Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Plain Bad Heroines

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

82 reviews

imrereads's review

dark mysterious tense slow-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

4.5

This was so good! If you're looking for something sapphic, gothic, dark academia-adjacent, a chunky story with multiple timelines and main characters, genuinely tense and frightening scenes, a really clever narrator and a whole bunch of yellowjacket wasps, then look no further! This wasn't what I expected it to be, and it uses some of my least favourite storytelling tools (narrator speaking directly to the reader, for one) but it does it in a way that make me love it. It just worked so well. This was so well crafted, and Danforth has such a great voice.

Keep in mind that this is horror! You may want to check the content warnings.

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fieldfarmer's review against another edition

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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

4.75

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bri_fabiano's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense slow-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

2.5

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yellow_ylugbug's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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carrots02's review against another edition

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adventurous dark informative mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

i will be thinking about this book for a long time. it’s delightfully eerie and weird and sapphic! i borrowed it from the library and before i got halfway through i ordered it from my local bookstore.

the characters are fascinating. the story is rich with history and gory details. i adore how self referential it is and that it’s truly a mystery!

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thekatreturns's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious 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? Yes

4.75

I adored this book. I won’t say too much so as not to spoil it, but it was my favorite read of the year. It feels like a rebuttal to the way that horror stories are often told, but beyond being a statement about the world, it is frightening, engaging, and deeply, darkly funny in its own right. The main cast is almost entirely lesbian and bisexual women who are distinct and flawed and real and so interesting to watch interact. That said, unless I missed something, the main cast is all white Americans with some degree of class privilege. The class aspect is intentional and absolutely commented upon, for what that’s worth, and the supporting cast is racially diverse, so that’s why I marked “it’s complicated” for diversity. I knocked a half point off because I wanted more worldbuilding out of the ending, for what was revealed then to be discussed as it relates to the previous events of the book, but the very last chapters were immensely satisfying nonetheless. I would highly recommend this to horror fans of all kinds, metafiction fans, those who like stories interweaving the past and present, anyone into Fraught Female Friendships, and those who just love really wonderful-in-all-their-flaws queer woman characters.

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owenwilsonbaby's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious slow-paced

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

4.25

"She'd pass a flooring place and imagine her life selling carpet. She'd pass a beauty salon and imagine her life doing hair. Mostly she tried to imagine contentment: the state of being content. She didn't think it was something she'd ever been before, so it was difficult for her to accurately imagine how it might feel. But she did try."

I loved this! The last 600 page novel I read was Dune and in some ways that felt like such a slog in comparison to this. I occasionally had issues - pauses that lasted too long, issues with the pacing - especially when the beginning and middle felt like they were building to something that wasn't quite carried to fruition by the culmination of Alex and Libby's plot and the modern Hollywood plot. The tone at the start was also interesting to adjust to, with a very camp Gothic element - often an interesting shift when the narrator themselves is a bit of an all-knowing, anonymous character (and frequently reminds the reader of this).

That said, all of these are minor quibbles in an otherwise fun and absorbing take on queer horror. Danforth has a brilliant grasp on when to employ terror and when to employ horror. The novel has lots of potential themes but ultimately seems to be about the dangers of spectacle, not unlike my other horror favourite of this year, Jordan Peele's Nope. I also loved Harper, Audrey and Merritt's characters, who are all complex and three-dimensional. Merritt was especially interesting and accurate as a survivor of bereavement by suicide, and someone who came to writing and success young and is now floundering in her 20s.

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