been reading it for 3 days and I still can't get into the story at all, i even went back and re read what i all ready read and that didn't help , the only thing it has going for it is the cover. So with that said I want to thank the publisher as well as Netgalley for letting me try and read it.

In 1903, two young girls, Clara and Flo, had fallen in love at Brookhants, their boarding school in Rhode Island. It was at Brookhants that the pair was chased into a yellow jacket nest in the woods by Clara's angry cousin, leading the lovers to their painful death. This event became the first of several unfortunate deaths that caused Brookhants to gain a reputation for being cursed. More than 100 years later, a young woman, Merritt, has written "The Happenings at Brookhants," a history of the school and the many women who fell victim to its "curse," and now that book is being made into a movie.

"Plain Bad Heroines" alternately tells the story of Brookhants headmistress Libbie and her lover, Alex, as well as the story of Merritt and the two women (Harper and Audrey) who have been cast as Clara and Flo in the movie. It's an intriguing, creepy, queer story, with a very spooky setting and more than enough yellow jackets. Good for fans of both gothic fiction and horror movies.

I peeked at the other reviews for this book and was so relieved I wasn't the only one who couldn't finish it. I made it about halfway through and admitted defeat. I wanted to love this book, and I truly enjoyed the language and the atmospheric setting, but it was much too long and some of the characters (Merritt) were far too unlikable for me to be invested in their fate.

The good: This book has vivid characters and is genuinely creepy. The meh: Flip flopping between timelines wasn't exciting. It made me want to put the book down. I had about half the investment in the storyline taking place in the past as the one in the present, although I enjoyed both, so I kept closing the app and coming back to it later. Maybe if I didn't have pandemic brain, I could have handled the double-plotline better, but I do and I didn't. The bad: there was no bad. This is a very good book, although maybe a little too self-conscious.

The queer gothic horror-comedy metafiction I never knew I needed! Dear Readers, I think I am a little bit in love with emily m. danforth.

I love this book so much. I loved everything about it, from the way the characters and plot skirt the line between heightened and realistic, to the spot-on use of "The Story of Mary MacLane" as a both catalyst and red herring; from the careful interweaving of the dual Victorian and and 21st century timelines, to the oh so clever application of footnotes.

At 600+ pages, this book requires an investment of one's time, but the rewards are ample. I will be recommending this book to friends, colleagues, and acquaintances near and far.

You know that feeling when you start reading a book and you can tell right away that it is just going to be a killer? That's how I felt from the very beginning of this gorgeously creepy, heart-wrenchingly queer Victorian horror novel. I wasn't entirely familiar with Danforth as a writer, not having read any of her previous work, but something about the concept of this book called to me on a number of levels and I'm so glad I decided to request an ARC. I knew as soon as I cracked it open I wouldn't be able to put it down, and this book has basically been my life for the last three days. The diverging timelines between past and present only contributed to the overall creeping sense of dread and ominousness that permeated throughout the narrative, and I love fiction that explores the horrors that uniquely surround a specific place throughout the years and what that means for the people who inadvertently stumble into potentially cursed territory with a legacy of death. Also? I love a book that barely gives us any male characters next to the sheer number of women — not just women, too, but unabashedly queer women — who are front and center here.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It is difficult to put into words how I feel about Plain Bad Heroines, Dear Reader. Danforth is at her best when she is being slyly funny, building up a serious creep factor (yes Emily, it will be awhile before I won't go looking for yellow jackets when I hear a buzzing sound) and creating the atmosphere that surrounds Brookhants. But there are also points that seem to meander away from the main story lines that make part of this book seem to drag on forever. There's also parts where Danforth seems to realize that she needs to speed the book up and parts that should be told in more detail aren't. While the book alternates between actresses and the author working on a film about young women at the Brookhants School for Girls in the early twentieth century - there's a lot of lead up to starting filming and then the first few weeks of the filming process. When a momentous event (beyond the "normal" creepy things causing delays) happens during filming we suddenly go right to a red carpet event for the film; it feels completely anticlimactic. And at that point I really kind of feel like I've worked pretty hard to get to an awesome climax. The mystery taking place in the earlier time period provides a good twist that's much more fulfilling in wrapping up that particular story line. All in all, funny, creepy, and unique, but somewhat uneven in execution for me.

Plain Bad Heroines
A Novel
by Emily M. Danforth
HarperCollins Publishers
You Like Them You Are Auto-Approved
William Morrow
LGBTQIA | Literary Fiction
Pub Date 20 Oct 2020 | Archive Date 15 Dec 2020

Not exactly my cup of tea... but it was a good read. Thanks to William Morrow and Net Galley for the ARC of this book.
3 star

I DNF at 50%.

I couldn't do it anymore. This needed some serious editing. For this being labelled as a sapphic tale of hauntings, the "dark atmosphere" and full cast of characters did not hold my interest long enough to want to keep reading. Maybe it gets better in the second half, I won't know.

Told in two time periods about two sets of girls, who are all lesbians (maybe bi? I'm not sure about Audrey to be honest), there is a something sinister going on and it's all tied to this boarding school and this tell-all novel written by a 19 year old in 1900 about her desires for the ladies. I was all about this. I wanted a good boarding school creepy adventure with some love triangle lesbians. This sounded amazing. This is not what I got.

1902: Clara and Flo have a secret love, they create the bad heroines club and go out to the woods to read the diary and make out. Until they accidentally disturb the yellow jackets underground nest and are killed. This causes a stir of issues, including the fact that a fellow girl gets the book, reads it, and ends up dying by eating a poisonous plant. Once these three are dead the story switches to the relationship between the headmistress and her lover (who is also a woman and a teacher at the school) and some craziness occurs to them.

Present day. Three girls. Merritt wrote "The Haunting of Brookhants" which is about the strange deaths and goings on at the boarding school. She is filled with anxiety, has absent parents, and spends most of her time with the current owner of Brookhants. She can't seem to have a normal relationship but wants to make out with Harper Harper. Harper Harper is a famous actress who is in the social eye all the time. She's had a string of partners but her current one seems to be sticking around. She's an artist and believes in open love, so she doesn't mind that Harper Harper goes and makes out with Merritt or is seen kissing her, at least that's what we're told. Harper Harper has a troubling background and a best friend that wants to do drugs all the time, but she's a serious actress so she's going to focus on her career. Audrey has some serious issues. Her mom was a big movie star for a few years, but has faded from the limelight. This has caused her mom to push Audrey into acting, though she's only had bit parts, and breaks down whenever Audrey doesn't want to do what she wants. It's really disturbing. In all of this, there aren't redeeming characteristics for any of them. Either way, they're all going to go to Brookhants and create a movie.

I think I would have kept reading and be more invested in this, if it wasn't for the goddamn narrator. The narrator constantly interjects their own thoughts, and they know what's going to happen, so there are all these side comments about things to come but then we're told to wait and see. The constant referring to "Readers" to try and pull them into the story only forced me to step back. (And a peeve of mine is when authors use readers plural instead of reader singular, because I'm not reading this with multiple people, it's just me, but that's a personal preference.) Also, the narrator has all these footnotes (which are a pain to read on an ebook) but none of these footnotes have anything to do with the goddamn story. I don't need to be told to remember a character's name when you've only mentioned 4 people so far. I don't care about the crop life of the local orchard, or your opinion of Roman Polanski. None of this did anything but pull me out of the story. I started skipping them because I knew they weren't going to add anything, but in one page there were 5 footnotes! If you have something you think is relevant to the story just write it in! If it's not relevant to the story but your opinion, leave it out!

I have spent a month trying to read this, complaining the entire time, and at 50% of the way through it can't hold my interest or make me want to finish it, so I'm going to thank Net Galley and the publisher for giving me a copy and I'm sorry this wasn't for me.

Lengthy, yes. But also extremely enjoyable. Danforth's Plain Bad Heroines is a paean not only to shivery Gothic stories but also to women loving women. Recommended for all fiction collections!

I cannot get this to download. What happened to the kindle option? I have a paperwhite, no tablet option. I will not read on my phone. It is uncomfortable and too small. Please revisit adding the kindle download option, otherwise I cannot read/review this.

Wow this cover. Good story. Different than what I’ve read In the past but glad I read it. I’ll read this author again

While this is an intriguing and well written book, it is incredibly long. It was not available for kindle download and my ADE would not display the book on my iPad since it was such a huge file that it couldn't open. That left me with my only option for reading it to be either an iPhone (for a 600 page book) or my desktop computer (um, no). As a result, I was only able to skim the book.

The book seems like a fun, if unsettling romp for those who enjoy horror and scandal. The story-within-a-story element is fun, and the LGBTQ representation is awesome. It's a big commitment of a book but one that many readers are likely to enjoy.

"PLAIN BAD HEROINES, is a meta-gothic sapphic romp about a cursed New England boarding school and the horror film being made about that school. PLAIN BAD HEROINES will be published in October of 2020."

I absolutely loved this book and hope there is more on the way from this author. I was constantly surprised and found myself enjoying equally the chapters spent in the past and present. Each character had depth and I enjoyed exploring the school and grounds, though I'll be hearing the buzz of angry yellow jackets for weeks....

I desperately hope we can return to Brookhants soon.

I tried. I was intrigued with the first chapter. Flo and Clara's death was horrific. I just could not get into the following chapters that were set in modern times. The time switch, for me, was harsh and I just couldn't get over it. I wasn't able to finish it.

Plain Bad Heroines combined so many great elements: atmospheric horror, behind the scenes Hollywood details, Victorian historical fiction, and enjoyable romance. The way the author moved back and forth between the historic and current day plots really kept up the suspense. I didn't want to put it down!

<i>”It’s a terrible story, and one way to tell it is this: two girls fall in love and a fog of yellow jackets curse the place forever after”</i>

🐝

<b>Plain Bad Heroines (PBH)</b> is a story, within a story, within ANOTHER story. And being able to keep it all together for the reader AND keep it interesting is an amazing feat by author Emily Danforth. With the 4th wall pulverized, we get tons of little snippets into the background of each scene by the narrator, who is an amazing character in its on right. {ebook hack: bookmark the page- click on the blue footnote to enjoy and return to current page. Remove bookmark for future confusion}.

<i>PBH</i> tells you many stories, as a mentioned, all of which are about the women who fell in love at Brookhants School for Girls, or the surrounding properties. And all of the girls and women who fell to their untimely deaths at this same property. The story of Flo and Clara, two girls from 1902, who were so feverishly consumed with one another, that they didn’t realize they were being consumed themselves by a fog of yellow jackets.

And the running storyline, parallel to 1902, of our modern-day queer heroines. Merritt, the novelist, who’s never been kissed. Harper Harper, the out and proud movie star with the requisite older, artist girlfriend. And Audrey, bi-sexual, LA horror film royalty—her mother was a legitimate scream queen. These three women gather back at Brookhants to shoot the movie of Brookhants past—of its horrors, it’s mystery and it’s love story.

I have to say I didn’t think I was going to like this novel as much as I did. It had a slow start but caught up quickly. I enjoyed the narration. I do feel like the main characters were being fleshed out so well and then the ending was completely rushed for me. I would have liked to see how the final 3 months actually played out. Overall, great novel. And I’ll never, ever think of yellow jackets the same way. 🐝

I thought this book was going to be something different. I thought it was going to be a horror novel, but I didn't really find it to be so. I like that it's a story for and about queer women. as all of the characters are, but the underlying story of the yellow jackets and the supernatural mystery fell a little flat.

I've been waiting for another book from this author for so long, and this book was well worth the wait. Perfect for those who love a good murder mystery with a "gothic academia" vibe.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth illustrated by Sara Lautman

William Morrow & Company, 2020

ISBN-13: 978-0062942852

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audibook, audio CD ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )



Emily M. Danforth, author of the YA novel The Miseducation of Cameron Post, stretches her boundaries in this unsettling, haunted novel that reveals a buried history of queer romance and horror and some seriously creepy hornets.

The story moves smoothly from events in 1902 that led to the deaths of three students at the Brookhants School for Girs, tied to an uninhibited and shocking memoir by openly bisexual feminist Mary McLane, to a present day where author Merritt Emmons has written a book about the deaths that is about to be made into a sapphic “Blair Witch” style horror movie.

Two of the girls who died were co-founders of a club called The Plain Bad Heroines, which admires Mary’s unapologetic attitude, are found dead in the woods with a copy of the book, attacked by a swarm of hornets in an orchard of rotting fruit. The third acquires it after their deaths and is literally poisoned by reading it near a plant in the campus greenhouse where she is caretaker. The headmistress confiscates it, convinced that it is cursed. As the students abandon the school, both the headmistress and her relationships begin to disintegrate, and trapped almost alone in a snowstorm, it’s hard to tell how much of a grip on reality she has left. She’s also left remembering her college days, where a love affair led to her eventual inheritance of Brookhants, chosen by her husband because of its reputation as a spiritually important location, in a very strange manner.

The horror movie based on Merritt’s book will star the popular actress Harper Harper and the less well-known actress Audrey Wood. Merritt initially is starstruck by Harper and they hit it off; her interactions with Audrey are more negative. The movie will be filmed at the actual Brookhants School and on the grounds, adding atmospheric creepiness. Once the filming starts, it seems nothing can go right– it’s almost like the production is cursed. This leaves Harper, Audrey, and Merritt, a lot of time for exploration on the Brookhants estate. Black apples, rotting vegetation, and ominous swarms of hornets in the woods ratchet up the tension, and eventually the story behind the Brookhants curse is revealed.

This is a doorstop of a book. After its tense begining, it slows down for some time and, had I not known there would be a payoff, I might have set it down. I think a large chunk of the Hollywood segment could have been easily eliminated to slim it down. This is where a lot of the present day characters’ personalities are established, and Merritt’s romantic interests start to develop, but it is just too drawn out.

Danforth isn’t subtle about centering lesbian and bisexual characters. It is even a point of contention in the casting of the movie, where Merritt objects to Audrey playing a lesbian role, assuming she must be straight, to have Audrey come out and say she’s bisexual. The headmistress’ memories of inheriting the school are all related to the romantic love she and her partner had for each other. even as she turns on her.

Plain Bad Heroines is also about as metafictional as you can get; it’s a fictional story inspired by a book by a real person, containing illustrations and images of what I’m pretty sure are news articles about the book, that a fictional author has written a fictional nonfiction book about, that is being made into a fictional movie being filmed found-footage style, as if it is nonfiction. Both the director and Harper Harper use social media to affect the narrative, so Harper’s Instagram posts document the movie shoot and all of its “cursed” problems for her followers, creating a Blair Witch effect of convincing the audience for the movie that the haunting is real. Even the people around Audrey and Merritt are in on the gaslighting, so that none of them know whether they can trust each other or reality. It’s clever, and the unreliability of the people around them and the way the reader knows the three women are being manipulated is distracting, but it doesn’t detract from the sense of atmospheric creepiness, dread, and tension, with hornets and rotting vegetation always around. You will never feel the same about hornets after reading this book.

Danforth actually has an author’s note where she discusses her discovery of Mary Maclane in researching hidden sapphic history, and that she wanted to bring that to light through Plain Bad Heroines. I never had heard of her and I found this fascinating. Unlike The Miseducation of Cameron Post this is not a YA novel, although it might be appreciated by some older YA readers, but certainly it is an original book with plenty of dread and some well-drawn lesbian and bisexual characters that will draw in readers of historical and metafictional horror, Hollywood, and haunted houses. It won’t be for everyone, but this book will certainly find its audience. Recommended.



Contains: violence, murder, body horror, sexual situations, insects

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