Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

65 reviews

callikat's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

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

3.25

The premise is very cool, I love dark academia books, but the pacing was very slow, and I didn't get a good sense of the characters (the MC has a group of friends, but it all felt very one-note). I also could not stand the protagonist (Ines); she was just so apathetic and not in an interesting way, she was just dull. The main thing about her is how stunningly beautiful she was (except her teeth lol??); like that's the only thing anyone ever said about her, that and how lazy she is. I think I would have liked the book more if it hadn't been so slow and if I actually liked the protagonist. Also I just did not understand a huge chunk of the book, which I think affected my rating

I still have no idea wtf plasm is, is it like stem cells or something? I just did not understand, I would have liked more info on it. I also do not understand when Theo betrayed Ines, there's just so much of it that didn't make sense.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Confinement, and Death

Moderate: Sexual content

marcostorin's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

This book was amazing. It hooked me at the beginning with its description of Ines' mental health issues and her academic troubles, that was like getting punched by a reflection. The descriptions are amazing, the vibe is immaculate and the suspense was great. At a few points I wasn't really sure she was going to make it, still don't know if she did at the end, but I choose to think she won. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Alcohol, Confinement, and Mental illness

Moderate: Body horror, Medical trauma, Animal cruelty, Sexual assault, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Vomit

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

 
Catherine House is a gothic fever-dream set in an isolated school with dark secrets. Not my typical read but I picked it up due to one of my reading challenges. I struggled to connect with the story. My interest was piqued for a while and then tapered off, partly because I seem to have little tolerance for characters who self-sabotage and drift or escape in a sea of booze and sex. A little too much happened off page or wasn’t explained fully, leaving me slightly frustrated - I still want to know what happened to Ines before she arrived at Catherine House.

So not a bad book but not the book for me. But the dark atmosphere was spot on and if gothic is your thing then give this book a go.
 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement and Forced institutionalization

momo916's review against another edition

mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

This book sort of lost the plot while it was off creating AmbianceTM. Perhaps it's part of the point, but there are huge swaths of the book that are largely unmemorable as they just involve Ines wandering around the house as other students are doing random, unimportant things or Ines herself doing random, unimportant things. The protagonist is fairly boring as she has absolutely no motivations for doing anything other than a little bit towards the end

, and the resulting actions result in her being completely removed and preclude her taking any further action

. If any of the revelations in this book were meant to be twists, they were very easy to spot in advance and were therefore not at all surprising.

Something this book failed to convince me of was that the antagonists' motives were bad.

Obviously the main thing is that Ines didn't want to become part of the experiment and so their desire to keep her prisoner was bad, but the parts about human experimentation and the extension of life were painted as part of Catherine's innate twisted wrongness despite the fact that the previous subjects were willing. I suppose it could be up for debate whether they knew what they were getting themselves into, but for Baby any potential complications were likely to have been immaterial. It isn't clear if it is inevitable that anyone they experiment on is doomed to become an empty shell or if further experimentation could yield something closer to true immortality. My feeling is that the author meant for us to assume the former, but from what is on the page I am less sure.

My favorite things about this book were the worldbuilding around the house. Thomas did a very good job of creating a place that was simultaneously blooming and rotting, beautiful and abhorrent. Something that looks perfect, but ever so slightly akilter. I also appeciate the very casual existence of a bisexual protagonist.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement and Sexual content

victoriousbookworm's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol and Confinement

Moderate: Sexual content, Death, and Animal cruelty

emzhay's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

the girls that get it, get and the girls that don’t, don’t 

I absolutely loved this book. I liked the moodiness, the meandering story, the characters, the imagery, and the house itself. It reminded me of my own college experience, despite some major differing aspects of course. After reading the author’s interview, I think that I was exactly the type of reader this was written for/about. 

I often see this marketed as a dark academia thriller, but to me it was more an atmospheric gothic literary novel. It explores ideas, relationships and the self through its plot rather than using those elements to support the plot. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Confinement

Moderate: Death and Sexual content

libraryghost's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Confinement

Moderate: Death, Confinement, Grief, Forced institutionalization, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Suicide, Vomit, and Adult/minor relationship

uhhlexiconic's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Confinement, Emotional abuse, and Suicide

Human and animal experimentation are a large portion of the book

thefatpaperback's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book is a fever dream. I still think back on it and wonder if this was an actual book I read. It’s bizarre, but the writing is incredible. Big moments and shocking events are delivered like ripping off a band-aid: blunt and disorienting. The characters are great too. A friend and I were chatting about the book and he said he liked how it’s diverse without trying to be diverse and I agree. I 10000% recommend. I read this at the end of October and it was haunting for sure (but not scary…I don’t do horror novels!)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Gaslighting, Grief, Medical content, and Physical abuse

Minor: Animal cruelty

characters in this book attend a private collegiate college that performs, sometimes unbeknownst to students, experiments on their bodies and minds. I’m very sensitive to gore and horror—that’s not in this book. But it is a spooky, creepy read, so I wanted to be thorough in my content warnings.

purplatypus's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Blood, Confinement, Death, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Alcohol, Grief, Medical content, Sexual content, Suicide, and Vomit

Minor: Car accident