Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

28 reviews

darumachan's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring mysterious 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting

Moderate: Biphobia, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Sexism, Self harm, Lesbophobia, Forced institutionalization, Domestic abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Bullying, Vomit, and Alcoholism

jessiereads98'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? Yes

3.0

Plain Bad Heroines is a dual timeline story encompassing a cursed boarding school from the 1900s and the Hollywood movie being made about it today.

This story is told with a very distinctive narrative voice. I enjoyed the humour and snark of it. I for one didn’t mind the footnotes. I can see how this voice and the use of footnotes might grate on some people though. I do wish the narration choice had been explained, as that seemed to be part of the story. I didn’t always care for the frequently repeated Mary MacLane quotes. Some of them worked, but at times it felt forced in and not relevant. I also didn’t understand the refusal to state the year of current timeline, then ultimately revealing it indirectly towards the end. 

The sapphic relationships in both timelines play a starring role and it’s main characters are one of the most compelling parts. I enjoyed the relationship between our modern plain bad heroines the most. The relationship between Alex and Libbie was fine, but I found it boring and repetitive at times. I did appreciate the look at historical queer culture and relationships. The relationship between Flo and Clara which the book purports to be partially about is pretty much ignored which is disappointing. I would’ve much rather read about the original Plain Bad Heroines Society and that year at Brookhants from the students’ perspectives than Alex and Libbie’s perspective. Emily Danforth does do a great job comparing and contrasting the two timelines as foils throughout the book. 

Unfortunately, side characters who are sorely neglected. I was left wondering throughout the book about Audrey’s mom, Merritt’s parents, and Elaine Brookhants and their stories. Emily Danforth couldn’t seem to decide whether to include these stories or not, so what I was left with as a reader was a bunch of pointless dangling threads. 

Bringing things up to leave them unresolved is a common problem in this book. Harper’s family and relationships are brought up a few times, but there never seems to be any point or any furthering of the story surrounding them. Audrey’s friend Noel pops up on occasion seemingly just to tell Audrey that something is bad, as if Audrey and the readers couldn’t already tell. Details are brought up or events happen that are later just ignored or contradicted. There is a whole lot of nothing or wasted pages, which creates problems in pacing. This book drags through the middle and then rushes at the end. 

I liked the ending while reading it, it’s immersive in the storytelling and makes sense on its own. However, it does make the previous 600ish pages seem pointless and leave multiple holes. The ending was almost completely unrelated to the story I read, and left several holes. In an ideal world, that ending would’ve been better set up for rather than spending the book on a completely different track not even able to see the track that the ending was on at almost any point. I was left with more questions than answers by the ending. 

This did do some horror bits very well. There were times where I found myself legitimately a little scared while reading. Danforth’s use of metafiction to make it so the reader is left unsure along with the protagonist enhances the horror throughout the story. 

While I enjoyed this for the most part, it was too long and had too much going on. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Body horror

Moderate: Vomit, Lesbophobia, Drug use, and Suicide

Minor: Alcohol, Grief, Alcoholism, Car accident, and Death of parent

horizonous's review against another edition

After just one chapter I know this isn't a book for me based on the way it's written / the story is told. I'm only marking it as a DNF this early on because I don't want to forget I already tried reading it since the premise still sounds interesting to me.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Suicide, Alcoholism, and Death of parent

_teoeo's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

4.0

I really enjoyed reading this. I loved the voice of the narrator and getting to know the characters. I also liked how everything is connected. You really should annotate while reading to remember the scenes you think might be important and relevant (because they certainly are)! 
But I have to admit that the explanation for everything (most of it?) isn't as satisfying as I hoped. And, ngl, this book didn't have to be 600 pages long. 100-150 pages less would totally do it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Drug use, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death of parent, and Suicide

Minor: Animal death

brianna_moye's review

dark mysterious reflective 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Grief, Lesbophobia, Death, and Alcoholism

Minor: Forced institutionalization

thekatreturns's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-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

4.75

I adored this book. I won’t say too much so as not to spoil it, but it was my favorite read of the year. It feels like a rebuttal to the way that horror stories are often told, but beyond being a statement about the world, it is frightening, engaging, and deeply, darkly funny in its own right. The main cast is almost entirely lesbian and bisexual women who are distinct and flawed and real and so interesting to watch interact. That said, unless I missed something, the main cast is all white Americans with some degree of class privilege. The class aspect is intentional and absolutely commented upon, for what that’s worth, and the supporting cast is racially diverse, so that’s why I marked “it’s complicated” for diversity. I knocked a half point off because I wanted more worldbuilding out of the ending, for what was revealed then to be discussed as it relates to the previous events of the book, but the very last chapters were immensely satisfying nonetheless. I would highly recommend this to horror fans of all kinds, metafiction fans, those who like stories interweaving the past and present, anyone into Fraught Female Friendships, and those who just love really wonderful-in-all-their-flaws queer woman characters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Body horror, Death, Suicide, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Drug use, Homophobia, Cursing, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexism, Sexual content, Misogyny, Outing, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Violence, Racism, Biphobia, Car accident, Pregnancy, Murder, Addiction, and Alcoholism

Insects, specifically yellowjackets, feature heavily in this book. They are included in nearly all of the horror elements. For me, graphic=extremely unavoidable, long, plot crucial elements. moderate= plot or thematically relevant, but don’t stand out as particularly graphic. Minor=not described in detail.

decie's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

honestly a little bit offended nobody told me about this book. dark academia that isn't pretentious? contemporary and historical storylines that are beautifully woven together? a witty, self-aware narrator? sapphic characters EVERYWHERE in a book clearly written FOR sapphics? yes pls. it's sharp, fast, and kept me up at night. so. fucking. good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, Drug use, Gore, Misogyny, Body horror, Lesbophobia, Murder, Grief, and Homophobia

Moderate: Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, and Hate crime

Minor: Alcoholism, Stalking, Addiction, Ableism, Forced institutionalization, Pregnancy, and Mental illness

eveee_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Vomit

Moderate: Sexual assault, Lesbophobia, Homophobia, and Biphobia

Minor: Fatphobia and Alcoholism

bedtimesandbooks's review

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Suicide, Child death, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Murder, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Sexism, and Sexual assault

jacemchale's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

I really didn't expect to enjoy this book so much when I started it but now I think a piece of me will hold onto the story and all of it's characters.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Death, Sexual content, and Drug use

Minor: Cursing, Dementia, Sexism, Suicide, Violence, Alcoholism, Vomit, Forced institutionalization, Sexual violence, Car accident, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, and Murder