This book is way longer than it needs to be, and it’s all setup that fails to deliver. Early on the seeds were planted for some seriously creepy gothic chills that never materialized. The mechanics and rationale of the “curse” lacked explanation: why things manifested as they did and who was affected by the curse was muddled or absent. I listened to the audiobook, and I’m not quite sure how the narrator may have affected my opinion of the book. She had a slow, ironic drawl that seemed right in tone, like we’re all in on the same joke, but that maybe kept me from taking the whole thing seriously enough. ( )

"Plain Bad Heroines" ended up being a bit of a rollercoaster read for me - there were moments where I was deeply intrigued by what was happening, specifically in the past timeline at Brookhants, and then there would be stretches of plot that felt like a chore to get through. It's been awhile since I've read a book that is so interesting but so boring all at the same time.

The main strength of PBH lies in its come-hither promise of a darkly delicious story about a cursed school, queer actors, and a little red book that prompted young women to diverge from the beaten path. Especially in the first 200 pages of the novel Danforth weaves the past and the present so wonderfully, and each timeline hints at all these mysterious going-on's in a very tantalizing way that made me want to keep turning pages.
The characters were ones I never really connected to, but I did root for some of them more than others. Audrey and Alex I heavily empathized with and wanted them to succeed in any way they could. On the other hand, Merritt is one of the most obnoxiously irritating characters to exist and I couldn't stand her. I'm fairly certain she was meant to be unlikable for a portion of the novel, and in that sense she was very well-written, but even to the last page I was annoyed by her. Harper felt very flat and everything she did became repetitive, which in turn made her dull to read. I thought her plot was going to be a bit more flashy yet remained predictable.

Which leads to the weaknesses of the book, namely, failure to deliver on the promise of a terrifying tale. The book sets itself up like chaos and darkness are going to descend in the present plot but instead it all just gets dragged out to the extreme. It's over halfway through the book before the present story finally makes its way to Brookhants, and when we're finally there so little really happens! It's more yellow jackets and angst and malfunctioning film equipment, none of which is actually scary. The past plotline also becomes more difficult to enjoy because it feels very low-stakes, and again, becomes repetitive. We see the same kind of horror (yellow jackets, slimy water, physical injury) over and over and over again and it's simply ineffective.
Finally, the ending: when a book is over 600 pages and keeps making big promises, but delivers a weak, uninspired, and too-many-questions-left-unanswered ending, it's bound to be a little bit of a disappointment. It's not a terrible ending, just a boring one.

TL;DR: Parts of this book are enjoyable, even funny, and the writing is strong, but the plot drags too much and doesn't deliver on the promise of terror - also yellow jackets can only be scary once or twice before it feels like a forced motif being slammed over the readers head. ( )

I adored this book. So many different stories, but I never once felt lost. It all went seamlessly together. What a lyrical, terrifying story. ( )

Spooky multigenerational queer romance? With period piece subplots?! Don’t mind if I do! ( )

[3.75]

I had to sleep on this one before I wrote a review. It's safe to say that I absolutely loved 85% of this book. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. I truly loved ALL the characters in both timelines. I loved the sapphic joy (and sapphic longing) and I loved how drenched in tension everything was.

What I didn't love was how most of the storylines wrapped up. It seems almost absurd to say a 600+ page book rushed the ending, but that is truly how it felt. The last 50-60 pages felt like a slightly messy info dump (with time jumps) just to wrap up everything we just spend hundreds of pages building up to.

The publisher probably wouldn't agree, but I would have happily read another 200 pages for this to feel complete. ( )