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A review by podanotherjessi
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
This book seems to be almost universally loved, so I must be the one missing something. While the premise of this book sounds fantastic, the outcome for me left a lot to be desired. The characters were really strong, and there were some genuinely creepy passages, but it never got scary, and I had three major complaints.
First, the writing style was totally off for me. The author wrote directly to the reader (literally, interjecting asides and addressing them to "dear Reader"). This took me out of the story every time. It also had the effect of making it seem like the story was being told almost as a first hand account, which got confusing given the multiple third person limited perspective. If the narrator was someone there, how could they possibly know what characters were thinking? If they weren't, then why did the writing style seem so conversational? It just really didn't work for me.
Second, the pacing was way off. This is meant to be - in part - about the filming of a movie, but they don't even start shooting until more than halfway through. That's also the first time the present story line even goes to Brookhants. It takes so long for anything interesting to get started, and by that point, I was so checked out of the book that it would have been a tremendous feat to reengage me.
Thirdly, and to be honest my biggest complaint, is that there were too many layers to this story. Instead of telling one story really well, this book ends up telling two and a half stories okay. There was not enough of Clara and Flo, and way too much of the current story. We never get Mary's story at all. I would have loved literally any one of these stories - Mary's memoir, the tragedy of the Brookhants school, or the movie - to be told in full and done really well. Instead, we have a disjointed layered story in which the book cuts away at awkward moments, events are skimmed over, and huge sections of each tale seem to have been cut away entirely.
In the end, this book was a bit of a mess that gets an extra star for pretty good characters and a really cool setting.
First, the writing style was totally off for me. The author wrote directly to the reader (literally, interjecting asides and addressing them to "dear Reader"). This took me out of the story every time. It also had the effect of making it seem like the story was being told almost as a first hand account, which got confusing given the multiple third person limited perspective. If the narrator was someone there, how could they possibly know what characters were thinking? If they weren't, then why did the writing style seem so conversational? It just really didn't work for me.
Second, the pacing was way off. This is meant to be - in part - about the filming of a movie, but they don't even start shooting until more than halfway through. That's also the first time the present story line even goes to Brookhants. It takes so long for anything interesting to get started, and by that point, I was so checked out of the book that it would have been a tremendous feat to reengage me.
Thirdly, and to be honest my biggest complaint, is that there were too many layers to this story. Instead of telling one story really well, this book ends up telling two and a half stories okay. There was not enough of Clara and Flo, and way too much of the current story. We never get Mary's story at all. I would have loved literally any one of these stories - Mary's memoir, the tragedy of the Brookhants school, or the movie - to be told in full and done really well. Instead, we have a disjointed layered story in which the book cuts away at awkward moments, events are skimmed over, and huge sections of each tale seem to have been cut away entirely.
In the end, this book was a bit of a mess that gets an extra star for pretty good characters and a really cool setting.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Minor: Suicide