Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Plain Bad Heroines

Immensely readable, definitely worth the effort of wading through the layers of meta text and false document. I think that this book is most effective when seen as a beautifully executed and layered project, if you attempt to place the standard of horror novels on to this will not ring true. It builds and builds but instead of true climax it continues to sprawl towards the bitter secret at the heart of the story, tragedy satisfyingly buried and revealed. The characters all feel lived in and complicated, replicating themselves over the narrative, in some kind of reincarnation. It’s fascinating to experience a story in this fashion. Not scary per se, but unnerving and insidious. Definitely both effective satire and effective gothic.

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culpeppper's review against another edition

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This is gonna be negative, you've been warned.

The premise was fine, but the length of this book is absurd considering the absolute nothing that happens. I cannot stand the shifting perspective of the story. It makes it clunky instead of intriguing, and I really think it could have been a shorter, better story if it had been told from only one perspective. But we have four; Audrey, Harper Harper, Merritt, and an omniscient narrator that refuses to identify themselves (but I suspect is Merritt, based only on the fact we are reading a story about a book and one of the characters is the author of said book.)The modern storylines are boring (the three heroines don't even meet face to face until 200 pages into the story) and tedious to get through. The characters are either flat, bland, or just plain unenjoyable. They do a whole lot of nothing for twenty pages, then cut to another whole lot of nothing but this time, there's /wasps/ and shadows.

Audrey is fine, and if I had to choose one perspective to keep out of the three main characters, she's the easy pick. She's got an interesting enough backstory that could probably be better explored, a lot of characters in her personal life that we know a little bit about, and her personality is one that makes you want to root for her. Harper Harper's character is basically rich young hot "celesbian" with some deeper stuff under the surface but even 200 pages in you don't really care about her anyway. She reads like a caricature. Merritt seemingly has no redeeming characteristics that Danforth decides to show us to off-set the general callousness she shows everyone and everything around her, with a dash of self-confidence issues that excuse it all, that makes her the queer not-like-other-girls-girl. We're supposed to be inspired and surprised that she, as a mere 16 year old infant, was able to write a story and it was good. Because of that everything else about her is special, so she can be selfish and not care about others. I'm not saying that all characters can and should be likable, but in a nearly 700 page book, surely you could do without some of that.

The horror/suspense elements don't work, because I didn't care about these characters and the atmospheric storytelling is lacking. The historical timeline would have probably gotten tedious too but that was the only part of the book that had me thinking it would turn around.

Eventually, though, the whole audition scene was what did me in. I felt 0 chemistry between the characters once they were on page, and I genuinely didn't think it was worth pushing through if that was all there was ahead.

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steppenfreak's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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haleysversion's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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redsflicker's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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seaweedmonsterletmego's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I truly loved this book throughout reading it. The characters weren't all lovable but they were all interesting and I was absorbed into learning what happened to them. And as a queer person I do love that all the characters in this book did fall under that umbrella ( do wish this was more varied, but in a world where this normally doesn’t happen Im happy it did for this book) I found the horror scenes pretty off-putting but not scary which was what I was looking for. I also really enjoyed how the plot and mystery was developed through all of the different perspectives and the timelines.

A couple of the issue that may be a problem for others is the slow read with a passing problem. It is a long novel and the first half of the book drags out a lot of the present timeline while the last quarter seems to move tif you like. If you like solid endings this book won’t be fire you. A lot of the mystery was left unsolved and in a way that (in my opinion, dear Reader) was not executed well and made certain storylines seem unnecessary or less important.

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