I really enjoyed this book, highly recommend it! I found the gothic setting very immersive and the dual narrative made it really hard to put this book down. I've never read anything by this author before but particularly liked her writing style. Great storytelling which gave just enough away to keep my interest until the very last page. A really interesting and original read which I'm sure will be hugely popular when it's published next year.

This sounds so much fun as it takes on Gothic with a sardonic modern-day scepticism but I'm afraid I just found it messy and chaotic. I suspect this is one of those books where you need to bond with the narrative voice: I just didn't and so the humour fell flat. The book feels very long for the story it's telling and a judicious edit might rescue the good stuff. Great cover, though!

Plain Bad Heroines has all the hallmarks of being a good read. Characters you love, characters you absolutely hate and an original plot.
Parts of it grip you and compel you to read more, while others fall flat and add little to moving the plot along. It's an enjoyable read over all.

Plain Bad Heroines is a dual narrative gothic novel about a girls school, a curse, and how to tell a horror story, as well as love between women in both the 1900s and the present day. In 1902, Brookhants School for Girls is struck by tragedy, as students Flo and Clara—madly in love and both obsessed with a scandalous memoir of the day—are found dead in the woods after a wasp attack. And then in the present day, Brookhants becomes the set for a film starring a celebrity lesbian actress and a B movie star's daughter, but the production seems cursed itself.

I had no idea what to expect from this novel, except a vague awareness it had a blurb from Sarah Waters and having read Danforth's earlier YA book, and as I was reading an ebook, I wasn't even aware quite how long it was. Plain Bad Heroines opens with a distinctive, opinionated narrator who gives extra comments in the footnotes (the tone quietens down a little as the novel goes on, but not much), moving between the two narratives and the numerous main characters (three in the present day, and a handful in the 1900s) to set up everything. The present day story is deeply linked to the older one, but refreshingly isn't focused on the characters finding out the secrets of the past; instead, it makes jokes about the popularity of historical lesbian films and looks at the horror tendency to make the actors go through horrific experiences (often in the name of a 'curse').

With dual narrative books, it is often the case that you'll prefer one narrative to the other, and perhaps controversially (seeing as this is marketed as a dated gothic story) I preferred the present day story, following Harper, Audrey, and Merritt as they become the (partly unexpected) focus of the making of an experimental film. Though some of the humour and satire felt a bit forced, it is a classic story of clashing personalities and unnerving happenings combined with some ideas of what is consent on a film set or for celebrity social media. In contrast, the 1900s narrative was more of a feminist gothic tale, blurring the line between curses and jealousy and students gripped by a craze. The two teachers and lovers, Libbie and Alex, have a fully sketched out backstory, but it felt like the narrative could be a bit slow and not really about the girls school after a certain point.

This is two stories combined with a metafictional twist into one book, and whilst it doesn't always come together, it is bold and fun and does leave you with a lingering sense of buzzing. Instead of just being one book, it seems like many, and though this may leave you wishing you got more of your favourite (I would read another book just watching Harper, Audrey, and Merritt make bad choices), it makes Plain Bad Heroines feel like something a bit different. One not just for fans of gothic horror, and coming with knowing hints of Bret Easton Ellis and some YA elements, this book probably should come with a warning not to read if you're scared of wasps.

I have struggled to write a review because I felt like I was reading two different books - the plot set in 1902 is a masterclass in gothic storytelling. The author's voice was intriguing and entertaining, but it also set the mood. When I was reading it I felt the air around me charged, i couldn't take my eyes off the page, and when a wasp flew too close I screamed. The characters revealed themselves like opening flowers, naturally, without unnecessary exposition. My only note would be that at a key moment the character of Simone is called inexplicably 'Margot' a couple of times.

But the other half....God, that was unbearable. As if written by a different person, the story dragged with detailed outfit descriptions, the characters were caricatures, the exposition and description of their backstories was amateurish, the online references almost embarrassing, and the imaginary Hollywood described in it made it sound like a teenage fanfiction. Much like Bo's movie, I didn't see the point of ruining a perfectly good ghost story with paragraphs of privileged white girls who listen to cigarettes after sex and the dave matthews band.

The past chapters are a Good Book. The present day ones make sure I can only recommend it to YA readers who don't particularly look for quality.

It's sad because i honestly went from not being able to put it down to eyerolling my eyes and needing to skip ahead before i died of boredom.

As an aside, Audrey is later revealed to not be on Instagram and yet she's introduced in the novel as she obsessively watches harper harper 's Instagram stories. You can't do that without a profile. Sigh.

I was so excited to read Plain Bad Heroines. A queer, gothic romp by the author of The Misadventures Of Cameron Post? Hell yes, sign me up!

Sadly, this is where I insert the Tyra Banks "I was rooting for you" gif. Because Plain Bad Heroines was just, well, plain bad. The narrative tone was weirdly, offputtingly sardonic; at one point I said to my partner "This is reading like bad Brett Easton Ellis fan fic" and then literally the NEXT PAGE had a B EE reference and there were several more over the course of the book, which leads me to suspect that this was a deliberate choice. Which, weird. And when it wasn't unpleasantly sardonic and rude, the narrative skewed towards a sort of Douglas Coupland slacker detachedness. And at the risk of going all "get off my lawn", I am literally in Gen X (well, X/Y cusp) and I don't, in the year 2020, want to read something aping the literary styles of 1991.

And Merritt. Oh my god Merritt. She's literally the most unpleasant book character I've ever had the misfortune to read, I couldn't stand her. I almost threw my e-reader across the room after reading the audition/table read scene. Meanwhile, the historic sections strike an extremely odd tone, like they're aiming for gothic but just hit on B-Movie schlock, with all the ahistoricism that implies. I guess you can tell I didn't like this book, hey? I ended up DNF-ing at 72% when I realised life is too short.