Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

26 reviews

sestout's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, and Lesbophobia

Moderate: Sexual content, Vomit, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Infidelity, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Abortion, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

idk_indigo's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

This was a nice read, one I've had on my shelf for quite some time and I'm very glad I finally got around to reading it. I loved the length of it , honestly, it was a nice read for me to spend time on and it was a good book to pick up and put down. I was invested in it, but not to the point where I couldn't put it down, which, honestly I appreciated. 

It did drag at times, and the story itself felt both drawn out and unresolved, especially with

the two girls, Clara and Flo, who we meet at the beginning of the book; I felt their story was especially unresolved

. I also felt there was a bit much going on with the movie within a movie, made from a book, all within a book. It got confusing and seemed just too meta at times which detracted from the story. I almost felt like I didn't care about any of the MC's from this timeline. 

Is it the best book I've ever read? No, but I'm glad I read it! I'd be interested to read more queer/sapphic horror!!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Biphobia, Drug use, Suicide, Stalking, and Abandonment

culpeppper's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Lesbophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Biphobia, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Suicide, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Outing

Lots of wasps, dead and alive.

haleysversion's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Body horror, Child death, Death, Drug use, Hate crime, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, and Classism

clarkg's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Reading this book felt like being under a spell. There were so many delicious threads to unravel that I could not stop picking at it until I reached the end. My two main critiques are that 1.) The present-day narrative is noticeably less captivating than the historical narrative and 2.) I feel like there were missed opportunities to subvert established tropes. That said, it avoided being predictable and had some genuinely unsettling moments. Reader, I loved it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia, Sexual violence, Suicide, Murder, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Cursing

celery's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny lighthearted mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

rosaa_12's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual violence, Suicide, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Death

darumachan's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting

Moderate: Biphobia, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexism, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Lesbophobia, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Alcoholism, Bullying, and Vomit

brookey8888's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

This is such a hard book for me to rate and review. There’s so much I loved about it, but it was just so long and drawn out that I would find myself not caring or interested. It also was hardly spooky except like one part. I really liked all the character interactions and the plot when it happened, but there was just to much explaining. I did really like the queer relationships in this and that was one of my favorite parts. I do like how the author would talk to you at times as well as the footnotes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Child death, Death, Drug use, Misogyny, Sexism, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Murder, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

horizonous's review against another edition

After just one chapter I know this isn't a book for me based on the way it's written / the story is told. I'm only marking it as a DNF this early on because I don't want to forget I already tried reading it since the premise still sounds interesting to me.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcoholism, Suicide, and Death of parent