I will be avidly picking up anything Emily Danforth going forward, with both excitement and fear. This is the best book I’ve read this year. Apparently this is just what I needed in 2020: lesbians, lesbian drama, wasps (truly the sexy evil cousins of the bee family), ghosts, old ladies dunking on Truman Capote, horny yearning, murder, literary criticism, Rhode Island, spooky mold, and great illustrations. If you’re not queer and you like horror, you must read this. 640 Pages On-Sale Date: ISBN: 9780062942852 Reading Guide Trim Size: 6.000in x 9.000in x 1. If your are queer and you like horror, you must read this. Because I'm still reeling over this amazing amazing amazing story. Plain Bad Heroines is a very ambitious novel, and in true dark academia fashion, its ambition also constitutes its fatal flaw.

And the narrator playing directly into the story like this, do we know who she is by the end? Maybe? But not in an unsatisfactory way like a loose end untied, but like a seed of possibility that was left for the reader to interpret as they will. Horror without gruesomeness is a kind of art.

And again? Witchy without being specifically and directly witchy. But also relieved? Not all the way relieved because true horror like this leaves you with that feeling at the end, like there is just enough truth in it to be plausible. Jesus H Christ, I will never again be able to look at a yellow jacket without a queer feeling of fear creeping up my spine.

Harper harper plain bad heroines