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A review by abinthebooks
Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas
Did not finish book. Stopped at 45%.
2.0
DNF @ 45%
Wow, this was bad. I remember when this book first came out, and the number of people giving it 1-3 stars grew by the day (which is why Catherine House is currently sitting at a 3.11 average rating on Goodreads…). Nonetheless, I still kept this on my TBR, and wanted to give it a fair shot. But, Miss Thomas I am so sorry, this was just bad.
The premise for this story setup is interesting enough; set at a boarding school named Catherine House secluded from the outside world where only top students get in. And yes, we’ve all heard of thisbook before. However, Catherine House puts an interesting spin on these tales, with some horror and thriller elements mixed in, (where the Secret History is more literary thriller, this is just kind of straight up gothic horrory) some light gothic writing + atmosphere, and also some weird shit™ (if you don’t know, weird and gothic shit are basically my trademarks around these parts).
All of this sounds really interesting, especially with our main character Ines who is an underdog-trope-character (which is probably every MC in a dark academia story, but I digress). She’s the bottom of the barrel, failing all of her classes, lazy, smart, but doesn’t apply herself. Honestly, this girl was too fucking relatable I have to admit. She also dissociates a lot, and has very little attachment to anything that’s going on around her. She just doesn’t care, and it made the story a little eerie (one of the only actually scary things about this imo). Like you really think a story with this atmosphere, set at an elite boarding school, where your heroine doesn’t give a fuck about the school she’s at, would be at least decent, right? But it just wasn’t.
I really think my main issue with Catherine House was the writing style. It was very disjointed and fragmented and it was very frustrating to read. The story was told in a stream of consciousness type of style, which I hate. I don’t like that type of writing. It always feels very wooden to me, and never very compact. I never find a story very woven together when I read this type of writing style. And I know this is a stylistic thing, and it’s probably not the books fault, it’s just a personal preference that I hate that type of writing. Also, let’s just talk about the amount of line breaks in the book. It was so fucking infuriating to me, and there really was so little dialogue. When there was dialogue it felt very stilted or it was very info-dumpey about the school/school’s history, ect., But usually, we were just in Ines’s head and her telling us about the mundane things she’s doing. She eats fruit, she goes to the library, she sleeps a lot, she skips class. Which is fine? But the plot is so slow moving, and it’s so much about Ines I just don’t care? Like, I enjoy character based stories, but Ines wasn’t really a character I enjoyed enough to follow through with this many mundane types of tasks. Honestly this book is so short, but so much could have been cut. Speaking of cut, this book has the longest chapters. 50 pages for one chapter made me want to kill myself, especially because I was not enjoying myself while reading this. And it was fucking boring. The writing was a snooze fest. I thought we were going to get a cute little gothic moment and I was literally snoring Miss Thomas.
I hated the writing but also the characters were widely underdeveloped. Ines has 5 or 6 “friend” characters in this story, and I cannot remember any of their names. Like that’s how bad it was. One of these characters is even killed off at the end of Act 1 and I did not feel a thing except queer-baited (because I really thought her and Ines were gonna kiss…). Like the only time I felt anything for a character in this story was for the pet that Ines and her roommate Baby had at the beginning of Act 1. That’s how bad it is out here guys, I swear. I could not tell you a single god damn thing about any of these people nor could I give a shit less.
I could honestly tell this book was a debut from the first chapter; the writing is hard to read, the dialogue is stilted, the characters are barely developed. This book desperately needed an editor. I feel like I’m being a little harsh, but really Catherine House has been done so many times before, it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. As both a dark academia book, and a thriller/gothic horror, I would definitely skip out on this one. There are infinitely better books with these tropes in them.
Gothic Book Playlist
*
So, it was a bad idea. RTC
*
I wanna see why everyone hates this book. (This is probably a bad idea).
Wow, this was bad. I remember when this book first came out, and the number of people giving it 1-3 stars grew by the day (which is why Catherine House is currently sitting at a 3.11 average rating on Goodreads…). Nonetheless, I still kept this on my TBR, and wanted to give it a fair shot. But, Miss Thomas I am so sorry, this was just bad.
The premise for this story setup is interesting enough; set at a boarding school named Catherine House secluded from the outside world where only top students get in. And yes, we’ve all heard of thisbook before. However, Catherine House puts an interesting spin on these tales, with some horror and thriller elements mixed in, (where the Secret History is more literary thriller, this is just kind of straight up gothic horrory) some light gothic writing + atmosphere, and also some weird shit™ (if you don’t know, weird and gothic shit are basically my trademarks around these parts).
All of this sounds really interesting, especially with our main character Ines who is an underdog-trope-character (which is probably every MC in a dark academia story, but I digress). She’s the bottom of the barrel, failing all of her classes, lazy, smart, but doesn’t apply herself. Honestly, this girl was too fucking relatable I have to admit. She also dissociates a lot, and has very little attachment to anything that’s going on around her. She just doesn’t care, and it made the story a little eerie (one of the only actually scary things about this imo). Like you really think a story with this atmosphere, set at an elite boarding school, where your heroine doesn’t give a fuck about the school she’s at, would be at least decent, right? But it just wasn’t.
I really think my main issue with Catherine House was the writing style. It was very disjointed and fragmented and it was very frustrating to read. The story was told in a stream of consciousness type of style, which I hate. I don’t like that type of writing. It always feels very wooden to me, and never very compact. I never find a story very woven together when I read this type of writing style. And I know this is a stylistic thing, and it’s probably not the books fault, it’s just a personal preference that I hate that type of writing. Also, let’s just talk about the amount of line breaks in the book. It was so fucking infuriating to me, and there really was so little dialogue. When there was dialogue it felt very stilted or it was very info-dumpey about the school/school’s history, ect., But usually, we were just in Ines’s head and her telling us about the mundane things she’s doing. She eats fruit, she goes to the library, she sleeps a lot, she skips class. Which is fine? But the plot is so slow moving, and it’s so much about Ines I just don’t care? Like, I enjoy character based stories, but Ines wasn’t really a character I enjoyed enough to follow through with this many mundane types of tasks. Honestly this book is so short, but so much could have been cut. Speaking of cut, this book has the longest chapters. 50 pages for one chapter made me want to kill myself, especially because I was not enjoying myself while reading this. And it was fucking boring. The writing was a snooze fest. I thought we were going to get a cute little gothic moment and I was literally snoring Miss Thomas.
I hated the writing but also the characters were widely underdeveloped. Ines has 5 or 6 “friend” characters in this story, and I cannot remember any of their names. Like that’s how bad it was. One of these characters is even killed off at the end of Act 1 and I did not feel a thing except queer-baited (because I really thought her and Ines were gonna kiss…). Like the only time I felt anything for a character in this story was for the pet that Ines and her roommate Baby had at the beginning of Act 1. That’s how bad it is out here guys, I swear. I could not tell you a single god damn thing about any of these people nor could I give a shit less.
I could honestly tell this book was a debut from the first chapter; the writing is hard to read, the dialogue is stilted, the characters are barely developed. This book desperately needed an editor. I feel like I’m being a little harsh, but really Catherine House has been done so many times before, it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. As both a dark academia book, and a thriller/gothic horror, I would definitely skip out on this one. There are infinitely better books with these tropes in them.
Gothic Book Playlist
*
So, it was a bad idea. RTC
*
I wanna see why everyone hates this book. (This is probably a bad idea).