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A review by caseythereader
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.0
Thanks to William Morrow Books for the free advance copy of this book.
In 1902 at the Brookhants School for Girls, a group of young women become obsessed with the published journals of Mary MacLane, a scandalous book in which she confesses to sapphic tendencies, and where the girls see themselves reflected. After creating the Plain Bad Heroine Society, though, two of them die a horrific death on school grounds - the first in a series of terrible deaths. A century later, a famed horror film director is making a movie about the story, starring the hottest it girl celesbian. But the curse of Brookhants seems to be following them now...or is it?
Whew, PLAIN BAD HEROINES is hard to sum up - it's a series of nested stories that all feed on each other, with recurring imagery and old bloodlines and perpetual questions about what is real and what is staged. And I loved it.
It's one of those rare books where I'm equally invested in each set of characters, and there are several sets of women we follow in this book. Some scenes had my skin crawling, others had me laughing and reading passages out loud to my partner. And on top of all that, it's queer, so queer! Generations of women loving women and they all felt real to me. Don't let the fact that this book is 600+ pages deter you - sinking into the world of Brookhants was a fully engulfing experience and I didn't want it to be over.
Content warnings: homophobia, death, murder, wasps, sexual assault, institutionalization.
In 1902 at the Brookhants School for Girls, a group of young women become obsessed with the published journals of Mary MacLane, a scandalous book in which she confesses to sapphic tendencies, and where the girls see themselves reflected. After creating the Plain Bad Heroine Society, though, two of them die a horrific death on school grounds - the first in a series of terrible deaths. A century later, a famed horror film director is making a movie about the story, starring the hottest it girl celesbian. But the curse of Brookhants seems to be following them now...or is it?
Whew, PLAIN BAD HEROINES is hard to sum up - it's a series of nested stories that all feed on each other, with recurring imagery and old bloodlines and perpetual questions about what is real and what is staged. And I loved it.
It's one of those rare books where I'm equally invested in each set of characters, and there are several sets of women we follow in this book. Some scenes had my skin crawling, others had me laughing and reading passages out loud to my partner. And on top of all that, it's queer, so queer! Generations of women loving women and they all felt real to me. Don't let the fact that this book is 600+ pages deter you - sinking into the world of Brookhants was a fully engulfing experience and I didn't want it to be over.
Content warnings: homophobia, death, murder, wasps, sexual assault, institutionalization.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Sexual assault, and Forced institutionalization