Plain Bad Heroines is a novel by Emily M. Danforth. The novel features two timelines that intersect with each other. One part of the novel takes place around 1902. Two young female students at a boarding school find themselves obsessed with a scandalous novel that had recently been published, so much so that they form a society dedicated to the one mentioned in the novel: The Plain Bad Heroine Society. A tragic death occurs, and a copy of the novel is found beside the two dead girls. More tragic deaths occur on the property, and they all are somehow tied to the book.
In the present day, production for a film based on the events has begun. Three young women grow close throughout the production; Merritt Emmons—who wrote the novel that the film is based on—Harper Harper, and Audrey Wells who are staring in the film. After they arrive on the property and production begins, strange things begin to happen to the three women and the production. It soon grows impossible to tell what is really happening and what is a fabricated event for the film. Tension begins to rise between the three, and their new relationship begins to crumble apart almost as fast as it started.
Strengths
The novel’s strongest point is its 1902 storyline. This was the most engaging of the plotlines because of its strangeness. This part of the novel focused more on the horror elements of the story, and thus was able to play around with imagery and the senses more. Unlike the modern day, the events in the past can’t be totally explained because there were no movie crews that could have possibly fabricated the strange happenings and that’s what makes it interesting. Readers don’t know if the book is actually cursed or if it’s just a series of strange coincidences and that’s what keeps readers engaged. The characters in this section are also more interesting as they have unique, mysterious pasts as well as secret desires that they keep from each other, which creates tension in the text. If the novel had just focused on this timeline, it would have made for a far more interesting read.
Weaknesses
The modern-day timeline is what drags this novel’s rating down. The characters are all rather unlikeable. They hardly have any personalities and when they do show traits, it is just them being stubborn and obnoxious. Sometimes when they fight it just feels ridiculous and unnecessary and makes the novel drag on. The modern-day also seemed like it went on for too long. It went through pre-production of the movie, the weeks of production, and after the production. It was all mostly scenes and details that, truthfully, could have been omitted and the novel would not have been changed at all. And when readers are told that any paranormal thing that happens could just have been faked by the movie studio, it takes away from the horror element. There is no shock—even with the unconfirmed events—because readers just start to assume that it was not real versus in the past when it is impossible to tell what was real and what was imagined.
Rating
This book earns 3.5/5 stars. If the story focused only on the 1902 timeline, its rating would immediately go up. But the addition of the modern-day timeline felt forced and uninteresting and made the story drag on. If you were only drawn to this novel because the idea of a cursed boarding school sounded interesting to you, you should not pick up this novel. In order to get this haunting, you have to sift through pages and pages of unnecessary modern-day content. And with the novel being around 640 pages, it really is not worth it to read the whole thing just for a fraction of the plot.
You may also like this
