I aim, in this review, not to give away any spoilers, at least not share what you can’t attain by the blurb on the book’s jacket. However, if this is a book you want to come into blindly, then maybe come back after you’ve finished. I read Plain Bard Heroines by Emily M. Danforth with a handful of other readers for a book club created to discuss this book (though we’ve since decided to continue with another novel). It was an incredibly rewarding experience and having the ability to discuss Plain Bad Heroines in its entirety with other people gave me a greater appreciation for it.
I’ll do my best with a short synopsis—
In 1902 two girls who happen to be members of a club they created called Plain Bad Heroines Society, are stung to death at the Brookhants School for girls by a swarm of yellow jackets. Their deaths lead to some mysterious happenings and later inspires the bestselling novel by Merrit Emmons which is to be turned into a horror movie featuring the popular actress Harper Harper and child star Audrey Wells. On set, more inexplainable acts occur and the curse that plagued Brookhants all those years ago hasn’t seemed to finish running its course.
The narrative here covers two different time periods and interchanges between them both. The first is set in the early twentieth century and follows the original story of what happened at the school. The two main characters for this line are Libby, the school’s principal, and Alex, her lover and fellow teacher. The tale that slowly unfolds is full of unexpected turns and offers little explanation, but still manages to hold captivated interest. I liked how this part of the story examines queer life when options were so scarce for women who wanted to live and be together. This contrasted interestingly with the modern storyline.
Though I enjoyed the chapters from the past a bit more, the present is also captivating. I liked the variety of characters and thought Danforth offered a plethora of detail for the reader to work with. With over 600 pages, Plain Bad Heroines is rich in description—I felt so much of what was happening in this book that the story even impeded upon my own dreams (nightmares). Not only was each setting vividly established, but any time anyone ate, drank, or touched anything the image was ripe in my mind. The narration also uses footnotes that include little gold nuggets for the reader, which I was a big fan of.
I was both intrigued and disappointed by the ending. Not so much because of what we didn’t know, but I felt that the pacing dropped suddenly and the climax for the present storyline didn’t work for me. I wanted one more chapter, but that is a greedy thing for a reader to ask for. All books have to end, and rarely are we going to feel satisfied when we don’t want them to be so.
If you’re a fan of gothic horror, enjoy stories of rebelous women who defy to fit in , or are just looking for something different in the lesbian fiction genre, then Plain Bad Heroines could be for you!