Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - Catherine House

Okay, I can see how many people wouldn't like this book...but it worked for me! It reminded me a LOT of Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko. I never thought I'd come across anything that resembled that book. In both novels, the school doesn't serve as aesthetically pleasing "dark academia" fodder - it's a hellish trap that sucks the life out of its students and attempts to transform them into something otherworldly. We follow a passive student as she progresses in her (barely comprehensible) studies, unraveling the school's secrets and trying not to lose herself along the way.

The story is slow-paced and the characters' daily lives feel almost "empty"; all the creepy stuff happens in the background while the protagonist mostly floats on by...until things get too hard to ignore. There is a heavy gothic atmosphere and while we do get dreamy days wandering the school grounds, the students here are desperate, all trying to escape their own lives within Catherine's walls. I'm torn on whether all the snippets of Ines and her friends were necessary. I loved Yaya, though.

The ending is vague so I'll just headcanon that Ines truly shakes free of Catherine and finds happiness in the outside world. She reunites with Yaya in New York, I just know it!!!

Catherine House is a haunting look at how people can hold immense loyalty for an institution that may not deserve such devotion. And yet, somehow it's also a love letter to one's university days, an understanding of the nostalgia. Give it a chance if "slow and depressing" doesn't put you off 😆

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raen99's review against another edition

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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

1.75

I wanted to like this and I was so excited to read a good dark academia thriller but omg honestly....this is NOT dark academia. It takes places in a school where weird (and sometimes bad?? but only sometimes, like maybe twice) things happen, but there is no atmosphere, no *vibes* that make it dark academia ok. Dark academia is all about the VIBES. So many actions by the characters that make no sense, so much dead space where the characters are doing literally nothing (except I guess drinking and ??? that's about it??). This book really dragged, and there was no fun atmosphere or spooky vibes to even make up for it. I ended up skimming most of the middle section, and by the time I got to the end, the "reveal" didn't do much for me, and the ending was too quick and neat. The whole social message about education fell flat as well - I GET what the author was trying to do but the execution was just too boring and messy and underwhelming.

why did they let Yaya visit Ines in the Tower?? does this mean Ines could have visited Baby at any point during her stay there?? what was honestly the real danger/threat to the characters, someone pls tell me

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vigil's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-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

4.0

this book really worked for me because despite its marketing, because it, to my understanding, functions really well as a deconstruction of academia as a whole. this is probably why you see so many low scores from dark academia fans, who expected more exploration of that portion, namely the plasma mystery, and cultish behavior. however, the book is not, and has never been about that. it was about our main character, ines, and her journey. it is best understood as a character study on escapism, loss, and self acceptance, as you weave through an environment actively detrimental to you.

i think in another kind of book, it would have put the mystery first, exposing catherine, understanding the full scope of plasm, shutting down the schools, and then have the protagonist reckon with their own internal emptiness afterwards, remarking on how solving the mystery didn't solve them. catherine house, does not share this typical format, having its protagonist get out. no school or mystery, creepy plasm cult or not, can nor should be your whole life.

what is plasm? i have no idea. it was explained to me and i still don't understand, so i wasn't bothered when that wasn't explored because i didn't care anyways.

i loved the way the author got the atmosphere across so clearly with very detailed, but uncomplicated prose. ines existed in this "sideways" and detached existence, with the author writing in the hazy aura ines clearly felt, until the end, when she starts getting (almost jarringly) clear.

i will say, i think this book wasted a lot of time, but also didn't use enough. i don't like dark academia aesthetic so i'm biased, but the multiple descriptions of food, parties, buildings, and landscapes did bore me. there are multiple scenes in the book that i think are genuinely unnecessary and other technically not needed. however, i would describe this book as drifting along a stream, not building up to something bigger, so the extra scenes didn't bother me too badly. that being said, you can only half pay attention to this book and still get the gist, which i did myself in some places when listening to the audiobook. (which is fantastic btw.)

and i tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but i knew theo's ass was trash.

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callikat's review against another edition

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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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marcostorin's review against another edition

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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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lighterthaneyre's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

4.0

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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alicelalicon's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-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

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victoriousbookworm's review against another edition

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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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