When I read a book jacket and it mentions a boarding schools with a mystery, I expect a huge secret to reveal, and characters that are spoiled but you empathize with in the end. Catherine House brings none of these to the pages. Moreover, it lacks plot and character development. I would in no way characterize it as a psychological thriller and I find it hard to believe that the "promising and mysterious curriculum" developed the "world's best minds."

Now if you enjoy books about bratty teenagers having casual sex, drinking too much, having affairs with professors, and roommate friendships then you may enjoy this one.

Don't let the pretty cover and the book jacket description deceive you.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow Publishers for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Where to start, where to start... I was drawn to this book initially because it was described as "a seductive, gothic-infused tale of literary suspense". It sounded very intriguing and I was so excited that I was approved by Harper Collins Publishing via Netgalley for the eARC.

Immediately upon reading I was intrigued. The campus is isolated from the rest of society and has deep roots into a secretive but prestigious life for its graduates. Houses in old campus buildings surrounded by thick woods, the first year students are told to leave their past behind. They are not allowed to bring anything, and are even given new clothing to wear. Everything they need for the next 3 years will be provided to them by the school.

Ines applied and was accepted to Catherine House. She is running from her past, so she is more than eager to leave her life behind and start fresh on the campus. Drinking is encouraged, showing up to class is optional, and Ines soon finds she is falling behind in her studies and on the verge of being expelled. She cannot go back to her previous life. She has to change her behavior so that life on campus can continue for her. She has to give her all to Catherine House.

Weird things happen on this campus. Everything is secretive. Rumors swirl nonstop. Nothing can be proven. Then Ines' roommate dies. Ines is not so sure that she died accidentally or even as a suicide...

Though I wouldn't classify this as suspenseful or gothic, I really did enjoy this odd mystery about life on the campus of Catherine House. It was a fun, quick read and I would recommend it for anyone looking for a spring or summer read.

Thanks again to Netgalley and Harper Collins Publishers for allowing me to read and give my honest review of Catherine House. I look forward to reading more novels from author Elisabeth Thomas in the future.

This was a 4 star read for me! It is set to be released here in the United States tomorrow, May 12, 2020. Order it now! It's a great quarantine read!

Happy Reading!

Thank you to Harper Collins, NetGalley and The Book Club Girls for the advanced copy of Catherine House. I couldn't wait to start reading! I am all in for books set in a boarding school/campus setting. Loved the author's descriptive powers that completely drew me into the story. It's not what I could call a page-turner, but it was so good and I couldn't wait to finish.

I didn't really know what to expect going into Catherine House, but I quickly fell in love with it and may now consider it a favorite. Catherine House is a weird book. I thought it was beautiful, haunting and utterly depressing.

Catherine House is about a girl and her eventual group of friends who navigate a strange and intense new university-type experience. They are to spend three years studying at this elite, private, and reclusive school where they will be unable to leave or contact the outside world for the entirety of the three years; they are essentially cut off from the outside world. The workload is nearly impossible, the weekly 'rituals' are undecipherable, the food is a bit rich, no one really knows what's going on, and the elusive idea of studying 'plasma,' a material that no one who is not a student of the new materials quite understands, is always at the back of everyone's minds.

However, Catherine House is also a difficult book to describe. On the one hand, it's very much a 'boarding school' style of story in which students attend a university-style program and are overwhelmed with work, party whenever possible, and generally act as young adults do. However, that's sort of where the comparison ends for me as it very much stands apart from other books of this nature in a lot of ways. One of the ways it stood apart was in how normal it sometimes felt. I know that this might sound contradictory based upon how weird and abnormal this book also was, but the way in which the students interacted with one another and dealt with their near-impossible workloads was so authentic and understandable. The areas of study may include the mysterious 'new materials' that focus on 'plasma,' but you can also study art history or mathematics. There weren't extremely strict guardian-type figures overseeing every single thing the students did (in fact, oversight was fairly nonexistent) and they were most left to their own devices, which I feel like is somewhat more how college functions, with occasionally punishable actions. I feel like most boarding school type of stories have a weird distancing from reality where the actions of the characters are never quite true to how people act or the way the school functions isn't quite realistic, but I felt differently this time. With Catherine House, I really felt like I could understand what it might be like to attend this school, which in turn helped me to understand the different actions undertaken by various students and to understand why things happened the way they did.

Ines, our protagonist and sole POV, is a difficult character to describe. She doesn't really care about a lot, yet she also does in her own unique way that we, as the readers, can begin to discern throughout the course of the story. I loved all the different natural relationships that existed in this book, both friendship, romantic, and sexual, and I found all them very natural and forced or overdone. We only follow Ines' POV, but we get snippets into everyone's lives through her own observation and narration, and I enjoyed seeing everyone's unique experiences. Watching Ines evolve over the course of this story and observing her interactions with various characters were easily some of the best and most fascinating parts of this book. As much as Catherine House does have an interesting plot and premise, it is also very much a character study. It's about how each of these characters reacts to their intense and unpredictable living situation at Catherine.

Catherine House is fairly slow-paced, but at the same time it tends to move around in time at random intervals that occasionally shifts the pacing a bit. I didn't mind this at all for once--it actually seemed to benefit and fit with the style of the story and writing extremely well in this book. This story and the characters are somewhat chaotic and often feel lost among the mire of their schoolwork and 'purpose' of being at Catherine in the first place, so it only makes sense that the writing style might reflect that attitude in its own unique way.

Thomas also has a beautiful prose that is both excessive and dry at the same time and has some of the best descriptions of settings, people, and feelings that I've read in a while. The way that she manages to convey how Ines feels or what she experiences was done in such a vivid way that I found completely engaging.

To round off this review, I'll comment on the areas where my personal opinions will really come out because from a personal standpoint, I really connected with a lot of what Ines struggled with. It's not that we have a similar situation or background in life--in fact, I'd say we are very different--but there is something about her sort of... empty (?) image of the world and this struggle to understand her place in it that I couldn't agree with or feel more deeply than I already do. There are also times when other characters describe things that I know I've felt, such as when one character describes a time in her past when she saw a girl out in public who looked so happy that it made her cry from anger because she knew that that would never be her, that she would never someone that happy because it wasn't possible and she would always be alone with herself, and I know I've also felt those feelings. There are so many one-off seeming casual sentences that just felt like a gut punch, like some was reading my thoughts, such as when Ines describes another characters by saying "Sometimes I felt she had only learned to be herself by pretending," Ines wondering what it would be like to be a girl that is soft and sweet rather than being the person that she was. It was all these little things that really put this book over the top for me and made me love it as much as I have. For me, it felt authentic.

Lastly, in some of the more negative reviews I've seen some comments about the excessive drinking and casual sex in Catherine House, and I don't really understand this as an issue. If someone doesn't like that sort of content in general, then sure, I absolutely understand why that would be a turn off, but for those that find it unrealistic or distracting--I find it pretty believable and fitting! Both of these activities are perfect examples of what college-aged students who are cut off from the world around them for three years, under immense, unbelievable academic pressure, and surrounded by people their own would engage in as forms of stress-relief and just to have fun. I actually really liked how casually bisexuality and other forms of identity were woven in--it was never even mentioned outright, just noticeable based on the different people the authors notes certain characters would sleep with.

Overall, of course I've given Catherine House five stars. I don't know if this book will be for everyone--in fact, I already know that it's not. But if you have an open mind and you love thinking about characters and exploring the intricacies of strange-yet-not-strange setting with some rather futuristic thinking, then you should absolutely give Catherine House a try.

Thank you netgalley for an e-arc to review.

I was very intrigued by the premise of Catherine House and the dark academia elements that it seemed to offer. This is a cross between The Secret History and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. But the plot, writing, and style of this story entirely stands on its own.

For a debut novel, I think this was really well done and enjoyable. I did find some parts slower and monotonous, but I believe that was meant to reflect the nature of what the characters were going through. No one can write descriptions of smells, flowers, and rotting fruit better than Elisabeth Thomas.

Thank you to Netgalley for the free ebook in exchange for an honest review!

This book had a gothic vibe and had all the components of an elite school hiding something. It felt like a modern day “Never Let Me Go” which I enjoyed. I enjoyed the slow burn of this book and how it seemed to escalate slightly with each year passing when they were more and more immersed into Catherine House culture.

It did feel like nothing was really happening in the book for long periods of time and then something semi-major did in each part. The slow burn was the build up to what happened each year, but there were stretches were it just felt like a word count needed to be filled.

If you like gothicy tales and don’t mind not a lot of action happening all of the time, then this book would be for you!

Catherine House is a exclusive institution of higher learning. The students must commit to three years of total immersion, isolated from the rest of the world. The main character, Ines, wants to forget her past so this place seems ideal for her. As the book progresses, there are secrets at the school that are slowly uncovered.

All in all, the book had a sinister foreboding, almost gothic feeling to it. It seemed like a very, well-written YA novel at times. The subject matter is very adult though.

I enjoyed the book although it was slow at times. Thank you NetGalley for the change to read and review.

This book is odd. I feel like I was missing something while reading it. It is supposed to be a thriller but it certainly lacked thrills. The whole book was lacksidasical. I did not like the main character, in fact I think the author went out of her way to make her as "meh" as possible. In the end I was left thinking to myself what was the point of this book; and I could not think of any.

"A gothic-infused debut of literary suspense, set within a secluded, elite university and following a dangerously curious, rebellious undergraduate who uncovers a shocking secret about an exclusive circle of students...and the dark truth beneath her school’s promise of prestige.

Trust us, you belong here.

Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world’s best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years - summers included - completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends, television, music, even their clothing must be left behind. In return, the school promises a future of sublime power and prestige, and that its graduates can become anything or anyone they desire.

Among this year’s incoming class is Ines Murillo, who expects to trade blurry nights of parties, cruel friends, and dangerous men for rigorous intellectual discipline - only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. Even the school’s enigmatic director, Viktória, encourages the students to explore, to expand their minds, to find themselves within the formidable iron gates of Catherine. For Ines, it is the closest thing to a home she’s ever had. But the House’s strange protocols soon make this refuge, with its worn velvet and weathered leather, feel increasingly like a gilded prison. And when tragedy strikes, Ines begins to suspect that the school - in all its shabby splendor, hallowed history, advanced theories, and controlled decadence - might be hiding a dangerous agenda within the secretive, tightly knit group of students selected to study its most promising and mysterious curriculum.

Combining the haunting sophistication and dusky, atmospheric style of Sarah Waters with the unsettling isolation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, Catherine House is a devious, deliciously steamy, and suspenseful page-turner with shocking twists and sharp edges that is sure to leave readers breathless."

I've been excited about this book for awhile now, and then, just this past week The Blosgess announced it's her book club's pick! Now I'm super hyped!

For fans of campus novels and psychological fiction, this novel dives into a young woman’s quest to find meaning in life behind locked gates in an exclusive setting only to discover that the utopia of secret belonging she thinks she’s found has dark secrets of its own.

Sensual, seductive ahhh! I just love the feel of this book. I can see why it might not be for everyone but it was for me! What a joy to read! Thank you!

Thanks to HarperCollins, Book Club Girls and Netgalley for the advanced copy. This book is darkly atmospheric and may have an interesting plot to some, but it was too slow for me, and I gave up halfway through. The premise seemed promising, and the writing is good. I just did not enjoy the story and hated the main character. Just not for me.

Ines has a roommate named baby. They discuss a party and decide to be friends . They are going to Catherine house for three years

<i>Catherine House</i> is set over the course of three years at a super secretive, selective, and even more isolated college where something sinister is taking place. Even though this premise is right up my alley, unfortunately, the unsettling experiment is never fully (or even partially) explained. Ultimately, while I found <i>Catherine House</i> to be super atmospheric, with very lush and immersive prose, the debut novel suffered from sometimes clunky dialogue and a really slow moving plot.

This is a sideways book about a sideways girl in a sideways school, and no I don’t mean Wayside School. This book reads like a dream and is just as ephemeral. Recommended for fans of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.

Catherine House is a very unique place. It's a college of sorts, a three-year full year program that requires complete dedication and devotion from its students. Once you're in the gates, you don't leave for the next three years. You have no contact with the outside world (the book is set in 1996, so cutting off contact is much easier than it would be now). You do not leave the campus. Your tuition and board are covered by the school. You work tirelessly, but you also make lifelong connections, and if you can keep up to the rigorous academic standards, you join an elite group of leaders, academic, and creatives who have graduated from the school.

Ines enters Catherine House, fleeing a difficult year. We never learn the full details of the trouble she was in, but she applied to Catherine House at the urging of a favorite teacher. To her surprise, she's accepted. It's an odd place, a combination of high school and a small liberal arts college. There's no contact with the outside world, but the students have considerable freedom within the gates. They all wear the same clothes, but there's an endless supply of wine. There are no drugs and little rock and roll (they're not allowed to bring in any music from outside, but can earn points to buy limited supplies of music at the school commissary), but sex is easy to come by.

I think this is a book that is not going to be to everyone's taste, but I really enjoyed it. Ines is a rather detached narrator. She's clearly suffering from some previous trauma, and she sort of stumbles through her first year, numbing herself with sex and alcohol. But after being told she's in danger of expulsion, she pulls her act together and starts to embrace her time at the school.

This book definitely falls into a dark academia vibe. There's an undercurrent of weirdness about the school. The most exclusive concentration at the school is the study of plasm, a sort of scientific endeavor that raises a lot of questions for Ines. Although she's chosen art history as her concentration, she is fascinated by the study of plasm and by the secrecy that surrounds the concentration.

The book reminds me a bit of The Secret History and The Magicians. It's got the same sort of weird vibes of both schools in those books. It also captures the magic of college in a lot of ways: the intense closeness with friends, the insular atmosphere, But there's also a weird sense of dread, of something not right abut the school. It's a really compelling story.

I was completely enthralled with the first half of this book about a young woman, Ines, who is accepted into an intense three year college which boasts an impressive pedigree of graduates, but comes with highly stringent rules, the two biggest being:
Providing you don’t fail out, you can’t leave before your three years is up, and you can have no contact with family or friends outside the school.
All the kids seem exceedingly bright, sexually adventurous, but with dubious pasts. First time novelist Elisabeth Thomas doesn’t go into specifics about any of this, even with our protagonist, simply alluding to an awful memory of her waking up next to a dead girl which immediately piqued my curiosity, but it never became anything. In fact, lots of things are unrolled, but don’t seem to amount to much. Red herrings perhaps?
There’s clearly something not right at Catherine House but its secrets don’t get revealed until well into the second half. Is it worth it? Maybe.
What makes it hard connecting as a reader, is how disconnected her protagonist is. Spanning three years, it’s hard to tap into Ines. Her friendships, approach to classes, and sexual conquests are all tossed off with a ‘whatever’ twenty something attitude that while a bit amusing certainly don’t endear. The whole thing has a dreamy patina over it, making you wonder what’s real and what’s not, and feels similar in tone to the books of Marissa Pessl.
And yet her dreamlike narrative did keep propelling me forward, and I wanted to find out what was going to happen. Additionally I did appreciate Thomas resisting the urge to wrap things up neatly, and instead take an intriguing final act, and true to the form of the book leave it vague, which some will clearly be frustrated by.
I was never bored with the book, it just lost some steam at the midpoint for me, however I’m interested to see what she turns out next. I’d be curious your thoughts if you’ve read.

If you like creepy, fantasy/sci fi then this book is for you! I wasn't sure what to expect from the book, but it turned out pretty good. It was a little slow in spots, but overall a interesting book.

Thanks to NetGalley, Harper Collins and Book Club Girls for an advanced copy of Catherine House in exchange for my honest review.

Unfortunately, Catherine House was a DNF for me. I read to 40% before I called it quits. It sounded really interesting from the summary but unfortunately it was boring and weird and I just couldn't get into it.

People are not going to like this book. Complaints will range from "I hate the main character" to "it's too slow" but here's the thing - GOOD. This is a book for people who like to escape into a dark world - where it takes time to set up a location, to build a world.

Catherine House is a special school for special students. Former students have gone on to successful careers in every field. Students are put under rigorous interviews and exams just for entry. Everything is provided to the student - food, clothing, etc. Everything must be earned.

Catherine House is also full of secrets. There's drinking, sex, nudity. There's more to the school than meets the eye.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.