Reviews

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

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atsilak's review

medium-paced

2.0

I wish I could tell you what happened. I listened to the audiobook and BOY lemme tell you the voice the voice actor was using was beyond annoying.

youmeandem's review

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4.0

creating my harper harper and audrey wells stan twitter accounts as we speak brb

adisiki's review against another edition

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4.0

Loved this! It was so funny and sapphic and the artwork was interesting. I love the storytelling narrative where the narrator acts like the reader is living in the same world and understands references and things and the footnotes were so funny. I’m just still confused on who the narrator is supposed to be, I probably need to reread more to catch what I missed, and it seemed a little long and dragged out at times.

Content Warnings

arrow's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

Mixed emotions on this one. First of all, the book is extremely slow and drags out a lot. Definitely could have been shorter. The writing was meh, the narrator and the frequent interruptions of the narrator were highly annoying, mostly unnecessary, and quite literally made me want to take a sharpie and cross out everytime we are directly called out as the "Reader". Every instance of this happening completely disrupts the flow of the narrative and feels like an unpleasant shock. The narrator speaking directly to us as the person reading the book only works in very few novels, and this isn't one of them.

If you can ignore the narrator, the two past & present plots are interesting, though again start extremely slow. None of the present characters are likeable in any way and I felt more time was spent on the past characters who felt way more well rounded. Pretty much everyone in the novel is a part of the lgbtqia+ community, which is great but at times felt more like caricatures rather than actual people. Some of the horror scenes were well written, some were not and the ?twist? was a huge let down. 600 hundred pages later, we finally get the truth and that's it??

So you're telling me that a woman living peacefully alone in the 1800s(aka fodder for the townsfolk to call witch because she doesn't adhere to conventions of the time), who was raised by lesbian mothers, is harrased, assaulted, and then brutally murdered by two men, puts a curse on them and their land, and that curse only goes on to kill wlw in the future??? I am truly confused why that's the narrative here. This big reveal at the end from Libbie's pov is supposed to help us make sense of what's going on, but basically just ends up being "Brookhaunts is a spooky place but it'll only kill you if you're a wlw"

Also what happens with the 3 main characters in the present at the end feels extremely unresolved and anti-climactic. I'm frustrated because this novel does have some great moments, but it truly truly needed an editor who wasn't afraid to say when something wasn't working.

joshuabilbrey's review

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5.0

This book broke me a little bit.

garion_kim24's review

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3.0

I DNFed this book originally because of the slow, drawling beginning (I got to around 300 pages originally), and sudden realization that the book wouldn't be centering on, not the girls affected and killed at the Boarding school the book's curse revolves around, but the principal of the school, Libby and what I presumed would just be her boring, everyday love affairs (but after fully reading this book entirely, I can now say that it is one of the only interesting things in this novel).

Anyways, this book has been sitting on my shelf collecting dust (much like Clara and Flo's role in this novel), so now that I have finally read it, I can rant peacefully:

- Despite the book being centered around the curse that involved a group of girls, Clara, Flo, Eleanor, and the deaths that followed, we almost never get their side of the story, nor do we prioritize them as characters, only as what the movie's script believes them to be based off of Meritt's research. I don't understand why the Gilded Age perspective couldn't have followed the lives of these girls and their downfall while comparing them to their Hollywood adaptions. Not only could their true lives be revealed more interestingly in the gothic fashion, but it could show the exploitations of Hollywood in a more clear fashion instead of hyping yourself as creating a new adaption without even centering the victims of the situation in the narrative.

- But instead, these girls are described as these "feminist icons", without any basis, considering this novel hardly goes into the movie making process at all. We don't see Harper or Audrey acting out these scenes during production, nor do we see Audrey acting with her mom. We literally don't see the process at all. Whenever we hop back to the current perspective, it's either drawn out filler, or short instances of "horror" with no actual risks and tensions.

- If this novel wanted to target the adult audience, then this book could have easily had Clara and Flo as college students. The interesting love affairs, secrets, desires and obsession we had in Libby's and Alex's POV can be translated in this version as well.

- There's also the fact that Libby and Alex plot-line had basically no bearing to the current plot-line, and that is probably one of the reasons why the current plot-line felt flatter. They don't bring those two up in any important manner despite the fact Libby was the principal of the school and Alex mysteriously died. Like I said, we could've had more tension if Clara and Flo haunted the narrative more constantly than they did (which is not a lot) and they motivated Audrey and Harper to think more about their roles in creating this movie.

- The random tidbit at the end that tried to explain the origins of the curse was very sudden, and should have been hinted along the course of the novel. There is too much telling in this book and not a lot of showing.

OK, rant over.

veganheathen's review

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4.0

What a unique story! This was a long book, but honestly, I didn't even notice. I never felt like I was trudging through it; instead I was always looking forward to the next chapter. My copy is an ebook and included some information from the author at the end. (Not sure if paper copies/audiobooks do also.) I had no idea Mary MacLane was a real person and wrote a very real book that is the really at the centre of this story. I found this just creepy enough, but still approachable if you're someone who isn't really into the horror genre.