I finished this just in time for it to count towards my April TBR round up, so I’m happy about that! I still don’t know what to think though. On the one hand, the beginning was strong! I was entirely engrossed in the novel, and I couldn’t wait to see what kind of mystery would unfold. But I got lost along the way, and the story kind of fizzled out for me. I think the momentum from the beginning just wasn’t there about halfway through.

The plot itself though is an interesting concept. I mean, university-age students secluded from the lives they know in a really exclusive school where you have to go through a rigorous process JUST to be accepted? I love the idea! But the style was just not my thing.

If you love gothic stories and sc-fi, I can probably guarantee that you will enjoy this book a lot more than I did! The sci-fi part I struggle with, but Elisabeth Taylor’s descriptions of Catherine House really do bring the gothic elements (and the house) to life!

What did Ines sign up for when she entered Catherine House? A school set in the woods, it's meant for the years after high school (although many of the characters convey as teens). Everyone must agree to leave everything- absolutely everything- behind and be locked in for three years. Think about that length of time as you're quarantining! There are unusual classes and a libertine atmosphere that rivals the biggest party school. Nothing much happens until Baby, Ines' room mate and friend dies. This forces Ines to think about what she's signed up for and to explore the darkness. No spoilers but this is gothic creepy (great atmosphere with regard to the house) more than a thriller. Ines does mature over the course of the novel, especially in her self realization. This won't be for everyone due to both the subject matter and the writing, which at times feels detached. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Interesting and a good debut.

I am typically game for a “campus” novel, so I was excited when I read the premise of this book. While this has some of the intrigue of a book like The Secret History, I think you will see this is quite different.

Catherine House is a place of higher education that you have likely never seen before. A liberal arts school secluded from the world with a unique curriculum. Ines Murillo is accepted to this school, and while she was looking for a change to her life, she did not expect the regiment of this unorthodox place of higher education.

Thomas wrote this story in 3 parts, one for each year of the program. Part 1, spends great detail about the classes, the people and sets up the rest of this story. As the story progresses, not everything appears as it seems. Ines learns of experimentation but to what extent, we are not sure.

This was an interesting read, and it kept me going. However, it did not quite live up to my expectations. Even at the apex of this story, I was kind of like…meh.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for an ARC of this title.

I'm a sucker for books where there's a exclusive private academy full of secrets, or murder, or murder-secrets, it seems. I've read good ones, I've read bad ones, and I've somehow yet to read The Secret History, which gets name-dropped in the promotional materials for every. single. one of them. This drew me in with sort of a speculative fiction thing going on beneath the surface, and read quickly enough that I got through it in a few sessions over the course of a day.

_Something_ is going on at the exclusive Catherine House (which is some sort of Deep Springs/Bennington-y experimental studies program), and the book does a good job of pacing out what that reveal is, but it's going to be a slower burn than some readers will want or be willing to sit through, especially if you can't connect with the characters. I would have loved multiple narrators in this - Ines (our only narrator) is kind of a burnout, which helps with building a sense of unreliability and ramps up the gothic-y tension, but I also would have loved someone with clearer perspective confirming some of what's only hinted at. There's also a bit too much depth on the classes Ines is taking - it adds to the worldbuilding of Catherine House and I liked seeing Agnes Martin's minimalist paintings get name-dropped, but it also didn't really add anything narratively.

2.5 stars rounded up.
Anything with boarding schools always catches my attention and when you add my name to the title- I’m hooked.
I had such high hopes for this book but I was quickly let down. It starts out good and then it just flatlines. I would get so distracted with the weirdest class subjects, what exactly was expected of you, all the mindless “lollygaggling” around, and the chanting that it took a whole lot of the book away. There is no explanation for so many things, it’s as if they were forgotten about but they were pretty big parts of the storyline so I really just don’t understand that. I wanted to DNF this several times but I pushed through and the ending made me even more frustrated with this book. It should not have the descriptive label of thriller because it is most definitely not. Sure there is mystery and few seconds of suspense, but nothing that had me in the edge of my seat.

Read this book through netgalley. The beginning and middle were really good and I found the story line so interesting. The student’s interactions were well written. The problem for me was the ending. There really was no conclusion. What happens with these experiments, the graduates and Ines. Maybe it was left this way for a sequel but if not, that was not a good ending.

I think my biggest issue with this book was it didn’t know what it wanted to be. It has aspects of sci-fi, fantasy, and a coming of age story, but didn’t seem to commit to any of them. The writing itself, especially aspects setting the stage were gorgeous. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to save it for me. Overall, Ines’ time at Catherine felt disjointed and incomplete. I think the premise was good but it didn’t live up to what I hoped it would be and I was left feeling lost.

Catherine House offers an accelerated program, free room and board, and free tuition. Graduates go on to illustrious careers. But is Inez willing to pay the price of total isolation from her old life and no contact with the outside world?

The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher, Custom House Books, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Catherine House is the dark tale of Ines and her experiences at the Catherine House school over the required 3 years. Getting accepted to the Catherine House program is highly prestigious, but no one really understands what happens after the students step foot on campus, only that when they leave, they become some of the most successful people in society. Told in parts representative of each year, Ines first experiences the freedoms the school brings her through the relatively lax rules, but then she starts to notice and feel certain things. When she starts looking into what is really going on, she may not like the answers she finds.

The concept of this story really grabbed me, and I knew I wanted to read this one. Who doesn’t love a quirky, gothic, campus novel? However, in execution, this one just didn’t work for me. At times the narrative felt a bit aimless with endless pages filled with descriptions of napping, drinking, eating, class-skipping, and sex. I get that some of that was needed to hone in on the apathetic nature of Ines, but there was just so much of the same over and over again. Instead of that, I would’ve liked to hear more about her back story and what drove her to Catherine House. It is hinted at, but never really fleshed out. Additionally, the narrative establishes a super creepy chanting ritual as well as ceremonies where pins are stuck into the students’ bodies, but because it never becomes clear what the purposes of the plasm/new materials are, it takes away from the reader’s understanding of the truly sinister goings-on at Catherine House. I feel like I could describe more about the dietary habits of Catherine House students before I could even begin to talk about this central mystery of the plasm for which the students are all there to begin with. It’s painful to write this review because it really was one of my most anticipated releases for early 2020. I do look forward to seeing more from this debut author because I do appreciate the creativity of the concept.

There was a lot of potential with CATHERINE HOUSE, and while I really liked some of the quirky details and some of the more dreamy moments, overall I couldn't get into this book. I think that part of the problem was that I didn't feel that it totally committed to the themes that it was trying to explore. Ines is a protagonist that has clear baggage and a lot of sides to her, but we don't really get to see many of those sides outside of a superficial lens. When her roommate Baby dies, we are promised that it is going to make Ines start to question her environment. But I didn't feel that there were any specific moments of her actually doing that, or even feeling much about it one way or the other. There were other aspects of the plot that weren't fully committed to, and because of that I wasn't pulled in or invested in the outcomes of the story.

CATHERINE HOUSE had promise, but ultimately it didn't deliver for me.

A boarding school for college where you are separated from your friends, family, tv, and movies. An intense curriculum and stressful classes. A boring story that let me wishing I picked something else up. Skip this one unless you enjoy a gothic book full of teenage rebellion with storylines that don't really go anywhere. Thank you to Harper's Collins and Net galley for my advance copy. All opinions are my own.

This book had me at dark academia. I was so excited to have the opportunity to read it, and while I did enjoy Catherine House, it was a weird reading experience. Weird because I felt very disconnected while reading it.

I love boarding school, gothic-style books, and Catherine House delivered beautifully on that front. The school is dark, neglected, and unsettling, and the students accepted to the school soon find out that Catherine House does not quite live up to the elite lore surrounding it. The instructors are strange, and the rules of the house are even stranger. It read more like a cult to me than a school, and I never quite understood the new materials concentration or how a school got away with performing experiments on students.

Elisabeth Thomas’s writing style is atmospheric and eerie, almost dreamlike. Her descriptions were lush and vivid, I wanted to explore more of the house, its staff, and its history. The opening was fantastic and drew me in, even though I could not relate to any of the characters. For me, Ines was a lackluster main character, she came off as apathetic. I had trouble figuring out her motivation for doing anything. Maybe it would've helped to learn more about her background.

In the end, I was disappointed with the ending, I wanted something more from Ines and Catherine House. Still not entirely sure what was happening in the labs at Catherine. But overall, the writing was wonderful, the setting and atmosphere were perfection, but the characters and ending just fell a little flat for me.

I read a lot and finding a book that is very different from the usual popular novels is not always easy. This one is definitely different and it definitely stood out, mostly in a good way.

Catherine House is a private 3-year college. Students who attend Catherine House enjoy the benefit of free tuition, free room and board, and the promise of graduating as part of a prestigious and successful group of alumni that includes famous authors and Supreme Court Justices. Catherine House is especially known for its secret "plasm" experimentation, something that can somehow repair and heal broken things, even as only a select few actually know what it might be capable of. However, once you enter the gates, unless you flunk out, you do not get to leave at all for the three years. You don't get to have any contact with the outside world -- no phone calls, letters, photographs, memories of home. If you misbehave, you are sent to the Tower for reconditioning. And students don't always return from the Tower.

Ines is one of the students who is accepted into Catherine House, although she's not 100% sure why. By her junior year of high school, she had run away from home after being caught up in some not to savory incidents. She abuses alcohol to a degree where it's sometimes hard to understand how she is still alive through this book. And she is in danger of flunking out -- and having no where to go but, she fears, jail -- after ditching class and studying so much during her first semester. But Ines is desperate to stay at Catherine House, and she's desperate to learn more about plasm and the school's secrets.

I liked the Gothic-elements in this book. The old school., traditions, elements of secrecy. The author is extremely descriptive in pretty much the entire book. While other authors are sometimes not very successful in writing with this kind of descriptive detail without causing the reader to start skimming, this author did it in such a way where it just added to the ambiance of the setting and drew out the characters in a way where I wanted even more. While none of the characters are particularly likable, I don't think you necessarily have to love all the characters of a book to enjoy the book. The characters fit this book, and sweet and sassy characters just wouldn't have worked here.

Without giving much away, my biggest problem was the ending. I was with the author until the last 30 pages of so. There was a lot of build up to that point, but the actual conclusion left me wanting something even bigger to happen and was a bit of a letdown. Even so, I enjoyed the rest of the book so much, it was still worth reading.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an arc of this book in exchange for my honest review. It has not influenced my opinion.

3 1/2 stars

This is a dark, ominous Gothic suspense that at times verges on horror. It held no real surprises, other than the premise of an institution of higher learning that students cannot leave for three years. They get no summer vacation, no winter break, no family visits, and they can have no connection with the outside world, no cell phones, no music, no movies, no thinking about their lives before they came to Catherine.. They are completely isolated, never allowed off the premises during those three years.. While I thought it unusual that families would allow their kids to go to such a school, I did understand that the school was highly regarded. Catherine house is a college that offers its supremely vetted students free everything (tuition, board, clothing, wine, food) while they engage in completing their degrees. They can study a variety of subjects, but the plum school is beyond all but a few. Many of the students who attended seemed to be castoffs and fragile beings.

Ines is the focus of the story. While those accepted into Catherine House are supposed to be very smart and accomplished, Ines never struck me as either of those. She was one of the damaged students, on her own with nowhere else to go. I could never quite understand her. It might have helped if the book clarified what, exactly, had happened to Ines before she arrived at Catherine House. The event is hinted at several times, but we never find out the specifics, and I think it would have been helpful. Also, we never learn about her family, or what happened to them.

The book is well written, but at a languid pace that didn’t seem to suit what was happening in the story. Honestly, the three years Ines spent at the school seemed like ten to me. I know kids on campuses drink and party, but at Catherine, that aspect seemed over the top. While it was an okay read, I likely won’t recommend it to my friends.

I received an advanced reader’s copy of this book from Netgalley. I thank them, the publisher, and the author for sharing the book with me. All opinions in this review express my true and honest reactions to reading this book.

A dark, quirky story. The writing is compelling, and while most if not all of the characters could be considered unlikable I'm still glad I read this. Thank you, Netgalley, for this arc.

A real split-decision kind of book. On the one hand, the college-life stuff is absolutely fantastic. I loved the idea of Catherine House, and adored the ways Thomas depicts student life in these slightly strange conditions. I could read a whole book of Ines and Yaya and Theo and all these kids who remind me so much of my friends wandering around this Gothic campus for three years.
What ~didn't~ work for me was the central 'mystery' and all this plasm stuff. It all felt undercooked and thin, and I didn't really care. There was quite a bit of gesturing towards a thing (and many of these gestures were straight out of the Gothic Trope Playbook) as opposed to actually seeing it and giving it the same breadth of reality as the college-life stuff -- and as the book careens towards its shrug of a conclusion, it's hard not to feel like there were two books in this book and the lesser one won out.
Still, it's a fast read and I'd recommend at least taking a look, for the magnificent life depictions.

Catherine House is a unique and quirky story that unfortunately will not be to everyone’s taste. As much as I enjoy boarding school setting, including all the young adult drama, this book had a science fiction theme that I just did not get. As much as I tried to understand the author’s exploration and symbolization of this part of the plot, I could not wrap my head around it. I quickly became disengaged from the story and even though I was interested in all the characters’ comings and goings, I couldn’t care less for the “experimentations” described in this book.

I loved this book's synopsis and I had high hopes for it, unfortunately I was just not the right audience for this book.

Thank you NetGalley, Custom House publishing and the author for providing me with an ARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

**Thank you Net Galley and HarperCollins Publishers for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review**

First surprise: Catherine House is not the name of the main character. "Catherine" is the name of the house Ines will spend the next three years of her life in.

The book is divided into three parts: year 1, year 2, and year3.
- Year 1: Ines is a lost soul who, somehow someway, got accepted at the Catherine House, an exceptional school where only a few number of "chosen ones" get accepted. Ines keeps wondering how she made it to Catherine, and so do the readers. It takes her a full year to accept her presence at Catherine. That's when things get interesting: she learns to "feel" this house, to be part of the house, to "be" the house, to love it, to not see herself living anywhere else but in this house. Mysteries unfold, people reveal they true selves, and decisions need to be made.
-Year 2 and 3: can't say anything without spoiling.

I liked that the characters were simply who they were; Elisabeth Thomas did not make an effort to make any of them loveable. Their flaws were predominantly pushed forward, and that made them all more interesting and intricate.

A pleasant read, though I do not recommend it to readers who cannot appreciate slow-paced stories. I particularly enjoyed the gothic feel throughout, despite the fact that the story is set in the late 90s. Intriguing combination; loved it!

A cosy weekend read.

Someone told me if I loved The Secret History I would love Catherine House, and they were not wrong. This book was definitely not totally what I expected, but also somehow better? Plus,it was short-ish--320ish pages--and I love brevity! Wow, this book blew me away. A lot of the blurbs bill it as Secret History meets Never Let Me Go, and that definitely fits!

Catherine House isn't your normal college. Instead of four years of fun and learning, you give the House your all for three years. No outside contact. None of your old clothes or books. A fresh start, a new learning environment where you will be tested and pushed and come out on the other side brilliant and spectacular. And Ines, our protagonist, is ripe for something new, after running away from a past she has no intention of returning to. But things at Catherine are...intense. Her roommate, Baby, is obsessed with getting into the concentration for a new material, plasm, and Ines has no idea how to help her as Baby slowly spirals.But when tragedy strikes, Ines will learn what it means to give yourself to Catherine, and she'll have to decide how far she is willing to go for a home. 

There's a lot I love about this book, and I'll talk about that more, but I just want to point out that I was about 15% of the way into this book, knowing nothing about the author or the ending, and I thought to myself "This author went to Yale." I just knew it.I could feel it in the timbre of the story, somehow. And guess what? I was right. We a cult, okay? 

Anyway, I loved this book! The idea of Catherine House is legit perfect for people like me who are aging up from YA but still love a good boarding school book. Catherine House feels like a rich world, like better than some fantasy novels I've read honestly. And yes, it's short, but you get all three years in it, and it's well done! You don't have to see every moment of Ines life there to understand it, to feel it come to life. The pacing really worked for me.

I also loved just like her unstated but obvious bisexuality and raw sexuality in general--she likes having sex and being touched and that's fine and helps the book feel real and I enjoyed that aspect of building Ines up, if that makes sense? This is like Alex Stern without the ghosts and shit, ya know?

The plasm thing was a little weird to me--and I don't get it--but that's fine, I still enjoyed it and those aspects just kept me guessing.  Also, Theo...wow. Theo. Love me a good Theo, honestly, and his course over the novel was fascinating to follow. Should I fancast this book? I think I should, LOL. 

Overall, I liked this book a lot! A five star read for me, and I cannot wait to recommend this to people all around!

To be honest, this book sounded like a beautiful nightmare to me. Not to mention, it was compared to NEVER LET ME GO, one of my absolute favorite novels. I definitely give it props for the premise, which was amazing, and the suspense, which did keep me intrigued for a time. The whole concept of Catherine House and its secrets really drew me in.

On the flip side, the main character --Ines--did little for me. I struggled to connect with her. The dialogue was a bit clunky, the style a bit sparse, and the flow just didn't exist for me. It was actually hard for me to follow, which is odd because I love complicated plots! I live for them and have read them for years, but from page one, I found myself wondering what was going on. The story felt...disjointed. This made it hard to keep my interest, to be honest. I think this book would be GREAT for readers who enjoy a slower pace and have the time to get lost while waiting for loose ends to tie. Unfortunately, I am not one of those readers.