief
mar's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
i usually get frustrated with audiobooks longer than ~8 hours, but I listened to the 19.5h of this one no problem and enjoyed it!! it's slow, but also really captivating and does a great job of building up the tension and creepiness, though it's sadly a little lacking in payoff in the end - I found the ends of both narratives a little abrupt and unsatisfying in different ways (genuinely finished it and went huh. more people should've died :/ or at least get traumatized a little more :/ FJDKGNKF) but overall I did have fun. the characters are compelling, if not always likeable, and the snarky omniscient narrator is excellent. in conclusion i love messy horror sapphics
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, and Death
Moderate: Drug use, Homophobia, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicide, Vomit, and Grief
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Fatphobia, Sexual assault, Forced institutionalization, Car accident, Death of parent, and Pregnancy
joufancyhuh's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.0
Points for being super sapphic, but I think I hated every character at least once during the story. I wouldn't call this horror so much as super gross bug experiences. I do think I know who the narrator is, considering the whole speech of "knowing everything" that's given near the end. Not sure I would recommend this to anyone. It's a lengthy commitment for a story I left feeling meh about.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse
Moderate: Bullying, Child death, Death, Homophobia, Suicide, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Biphobia, Drug use, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Death of parent, and Pregnancy
violet_pages's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Death
Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Drug use, Gore, Homophobia, Mental illness, and Vomit
Minor: Fatphobia, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Dementia, and Grief
thesincoucher's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I want to pat myself on the head because I thought I didn't have the ability of reading a book longer than 400pp anymore. It helps when a book is as awesome as this one so not all the credit goes to me. Before I forget I want to give a shout-out to one of the characters that doesn't even have a line in the book, Lily Strichtfield, who, when told about the messy business of the movie, said Hell No and went on to live her life in a normal way. Not all heroes wear capes!
Things that I really loved about Plain Bad Heroines:
- The narrator: I love when the narrator is a separate character and this one gave a lot of flavor to the book. This was the best way to tell this story, without a doubt. I'm a huge fan of footnotes on novels so they added more brownie points for me.
- This is the story of a book inside a book and very much aware of that and I love that fully awareness. I loved that Danforth knows her characters and uses them to maximum effect to tell this story.
- The story is the sapphic story of my dreams involving a boarding school and a horror movie and the people who are trapped there. This kind of books make me so happy because they were not there when I was growing up (or at least, not in easy reach) and now I have so many to choose from.
- There were moments deliciously atmospheric. Danforth knows how to write gothic horror well.
- This book was chunky but it did very much feel like it needed to be. It tells a whole story and when you finish it, you feel satisfied with it. I cannot ask for more.
I have the Miseducation of Cameron Post but now I'm putting it higher in my reading pile.
Things that I really loved about Plain Bad Heroines:
- The narrator: I love when the narrator is a separate character and this one gave a lot of flavor to the book. This was the best way to tell this story, without a doubt. I'm a huge fan of footnotes on novels so they added more brownie points for me.
- This is the story of a book inside a book and very much aware of that and I love that fully awareness. I loved that Danforth knows her characters and uses them to maximum effect to tell this story.
- The story is the sapphic story of my dreams involving a boarding school and a horror movie and the people who are trapped there. This kind of books make me so happy because they were not there when I was growing up (or at least, not in easy reach) and now I have so many to choose from.
- There were moments deliciously atmospheric. Danforth knows how to write gothic horror well.
- This book was chunky but it did very much feel like it needed to be. It tells a whole story and when you finish it, you feel satisfied with it. I cannot ask for more.
I have the Miseducation of Cameron Post but now I'm putting it higher in my reading pile.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident
Moderate: Confinement, Mental illness, Suicide, and Forced institutionalization
emilysquest's review against another edition
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
5.0
This book is GREAT FUN and highly recommended for folks who like: female queerness & interqueer politics, female-dominated casts of characters, ghost stories & gothic fiction, horror tropes, Edward Gorey style grotesqueries, triads over dyads, fin de siècle girls' boarding school fiction, LA noir(ish), creepy-New-England-in-the-fall, and interlinked past-and-present narratives that parallel and reveal one another.
Edit: Also a little surprised by all the reviews citing a slow pace—this book zipped along for me; I couldn't put it down. And I loved the discursive (but not really discursive) narrator and the characters' messy inner workings. But these things are, of course, subjective.
Edit: Also a little surprised by all the reviews citing a slow pace—this book zipped along for me; I couldn't put it down. And I loved the discursive (but not really discursive) narrator and the characters' messy inner workings. But these things are, of course, subjective.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Infidelity, Violence, and Blood
Minor: Rape and Suicide
questingnotcoasting's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
This is one of my favourite reads of the year so far. It combines so many elements that I enjoy: a story within a story, illustrations, footnotes, queer female characters, a enigmatic narrator and a map at the beginning. It's a really strange, imaginative book, with a lot of different ideas woven together but I thought it worked so well. I loved how it moved between the historical and contemporary storylines and I found it completely immersive. There were some brilliantly unsettling parts. I didn't imagine that wasps or apples could be so creepy. I'm not really a horror fan but I've discovered a few exceptions to that rule over the past few years, like Wilder Girls and Shirley Jackson's work and this reminded me of those books in parts.
It's over 600 pages and the first 200 are fairly slow but it built until I found it compulsively readable. I've seen mixed reviews, I think largely due to its length and meandering style but I was having such a good time I didn't want it to end. I borrowed the ebook from my library but I think I'll buy a copy in the future because I definitely want to re-read it one day.
It's over 600 pages and the first 200 are fairly slow but it built until I found it compulsively readable. I've seen mixed reviews, I think largely due to its length and meandering style but I was having such a good time I didn't want it to end. I borrowed the ebook from my library but I think I'll buy a copy in the future because I definitely want to re-read it one day.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, and Vomit
Moderate: Alcoholism, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Death of parent