So... this was a rollercoaster!

Firstly, it gave me very much dark academia vibes and dark academia is one of my favourite genres and for that, I loved it. I loved the way each of the eras intertwined so easily! I also loved the characters but I feel like a little more depth could have been developed for them. However, I did find it to be quite a slow read and I think I would have enjoyed it just that little bit more if it was a little bit faster paced. Nonetheless, I did enjoy this and would recommend it!

This is a very clever book, maybe too clever for its own good. It has numerous plots and stories within stories, and I did enjoy that aspect; it’s a book about a movie, which is filmed in a found footage/show-within-a-show style that blurs the lines between fiction and reality, and this movie is based on a book, which is based on historical events, which centred around another book, and that one actually exists in real live outside of this novel. So we’ve got a lot going on already, and while overall I enjoyed the twisting plotlines, at times it was overcomplicated and I’m not sure I fully understood everything. I also found some of the frames more engaging than others - I found the historical events plotline, with Alex and Libby, much more interesting than the modern-day setting, for example. I went on a bit of a lesbian history binge-read last summer, so I enjoyed spotting those references e.g. romantic friendships between girls at boarding schools.

In general, Plain Bad Heroines is a very slow starter - I’d say I only really got into it and felt the plot picked up at about 75% of the way through. I’m the sort of person who insists on always finishing a book, but I think a lot of other readers would have just quit. A lot of the first part of the book focuses on our three modern-day heroines in Hollywood, disliking each other - I found it tiring and difficult to read, because the conflict between them was just unpleasant and felt unnecessarily drawn out. Meanwhile, the section where they were on set together and starting to bond felt very short in comparison, which is a shame because it was much better! It’s just not fun for me to read about people disliking each other and having conflict for no reason, especially if they’re all sapphics/queer women. I also just hate stories about Hollywood to be fair, which is a personal bias.

On the topic of sapphic/wlw/queer women, almost every major character was a lesbian or bisexual woman and I loved it. Even when some of them died (not a spoiler, it’s the very first chapter!), it didn’t feel like a “bury your gays” moment because there were just so many gay characters left and because it’s such an integral part of the story. There were gay male characters too, and I think Danforth was doing something interesting with the conflict between them and the sapphic characters sometimes, but that’s my speculation. Also, the sapphic characters were so developed and realistic and familiar and natural; I can’t express what a delight that was to read, and you can really tell that the author is a lesbian. Plain Bad Heroines feels like the kind of story queer women rarely get to have - it’s not solely about “lesbian life” because it’s a horror novel, but there are so many queer women, and that’s not presented as a big deal, it doesn’t feel artificial or tokenised. It made me so happy. For all its flaws as a book, I’ll always love it for that alone.

So… mixed feelings overall. I’m glad I read this book, but the actual reading process wasn’t that fun, because it’s just so long and drawn-out. But even when I didn’t enjoy it, I still admired it because what Danforth’s doing is clearly very clever, and I’m so glad a book like this exists for the sapphic representation. I also felt the ending didn’t give enough closure, which I disliked a bit.

I have wanted to read this pretty much as soon as I first heard about it - when I was approved for an ARC I pretty much squealed like a Mary MacLane fan girl. The cover is amazing, the synopsis is amazing, and I had seriously high hopes for the book itself. Unfortunately, it ended up being a bit disappointing - maybe because my expectations were too high. I did enjoy it quite a lot, but the pacing was definitely off in places, and I didn't really get how the two timelines connected. I also found it hard to empathise with any of the three characters in the modern timeline (Harper Harper may well be one of the most irritating characters I've read lately).

I loved this. Sprawling, epic, and a total joy to read. A pure delight. I’m not normally one for really long books but this carried me along and I absolutely raced through it. Highly recommended.

Usually I am not a fan of dual timeline stories but this one worked for me and I found both timelines equally interesting (again , normally I will always prefer the historical fiction view point). Somehow the sum of the parts however added up to more than the ending which felt like an anti climax. I loved Danforth’s narrator style and found it engaging. I loved the creepy, gothic setting and thought it worked well in both timelines. The characters were well drawn. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

Lauren’s review:

Or do I really mean first impressions because I accidentally chose to read Harrow the Ninth first because seeing pals fall in love with Gideon put a huge hole in my heart? Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.

At the time of writing these thoughts, I’m 14% into Plain Bad Heroines and I can already tell you it’s going to be one of my favourite books this year. It had me hooked from the first chapter and I’m incredibly intrigued to see where the story pans out.

Honestly, I wasn’t really expecting to be so in love so quickly as lately have seen a few reviews talk about the first part being slow or boring to get into but that really hasn’t been the case for my reading of it. It opens with the two gruesome deaths of Flo and Clara at Brookhants school, and the book they’re obsessed with – Mary McLane’s diary. Truly, it could be Bec and me with our Smoke obsession, couldn’t it?

Emily M Danforth has successfully crafted a engaging atmosphere that I can’t wait to be fully engulfed by. I have high hopes for the rest of this book and getting to know these characters even more.

Edit: I’ve since finished this book and I know it’s left a mark on my soul, perhaps one could even compare the impact to that of a buzz – do you hear it?

Plain Bad Heroines is a book full of sapphic squads that you’ll distrust and care for. That you’ll experience both gruesome and soft things with. I highly recommend it, plus the illustrations throughout are a wonderful addition.

Now I leave you in Bec’s wonderful hands with her full review.
Bec’s review:

There’s been so much hype about this spooky wasp book, and I have to say that parts of that hype are well deserved. Plain Bad Heroines mostly had me on the edge of my seat, sending shivers down my spine.

We flip between two timelines: firstly, the early 1900’s (and before), when a group of girls at Brookhants school establish the Plain Bad Heroines society after becoming enamoured with Mary McLane’s scandalous diary. When society founders and queer students Flo and Clara are found dead on school grounds, and later another student is found dead, rumours begin to circulate as to whether the apparent school curse comes from Mary’s diary. This timeline continues to follow the school’s Headmistress, Libbie, and her girlfriend Alex, as they attempt to work out what’s happening at Brookhants and make sure no other students die on their watch.

The storyline set in the past was definitely my favourite of the two; it truly had the traditional gothic feel (including a cursed house full of secrets, of course) that I’d been craving from a book ever since I read Mexican Gothic last summer. The atmosphere in this timeline truly seeped out of the pages of the book, and the slow deterioration of the characters kept me guessing until the end.

The second timeline is in the present day, over 100 years after the deaths at Brookhants, and follows the creation of a movie based on the events after a young writer, Merritt Emmons, recorded Clara and Flo’s story in her first book. Merritt is joined at Brookhants by celebrity actress Harper Harper (yes, that’s her real name) and desperate for her big break child star Audrey Wells. The three modern day Plain Bad Heroines all have their own agendas for wanting this movie to be a success but have Brookhants and the curse to contend with first.

I did think that the present day timeline wasn’t as strong as the past timeline as I just couldn’t root for the characters in the same way. With Libbie and Alex being long dead, their fate is set in stone, but deep down I still wanted them to succeed, even as more and more of their misdeeds were uncovered as the story went on. Audrey, Harper and Merritt still undetermined ending to their story throughout the book, but in many ways, I was more interested in their present than their future; most specifically, the dynamics between the three of them and the various relationships that form between them whilst they’re on set at Brookhants.

Although Audrey, Harper and Merritt seem incomparable to Clara and Flo or to Libbie and Alex, the groups of girls manage to have much in common despite being over a hundred years apart. This definitely manages to be a character driven book whilst also still having a very strong plot that controls a lot of the overall narrative.

I feel as though the ending could’ve gone so many different ways, but the ambiguity of it overall felt right for the rest of the story. In the past storyline, I was very impressed with the final reveal of why things were happening at Brookhants in the way they were, it definitely wasn’t something I expected but tied up the story well. However, the ending of the present storyline again wasn’t as strong, left a few unanswered questions, and seemed quite sudden.

Looking back, I almost feel as though I need to rate each storyline separately – the past storyline following Libbie and Alex would be a strong 4.5 – 5 stars, but the present storyline following the filming was paced very differently and personally just didn’t excite me as much as the events from the past.

This was an interesting, original idea and the writing was good as well as the characters.
I wish it was shorter for what the story is.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

The epitome of a ghost story - telling a ghost story only to find out that you are living in one. Danforth's way of slowly revealing the curse, little by little, creates a tense and charged plot, with multifaceted characters who are sympathetic one moment and prickly the next, creating a believable and chilling setting.

I started out really enjoying this book but it started to drag so much in the middle. I feel like if it had all been set in the modern day timeline I would have enjoyed it so much more but I found I kept skimming the parts set in the past as I didn't find them all that interesting. A really good premise for a book and I loved the LGBT+ rep but sadly I think it was just over long.

I loved this immersive, intriguing and highly original novel. It is fairly over the top but it's an entertaining and compelling read with a great sense of the Gothic, uniquely told. Recommended.

Ambitious multi-layered narrative with stories bleeding through from the past to the present, where a book-within-a-book is updated into a film-within-a-film. In every era, knowing, precocious women shoot meta one-liners from the hip. The novel is long and, for me, the use of extensive omniscient footnotes lost its initial wry impact. But PBH remains an atmospheric read.

The story started out great! It was dark, creepy, interesting, It kept me on the edge of my seat, and I just couldn't put it down. I loved the atmosphere and the setup.

However, as the plot thickened I started to get bored and sometimes confused. Most of the time after the first 75% I started to just wonder what the point of the whole story was while still enjoying reading about the characters.

I didn't realise that one of the narratives would be set in the present day which at one point got very confusing and annoying to me because I would always find only one of the two narratives interesting and would want to kip the other one. That's never a good thing

I never complain about a book's size but oh, I could feel the 600 pages in this one. Some parts of the story would literally fly by and I wouldn't notice when i'd read 50 pages but at other times i'd read about 10 and call it a day...

All in all, I enjoyed the story and the characters but I had a problem with some draggy bits.

“but the truth was: she could see a shiny version of her future, without having any clue how to get there. she only knew that how not to get there was to let herself sink into the easier life.”

oh boy this was a long slog, loved the concept, beautifully written, was really looking forward to this and felt a little disappointed purely my fault I think, I must have been reading this at bad time and couldn't concentrate enough to fully follow the plot.

Oh, this story. I think it’s one of those that you love or hate. It has great atmosphere, a sinister undercurrent even when we’re miles away, and best of all, it has an engaging, witty omniscient narrator. I think that will need to go on my list of favourite book elements. We’re slowly but surely introduced to the Happenings at Brookhaunts, and all throughout you can feel the dread – something that is constantly confirmed by our narrator. And the wasps, the freakin’ wasps. If you have trouble with insects, yellow jackets, or body horror – this is not for you. I’m alright in general and there were still bits that made me wince and pull a face. I think the main downfall of this book, and what will divide readers, is that it does take quite a long time for the story to start properly, and has quite a slow pace. I had read for ages and then found I was only 30% in, yet it did keep me intrigued to continue to pick it back up again!

In 1902, at a remote school for girls, the death of two students, founding members of the “Plain Bad Heroine Society” whose members are obsessed with the memoir of a young writer, eventually leads to the school’s closure. In the present day, three young women become involved in the making of a film chronicling the unusual events that occurred there. But the film shoots own unusual events start to transpire, though of course they’re all set up for the film……aren’t they?

I liked a lot about this book – I thought the three main characters were interesting (despite the ridiculousness of Harper Harper’s name) and the different strands of the story across different timelines kept me reading. I also liked the amusing tone of the narrator and the footnotes. I had a little chuckle too at Merritt being “gifnotized” when watching GIFs of Harper on her phone.

But overall, it felt like a bit of a slog. I don’t mind long books but a long book where you notice it’s a long book…..it can be off-putting. I want to want to pick up a book and get lost in it, not wanting it to end. I found myself almost clock watching with this.

Whilst I liked the different timelines, I do wonder if the book would have been better if we’d focussed more on one, and that the attempt to tell the two different stories at Brookhants was actually what made the book feel too long.

I didn’t find it creepy at all I’m afraid. I like a horror to have at least a couple of scenes that bother me somewhat and to be honest, a few days after finishing, I can’t recall one scene that was even close to this.

Finally, I wasn’t particularly satisfied by the ending; I think I’d given up caring by that point.

I know this book is popular with a lot of other readers so if the elements of the story sound like something you’d like, give it a go, after all, we can’t all like the same thing.

Unfortunately could not finish this. Some people might like this style/narrative voice but I found it unappealing.

Thankyou to netgalley and the publisher for allowing me an e-arc of this book. I was very intrigued by the plot of this and i heard a lot of people talking about it which made me want to pick it up a lot more. Plain Bad Heroines did take me a while to get into due to the fact i kept forgetting whos perspective i was reading from but overall i found it an ok read. It did drag in parts so i kept having to put it down and then pick it up a while later but i liked the characters.

Since I've been reading more 19th century fiction in the past year I have been hungering for a contemporary writer to utilize the particular kind of authorial voice often found in these classic books. I'm sure this has been done in other recent novels but going into Emily M Danforth's “Plain Bad Heroines” I was thrilled to find it includes a narrative voice that self-consciously interjects and steers the story. It only shows up occasionally so as not to be intrusive but it does add another dimension to the story and there's something so playful and comforting about this “dear reader...” style of telling where we all agree to sit down to lose ourselves in a riveting, imaginative tale. Of course, it's a technique that's most commonly and potently used in ghost stories and gothic tales so it's ideally suited to the content of Danforth's creepy and darkly playful novel. The text is also beautifully illustrated with evocative drawings making it feel even more like a Victorian novel.

This book is partly a historical novel about a fictional New England boarding school for girls called Brookhants which briefly existed at the beginning of the 20th century. A number of girls are found dead amidst mysterious circumstances which gives rise to rumours and local legends. Interspersed with this tale is a contemporary story about a Hollywood film being made about the deaths of these girls and the supposed curse upon this school. As the book progresses and we move slyly between the past and present, there are numerous twists and turns in the plot which skilfully tread the line between the supernatural and the realistic. The story thrillingly shows how certain characters utilize or exploit this grey area for their own purposes. It's such a richly immersive read for its atmospheric detail that gives the spooky ooky factor while also making me desperate to know what happens next.

One of the great pleasures of this novel is that it's awash with literary references in a way which adds to and enhances the plot – as well as giving little sparks of joy for book geeks like me. Titles such as Henry James' “A Turn of the Screw”, Oscar Wilde's “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and the (problematic) work of HP Lovecraft are dropped into the story. There's a reference to Willa Cather's 'Paul's Case' which prompts the author to step in to encourage the reader to seek out this famous queer short story. A modern day character named Merritt has written an account of the Brookhants deaths which is being used as a basis for the film. Her profession means many literary allusions are naturally dropped into the story as well as her planned project to write an alternate version of Truman Capote's infamous unfinished book “Answered Prayers”. Most of all, Danforth incorporates into her story the work of the writer Mary MacLane who became notorious for the openly bisexual and feminist autobiographical books she published at the beginning of the 1900s. I must admit that I initially assumed Danforth had invented this author and her book “The Story of Mary MacLane” but she was a real writer and I'm now very keen to read her work.

As well as honouring Mary MacLane who is now relatively unknown the spirit of her books and ideas serve as an important part of the plot. Some girls and women at Brookhants avidly read MacLane and are inspired by the “forbidden” content and opinions they find there. MacLane's emotional and sexual bonds with other women serve as a touchstone to a queer sensibility which validate the girls' own same sex attraction and/or feminist feelings prompting them to form a club of plain bad heroines. This naturally leads more conservative characters to try to suppress and forbid her text being read. The story also toys with the idea that MacLane herself is a mischievous haunting presence. I love how this highlights the vital importance of queer antecedents and how their influence can wreak the most marvellous and riveting havoc to the established order.

The novel wonderfully plays upon Hollywood tropes and conventions as much as it does on literary ones. The film being made about Brookhants isn't a conventional one as it's about manipulating the public's desire for the production to be cursed as much as it is for creating a cinematically tense story about a legendary curse. The mythology surrounding the creation of films such as 'The Shining' and 'The Omen' is consumed as tantalizingly as the movies themselves. When the director in the novel tries to manipulate the actresses and writer to create hype for the production things don't go exactly as planned. It's satisfying how Danforth draws out the tension of whether the creepy scenes you're reading about are really happening or an elaborate hoax. This is another fascinating way this novel asks questions concerning what we want to be true and what's actually true whilst producing a really fun story.

Overall, “Plain Bad Heroines” is such a joy to read and I was glad for its relatively high page count which allowed the author to fully flesh out the complexities and many layers of its delicious plot.

"I have read of women who have been strongly, grandly brave. Sometimes I have dreamed that I might be brave. The possibilities of this life are magnificent."

Thank you to Harper Collins UK and The Borough Press for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In all honesty, I'm not entirely sure how to rate this book fairly. As someone who literally steers so far away from the horror genre in both films and books, this was already somewhat out of my wheelhouse, but the concept sounded so intriguing that I felt that I had to read it. Plain Bad Heroines is a dual-timelined book, exploring the curse of Brookhants School for Girls. In one timeline we follow Libbie Brookhants, principal of the school, and Alexandra Trills, Libbie's long-time love, as they navigate this looming curse hanging over their lives, and claiming the lives of their students. In the other, we follow the making of a movie about this past timeline, with 3 new heroines, Harper Harper (influencer and movie star extraordinaire), Audrey Wells (scream queen descendant trying to find her place in Hollywood), and Merritt Emmons (cynical and somewhat mean author of The Happenings at Brookhants).

The dual timeline aspect of this book was definitely something I enjoyed, and it was fun to have the added, somewhat meta, layer of the movie in the present day being based on the other timeline we watch unfold. It definitely took a while to get used to, due to the sheer number of characters we had to keep track of, as well as their relationships with one another, but once you get into it, it's not too difficult. I thought the book definitely suffered a little with pacing issues, the pace seemed to ebb and flow a lot, with some portions of it seeming to drag ever so slightly. The whole vibe of the book though, I really enjoyed. Again, I'm not a horror lover and am not well-versed in the specific subgenres of horror and what they entail, but I can definitely say that this book had the creepy factor. The whole idea of the curse was really mysterious, and I think Danforth did a great job of showing what people were experiencing, but with the added mystery of not knowing what parts are real or fake. There were several points in the book where I felt my skin crawl, and frankly I'm a little scared of running taps now for fear of wasps crawling out at me.

The main thing I loved about this book was its sheer unapologetic sapphic-ness. All of the relationships explored in the book were of a sapphic nature, and it was a true middle finger to the patriarchy, which I found really fun to read. Each of the female characters in the book was a badass in her own right, and whilst it took a while for me to like some of them (ahem Merritt), by the end, I really liked every single one of them.

Overall, I did enjoy this book, and it has definitely allowed me to dip my toe into the horror genre and find somewhere that I could find what I enjoy within it. The main issue I had with the book was its pacing, and the ending didn't quite satisfy me the way I was hoping it would. I think that's probably my main issue with supernatural horror books in general, I think it's incredibly difficult to resolve at the end in a satisfying way. The ending was by no means bad, but I wasn't wholly satisfied. But I would still recommend the book if you're looking for something a little creepy, historical, sapphic AF, and overall a fun time.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I was intrigued by the concept of this book, and wasn't disappointed. The plot was satisfyingly twisty, the prose was atmospheric, and my phobia of wasps is now elevated even more! It's great to have a ghost/horror story featuring lesbian and bi-curious protagonists, and I was reminded of Sarah Waters at many points, which is most definitely a good thing. Like every good ghost story, Danforth leaves you a little confused at the end, wondering exactly what really happened.