This has such a great cover and blurb, but unfortunately it fell flat for me. I found that the two timelines were so contrasting, that each time it switched I was taken completely out of the story. As a result, I felt like the atmosphere was lost and I wasn't particularly kept intrigued about what was going on.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily Dan Forth
@emdanforth
Publication Date: February 2022
Rating: 4/5
I always feel conflicted when reading a novel that is set in both the modern day and a specific historical setting. I also find it difficult maintaining interest in anything involving film sets, but I have to say, this really works. This book tells the tragedies of Brookhants School for Girls, where several students become fixated on a autobiographical, Sapphic novel, and end up dying in strange circumstances. This story is told alongside a modern day attempt to make these womens' lives into a movie. And it really works. The actresses who attempt to take on their roles as the dead girls are all corrupted by the text, and start experiencing strange things. The book's influence on them is beautifully told, and really quite terrifying in places. Danforth really knows how to tap into the sensory world, and make you experience everything. I could really hear the yellowjackets and smell the rotten apples sometimes. I loved reading about the Brookhants curse, and how it consumes everyone who takes an interest in it. I also loved the complexity of Audrey, and felt her struggle deeply. She was a brilliantly written character.
This book is a great read, and although I wasn't convinced initially, I'm so glad that I stuck with it. I particularly loved the historical accounts of the tragic happenings, and adored the origins story of the curse itself.

I feel like I've never read anything quite like this before. Stories within stories, bold and fun, straddling multiple genres and doing so well. The size, though intimidating, is joyful and I had such a good time reading this book. Very enjoyable - a great book that I'll be returning to time and time again.

Ok, I should not have read this as someone who is petrified of wasps! I will admit I didnt finish the book but its a "its not you its me" type of review which is why I have still given it 4 stars as I just couldnt face it myself

I've found this book extremely slow paced and I struggled to get through it at times. There is a lot involved in the book and a lot going on however Danforth is able to seamlessly connect the different time periods throughout in a way that is effective for the reader. The narrator is an interesting character who has a personal voice and offers direct address to the reader which allows there to be a feeling as though the narrator is having an intimate conversation with the reader.
The characters are well written and developed, it is easy to tell that a dedicated amount of work has been done to ensure that the characters created were three-dimensional and each had their own personality. The fact that this book features so many Queer and Sapphic characters is perfect, it not only brings sapphic women to the forefront of YA Literature but it reminds the reader that the population of such women is not as limited as one is maybe led to believe. I appreciated how there was representation of both lesbian and bisexual women as well as how Danforth showed the receptiveness of characters over the generations and eras covered in the book.
Overall, the book is very well written and well executed and has led me to seek out the Mary MacLane manuscript out of curiosity.

I'm torn by this book - the historical fiction sections were strongest to me - gothic and macabre (rather than scary) and I would have loved a novel which focussed more on those events, because when the story moved forwards it really lost it's way for me.

I found it hard to like the modern characters, they were poorly developed and never felt 'real' to me, never mind inexplicable behaviour including Merrit's bizarre complete inexplicable personality change half-way through. And speaking of characters I have to include the narrator - her snarky tone was irritating, and the constant asides really slowed down the pace, along with so many footnotes, most of which were illustrations of how smart and all-knowing our narrator is, or simply not being relevant to the story - again, slowing the pace down.

And while an inconclusive conclusion often works well, leaving questions and gaps the readers imagination can fill in, this just seems to meander along to a complete damp squib ending - I'm happy not being given all the answers but this just seems to wear itself out (not surprising really given it's length, and all those blooming footnotes)

So, great in the historical fiction parts (and I would love that to have been expanded and the whole book), but let down by the modern parts.

I'd heard so much talk about this book, of mixed opinions, and was so excited to have the opportunity to read and review - thank you for the arc! This novel is a (very) sapphic, gothic, comedy 'horror' which spans multiple timelines set at a boarding school for girls. In the early 1900s timeline, the school is open and girls and there appears to be a curse causing deaths at the school and beyond. In the modern day timeline, a horror film is being made about the school and the curse based on a book written by a young author. She and the two actresses starring in the film are our primary characters in the modern day timelines, whereas the older timeline follows the viewpoints of girls at the school, the headmistress and also her lover. One of my absolute favourite things about this book is that it completely reverts the heteronormative idea that all characters are straight unless stated otherwise - this book turns that on it's head - the characters are almost all queer and though the queerness is an underlying current of the whole book, it is not the defining feature of the characters individually. I especially enjoyed reading the veiwpoints of the modern day timeline because I found the 3 main modern day characters especially well written and well developed. Each has a unique voice and I would absolutely dive into a follow up book about these 3 if given the chance! I'd heard some other reviewers having difficulty with jumping between character voices and multiple timelines, but for me each was well enough defined that there was no confusion jumping between them. Whilst I also enjoyed the viewpoints in the 1900s timeline, I would say that these sections did occasionally slow the pace of the novel for me and sometimes I felt myself trying to speed up to get on to the next point of view. Throughout the book, the narrator writes in a darkly comedic tone which I think some readers will love and some will not care for. For me personally, I enjoyed the asides and humour as an offset to the darkly gothic tone of the stories. I would say that the horror elements are mild, which suited me - the book has a much more 'spooky gothic' vibe than outrightly scary, I will 100% recommend this book to others - it's completely unique and well worth the (long) read! 5 stars!

I almost didn’t read this because several of the reviews talked about how scary it is and I’m easily spooked! However, I’m so glad that I did - the structure, flipping back and forth between events in the early twentieth century and the film being made of those events in the present day, was reminiscent of my favourite novel of last year, Maggie Shipstead’s Great Circle, and similarly captivating. I really loved all of the main characters from both eras and, although this is a humdinger of novel (almost 1500 pages in my review copy!), it never felt like a slog. I absolutely loved the narrative voice and the author’s notes are a work of genius. Highly recommended and thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thank you to The Borough Press and NetGalley for providing a free e-arc of Plan Bad Heroines in exchange for an honest review.

Though the execution of the story can get a little confusing at times, Plain Bad Heroines provides a unique queer and gothic offering for female readers. The writing style is engaging and manages to hold the reader's interest despite the title's length, something which is not an easy feat given that it is 600+ pages.

The pacing is somewhat slow to begin with but ultimately, for a gothic/horror novel it is not unusual and there is enough going on that we are able to follow along.

I struggled with this book.

It’s a good story, the characters are great, the plot is interesting - but it was not my thing.

It’s so long. I just couldn’t get into it, and for a long novel I think there has to be some immediate connection to make the reader want to push through - and I know that for many people, that connection will be there. But for me, it wasn’t.

There was so much going on. The plot centres around a film about a book about a book, there is death and disaster and queer beauty, and there are yellow-jackets which are my biggest fear in real life so I struggled with them here too!

Every aspect was brilliant and so clever, which is why I think I personally struggled so much!
This book makes you think, makes you question, makes you remember, and makes you work for it.

Overall: it’s creepy, it’s strange, and it’s an experience to read. A good book, a good plot, not my thing, but I appreciate it for the brilliant novel it is.

Ambitious, well-written, self-referential to the core; Danforth's "Plain Bad Heroines" doesn't live up to its potential, however it is definitely hard not to acknowledge the queer representation, the prose and the narrator's quirky attitude.

Really hated this - and really wish I hadn't wasted my time.
The synopsis of this book was totally up my street and I have been excited to read this for quite some time - I was so hyped, I think I was even more disappointed because of this.

I found the writing style to be so incredibly waffly, descriptive and whimsical but just for the sake of it, and to pad it out rather than for substance.
The plot was so slow - possibly for all the description getting in the way!

It just didn't go anywhere and it doesn't do what the blurb promised!

Really really hated it!

This is an excellent tale of Sapphic spookiness set in two timelines.

I loved the style of writing. I loved the characters. I loved the slightly convoluted plot- spooky shit happening during the making of a movie within a movie, which is based on a book which is based on the story of how another book seemingly corrupted young women 100 years earlier, leading to more spooky shit. Got it? Don't worry, it'll all make sense once you read the book. Maybe.

Anyway, the two timelines were both great. The old one is a kind of sinister, gothic piece set in a girls' school alive with foreboding and yellow jackets (some kind of badass wasp they have in America) . And the new one is about 3 contemporary young women who all fancy each other and have an endless supply of witticisms to aid their banter - imagine a Sally Rooney novel, but set in America, with much chirpier characters.

The novel isn't perfect - it definitely takes too long to get going and the climax of the new timeline is abrupt and anti-climactic - but there are great ideas in here and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I also learned some new hip words like "finsta" (a fake Insta account), so I may try to use this to gain credibility with younger colleagues at work.

A fabulous, macabre, enticing read. I would recommend this to every one of my friends. Comparisons to Sarah waters make me nervous but this one lives up to it.

I absolutely adore Gothic fiction -- from classics like Rebecca to modern versions like Mexican Gothic. Plain Bad Heroines was a wandering tale that had me stumped. Every tiny step forward in the plot was padded with multiple explanatory pages. It was very much a 'telling', not a 'showing' story, which didn't work for me. It's a shame because the premise (sapphic ladies everywhere! bad bees!) is tantalizing.

This book is great fun - playfully written, with a knowing and sometimes overly familiar narrator, with a hefty dose of gothic horror and lots of gorgeous women falling in love with each other for good measure. It's centred around Brookhants School for Girls, an exclusive boarding school that was rumoured to be cursed after a number of its students died horribly. The novel is split into two narratives - one in 1902, following the deaths at the school and the efforts of headteacher Libby to work out what is going on, and one in the present day, following two young actresses who have been cast to play the roles of the tragic students in a new film about the Brookhants curse. They are joined by a spiky young writer, Merrit, who wrote the book about Brookhants that has inspired the film.

It's a long read, and it takes a long time to get going - especially the modern day storyline. I found all the characters really engaging and I was really intrigued to find out what happened to Harper, Audrey and Merrit, but after hundreds of pages of set-up I found the last section a little rushed and I was left feeling a bit unclear on what had actually happened.

That said, I enjoyed the whole thing hugely - there are some great sequences of horror that work really well, and I could also see it working brilliantly as a series or a movie. I just wanted a bit more time with the girls at the end to figure out the mystery.

This book tells the story of the strange deaths that happened at Brookhants, an all-girl boarding school, at the beginning of the 20th century, and the present-day movie made to talk about those mysterious events.
In both timelines we see some Plain Bad Heroines: the women within the book are all badass and queer, choosing to live their life as they wish, even in the timeline in which it wasn’t yet socially acceptable to do so. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but this book was mysterious, spooky, and incredibly well written and detailed. Each chapter was such a joy to read, and the author did an amazing job of describing every little detail that would be useful to understand the story as a whole

Opening in 1902, Flo and Clara are students in Brookhants School for Girls. They are completely obsessed with a scandalous memoir by Mary MacLane, and equally obsessed with one another. They are found dead in the school's orchard, the book by their side, their bodys intertwined, seemingly dead following a horrific wasp attack. Following more tragic deaths, the Brookhants School is closed in less than five years.

Just over one hundred years later, the school’s grounds are teeming with a film crew. A film is to be made about the supposed Brookhants curse. The main actress is up and coming Harper Harper, openly gay. The film is based on a book about Brookhant’s, and the writer is to be on set every day. The other lead is a famous B movie star’s daughter, struggling to make a name for herself. They all want the movie to achieve for their own reasons. But then things start to go wrong, and start to get creepy, they start to question what is put on for film, and what is real? Who can explain these feelings they are having?

This book pushes the dual narrative storyline to the maximum. You follow two storylines with many main characters in each, wrapped up in similar but different events. The one similarity is the horror of the curse. Is it real, or is it the experiences of the stigmatism of a same sex relationship, wrapped up in guilt and shame of being different from what was acceptable at the time (1902), following through to the perceived nature of the curse and the horror of coincidences now mixed with Hollywood special effects?

I found myself at times wanting to get back to the modern day story a bit more. The story set in the past was a little dragged out at times, or rambled a bit and lost focus for me at times, wanting me to get back to the present. Having said that, it did an excellent job of setting the scene for the Brockhants school, and the situation our modern day Plain Bad Heroines find themselves in. This book was something different. It worked as a love story, as a gothic horror, as a coming of age tale and more. The intertwining of so many characters and so many threads made for excellent storytelling, and a very enjoyable read. I will certainly be looking out for wasps with a different feeling going forward!

*I received a copy of this for review from NetGalley, but all opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this book despite it being unlike my usual reads. I’m not much of a horror reader and I don’t really like celebrity romance tropes.

Having said that I do enjoy a bit of dark academia/ sapphic love story and this book was FULL of that. I was engaged in the story right up until the ending which fell a bit flat, I wanted it to go out with a bit more of a bang.

This book was what I class as weird. Some of these books are a complete hit for me but some of them are a miss and this was one of them. I’d heard great things about it by others with similar reading taste but it seemed to unrealistic for me and I found myself confused as to what was happening for most of the time. That being said I did love the characters in a fun, I don’t really care what happens to them all the time. This definitely has an audience and I hope it’s found by them