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A review by iam
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth
Did not finish book.
DNF @ 55%
Hooooooo boy, I did not vibe with this one.
I'm bored, I'm disappointed, I don't care about anything in it.
This didn't live up to the expectations I had set for it, but mostly I truly believe it's just that it clashed with my personal preferences in regards to writing style and narrative choices. If you want to gauge if you'll like it, I recommend reading the official description - it gives a good first impression of the book and writing, in my opinion
Content warnings include: death, animal attack (partially leading to death), insects, insect stings, Hollywood being Hollywood.
I was incredibly excited for Plain Bad Heroines as a (new?) adult horror tale full of queer women that crosses the boundaries of time. Not to mention the gorgeous cover!
I was delighted to get approved for an ARC, but even then my relationship with the book started off on the wrong foot. The format the ARC was provided in was pretty much unreadable to me, and it took a while for me to figure out how to best read it.
I want to make clear that that didn't influence my opinion about the book - but it was the first in a series of hits against the book, if the only one I am absolutely willing to let pass.
The second I also won't directly hold against the book itself, especially since I think that was an issue with the ARC file that won't be in the final copies, I HOPE - but it annoyed me a lot. It's the footnotes. I have nothing against footnotes, but what I do despise was the way they were embedded in this case. They were a) not numbered or linked, and b) all at the end of the book. There was no easy way to jump between the marks in the text and the footnotes themselves. Even if I was willing to page all the way to the end every time, looking up each individual footnote by counting is just... I'm sorry, but no. Fortunately, the footnotes also didn't seem to hold any relevant information, but to be honest, even if they had, they were so inaccessible that I just couldn't be bothered. Again, I SINCERELY HOPE that this won't be an issue in finished copies! But this was strike two against the book for me, even though I don't think it ultimately counted towards what made me not want to finish this.
Nope, the first true strike against the book that truly counted towards me not wanting to pick it up again was the narrator. And it's 100% a me-issue. I simply hate it when narrators address the reader directly. And, dear reader, the narrator addressed the reader a lot in this one. And I maintain that each and every time was unecessary. It added nothing to the plot or the book. The only thing it did was made me punch a wall. (Really, I have no idea why I hate this narrative device so much but it makes something in me go absolutely feral, in a very, very bad way.)
But on top of that, and possibly more importantly, the book was so boring. Not because nothing happens, but because it's so long-winded. I kept wanting to skim read everything. Nothing held my attention. Everything seemed irrelevant (I'm sure it was relevant, but I couldn't convince my brain to believe that.)
And really, the official description should have been a clue here, because that itself is tediously long for a book description already. And the book is exactly the same.
This could, again, be counted as a me-issue. Except I don't particularly mind slow writing styles -but this one just completely failed to engage me. I just did not care for any of it.
Okay, that's not true. There were some parts that got me excited. That made me perk up and think, oh heck yeah, it's finally picking up, I got through the thicket and reached the clearing and from here on out it'll be awesome! But that didn't happen. The few cool, enaging, exciting breadcrumbs were all buried between long chapters of boringness. Every time I got excited it was pretty much immediately followed up by mind-numbing bla again. And I'm sorry, but I can only bear so many disappointments before I give up.
The last and final strike was that when I reached a passage that actually interested me and... it was another disappointment. Again, arguably a me-issue, because this time the strike was that I simply did not like how things were developing. It didn't align with what the official description had me expecting.
I originally meant to at least read until I reached a certain part in the book, one that the desciption lead me to believe would happen early in the book. I'm over halfway in now and it still hasn't happened (which is another thing I deeply dislike about books - descriptions shouldn't give away things that happen past halfway in the book??)
Part of me still wants to keep going, because somewhere inside me I still have that spark of hope that I just have to keep reading a few pages, a few chapters more, and then it'll pick up! And who knows, maybe I will, someday.
But for not, this is it.
I received an ARC and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
Hooooooo boy, I did not vibe with this one.
I'm bored, I'm disappointed, I don't care about anything in it.
This didn't live up to the expectations I had set for it, but mostly I truly believe it's just that it clashed with my personal preferences in regards to writing style and narrative choices. If you want to gauge if you'll like it, I recommend reading the official description - it gives a good first impression of the book and writing, in my opinion
Content warnings include: death, animal attack (partially leading to death), insects, insect stings, Hollywood being Hollywood.
I was incredibly excited for Plain Bad Heroines as a (new?) adult horror tale full of queer women that crosses the boundaries of time. Not to mention the gorgeous cover!
I was delighted to get approved for an ARC, but even then my relationship with the book started off on the wrong foot. The format the ARC was provided in was pretty much unreadable to me, and it took a while for me to figure out how to best read it.
I want to make clear that that didn't influence my opinion about the book - but it was the first in a series of hits against the book, if the only one I am absolutely willing to let pass.
The second I also won't directly hold against the book itself, especially since I think that was an issue with the ARC file that won't be in the final copies, I HOPE - but it annoyed me a lot. It's the footnotes. I have nothing against footnotes, but what I do despise was the way they were embedded in this case. They were a) not numbered or linked, and b) all at the end of the book. There was no easy way to jump between the marks in the text and the footnotes themselves. Even if I was willing to page all the way to the end every time, looking up each individual footnote by counting is just... I'm sorry, but no. Fortunately, the footnotes also didn't seem to hold any relevant information, but to be honest, even if they had, they were so inaccessible that I just couldn't be bothered. Again, I SINCERELY HOPE that this won't be an issue in finished copies! But this was strike two against the book for me, even though I don't think it ultimately counted towards what made me not want to finish this.
Nope, the first true strike against the book that truly counted towards me not wanting to pick it up again was the narrator. And it's 100% a me-issue. I simply hate it when narrators address the reader directly. And, dear reader, the narrator addressed the reader a lot in this one. And I maintain that each and every time was unecessary. It added nothing to the plot or the book. The only thing it did was made me punch a wall. (Really, I have no idea why I hate this narrative device so much but it makes something in me go absolutely feral, in a very, very bad way.)
But on top of that, and possibly more importantly, the book was so boring. Not because nothing happens, but because it's so long-winded. I kept wanting to skim read everything. Nothing held my attention. Everything seemed irrelevant (I'm sure it was relevant, but I couldn't convince my brain to believe that.)
And really, the official description should have been a clue here, because that itself is tediously long for a book description already. And the book is exactly the same.
This could, again, be counted as a me-issue. Except I don't particularly mind slow writing styles -but this one just completely failed to engage me. I just did not care for any of it.
Okay, that's not true. There were some parts that got me excited. That made me perk up and think, oh heck yeah, it's finally picking up, I got through the thicket and reached the clearing and from here on out it'll be awesome! But that didn't happen. The few cool, enaging, exciting breadcrumbs were all buried between long chapters of boringness. Every time I got excited it was pretty much immediately followed up by mind-numbing bla again. And I'm sorry, but I can only bear so many disappointments before I give up.
The last and final strike was that when I reached a passage that actually interested me and... it was another disappointment. Again, arguably a me-issue, because this time the strike was that I simply did not like how things were developing. It didn't align with what the official description had me expecting.
I originally meant to at least read until I reached a certain part in the book, one that the desciption lead me to believe would happen early in the book. I'm over halfway in now and it still hasn't happened (which is another thing I deeply dislike about books - descriptions shouldn't give away things that happen past halfway in the book??)
Part of me still wants to keep going, because somewhere inside me I still have that spark of hope that I just have to keep reading a few pages, a few chapters more, and then it'll pick up! And who knows, maybe I will, someday.
But for not, this is it.
I received an ARC and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.