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ladyreadinton's review
3.0
The beginning of the book was slow and dreamy. The details and description of the campus brought Catherine house to life. The main character, Ines is drunk and absent most of the time. Her detachment adds to the feeling that everything isn’t what is seems. Once she starts to apply herself we see Catherine House through a different lense. Sure there’s a weird plasm concentration and daily chanting. Total isolation for three years is a small price to pay for a free college education. What’s really going on at Catherine House?
I couldn’t put this book down.
This was a beautiful advanced readers copy. This was a goodreads giveaway.
I couldn’t put this book down.
This was a beautiful advanced readers copy. This was a goodreads giveaway.
mariahistryingtoread's review
1.0
I struggled with this one. The idea of ejecting all forms of communication for a free high level education is absolutely an uneven trade to me. College is way too expensive, but at least I was able to call my Mom when a professor made me cry.
It was hard for me to conceptualize making this decision. A school with this level of regulation as well as such a large turnout of 'successful' alumni is guaranteed to mistreat you. Why else would the perks be so good? It's to offset the abuse about to be hurled. I cannot possibly see how any individual possessing a lick of common sense would even consider going. Thus, initially it was very difficult for me to get into the story. It's so far outside of what I would do or what I'd expect any intelligent person to do that the story bordered on absurdity.
I did begin to understand more as the book unfolded, but I never could fully shake that disbelief. Some of the minor characters (there's a ton of irrelevant peripheral people within this book) explain how badly they needed the free tuition and board. I still think the deal is completely not worth it, but my judgment lessened with this new perspective. It also eventually fit into the bigger picture of Catherine House.
This book is dull. It's concerned primarily with atmosphere over substance. I don't read a lot of gothic horror or dark academia. I know that to a point this is to be expected so I acknowledge that part of my indifference is on me. I dislike books that are only pretty, meaningless prose. I want character development and plot progression. Catherine House has neither.
To be fair to Catherine House, it doesn't technically promise this once its underway either. However, keeping that in mind, the synopsis is seriously misleading.
Almost all of my complaints are centered around Ines; who I despised near immediately.
Ines is depressed due to a tragic event in her recent-ish past that we're led to believe warped a lot of her personality. Before this tragic event she was recommended by her mentor/teacher to Catherine House. Though, no longer the same bright eyed bushy tailed student who went through the rigorous application process she nevertheless decides to attend anyways as she has nowhere else to go.
The issue is that Ines' depression manifests as apathy. She is totally disinterested in absolutely everything from grades to sex to eating. Despite going through the motions she's barely scraping by. That's realistic of depression for some people. It affects everyone differently. For what this story intended to do it was a poor choice of direction for its protagonist.
First off, Ines' continued acceptance at this school makes no sense. She doesn't attend classes or do any work for basically an entire school year. When not sleeping, she's partying. She gets put on academic probation, three warnings from three different sources, and a visit to 'the Tower' (a name for the mysterious Restoration Room designed to put wayward students back on the right track) before she straightens up. One of her warnings is a private talk with the Headmaster of the school Victoria in which Victoria says that some other kids have already been asked to go home. Why isn't Ines one of them? This school is so elite one of Ines' interviews to get in lasted NINE hours. I don't buy a school like this giving her more than half a chance before dismissing her. They even make it a point to say her transcripts weren't particularly good yet they see some 'potential' in her so they'll keep her around anyways. That just made me dislike her more. Other kids, especially her roommate Baby, are working their butts off but Ines isn't even trying and they coddle her. She supposedly thinks in some special way that would make her useful for all the spooky secret shenanigans going on in the background. Except even taking into consideration what the big secret is at the end it doesn’t work because she didn’t seem to be on that track until the last quarter or so of the book and as a result of another character pushing her towards it. I needed way more evidence to support this claim of her apparent cleverness to buy the ending. As it was I couldn’t see what the big deal was which hurt my suspension of disbelief.
I understand that she's facing a mental health crisis. I also know that Catherine House intends to exploit that vulnerability. It’s more that it didn’t make sense to me to pursue Ines when there had to be other equally as malleable kids with better if not actually good grades. Their multitude of chances for her contradicts how ruthless Catherine House is presented to be.
Other Catherine House oversights that undercut its reputation include:
- There aren't any cameras anywhere.
- The kids are given unrestricted access to almost every part of the campus.
- There aren't any security guards patrolling.
- The students are encouraged to find their balance between partying and studying on their own. That's normal. But the amounts of unrestricted drinking, and sexual activity is a recipe for disaster. That's why colleges have policies on it. How are there never any sexual misconduct accusations or actual incidents of sexual assault? This school does nothing to mitigate it, going so far as to provide alcohol at every meal.
- There’s a rule about not speaking about your life before Catherine House. This is never enforced. The kids often reference details of their personal histories with no consequences.
Ines' apathy also lessens the impact of the transition to Catherine House. This book seems to want to explore how vulnerable people can fall into certain manipulative and/or dangerous groups. Ines being already so mentally downtrodden from the beginning does this theme a disservice. There is no difference between her before or after Catherine House to examine. Ines has no rising or falling arc as a character. She's more or less miserable the entire time. How am I supposed to see how Catherine House utilizes coercive tactics to suck people in without any evidence of how it can corrupt a persons' worldview? The entire book is Ines' introspection and Catherine House never meaningfully affects anything about her mindset. She is drawn in on occasion only to abandon that line of thinking almost immediately every time. It makes the book exhausting to get through.
Two ways to fix this; Ines can be apathetic at the beginning. Then, this apathy needs to transform into devotion to Catherine House a lot sooner than it does. By the time Ines is expressing an aversion to leaving it feels jarring. Or Ines starts off more like Baby trying way too hard to succeed allowing her to be more susceptible to Catherine House's web. Without any kind of tangible transition in actions or mindset her character was boring. How can I root for a character that is so empty? I was so tired of hearing about her hypersexuality, her bottomless drinking, the parties she barely remembered. I get it, she's sad, hungover and has loads of irresponsible sex. Can we move on now? If the plasm/plasma thing wasn't included this would have just been another pretentious rich college kid adventure.
The story beats would hit harder if there was more contrast.
Also she displays so little moral fiber when it matters. A character is cheating with a married professor. Shrug. Animals are being experimented on. Oh well. I cannot stress enough how unlikable I found her. If Ines was intended to be unlikable instead of relatable this would have gone over infinitely better. Other than that there’s not a lot to comment on. Ines is woven into every aspect of this story thus it is hard to separate any other facet from my disdain for her.
I wish the tragedy of Baby mattered more. It’s implied to be a pivotal moment in the synopsis. It’s not. Once the tragedy strikes in maybe one chapter it no longer is of particular significance. It’s not a catalyst for change in one direction or another. I struggled to see why it was included in the first place. I certainly could have done without all the romanticizing of Baby and Ines non-existent relationship.
Again, Ines is so distant from everyone whenever the book tried to act as if she had friends I could not believe it. Especially since she was always so wrapped up in her own head she barely knew anything about anyone else. Yaya figured out what Catherine House was about (at least the obvious parts) on her own. Ines could have too if she bothered engaging Yaya on a level other than stereotypical early 20s debauchery. It also made figuring out half the 'secret' impossible. We're not supposed to talk about past lives as that's crucial to figuring it out, but since that's not even strictly enforced it really feels as if the author has purposely created these artificial boundaries rather than writing stronger, practical obstacles.
There were too many instances to count of Ines totally ignoring anything resembling a plot point. Ines sat on suspicious information for the entire duration of the book.
Surprisingly, I found the mystery at the end to be quite absorbing. I did not understand the plasm/plasma stuff at all. I wish the details had been glossed over or Thomas left the inner workings more up to interpretation. Any attempt to go into specifics went totally over my head. It made it harder to see why Ines cared when I had no idea what was being talked about. Still, the last quarter disregarding Ines' jarring shift was genuinely interesting. It was super unsettling to me, but I am easily spooked so take that with a grain of salt. The reveal kind of made sense in hindsight based on pieces of what we learned beforehand. But, still I don’t totally ‘get’ plasm/plasma so I couldn’t have predicted it. If you understood better than me you might be able to figure it out.
This was an intersection between my lack of familiarity with the genre, a bias against the premise from the get go and some flaws inherent to this specific book. I was intrigued by this concept. I plan on reading other books with similar ideas in the future. If you read the first 10 pages and can live with exactly what happens in those 10 pages repeating unendingly for the next 300 then I say go for it.
It was hard for me to conceptualize making this decision. A school with this level of regulation as well as such a large turnout of 'successful' alumni is guaranteed to mistreat you. Why else would the perks be so good? It's to offset the abuse about to be hurled. I cannot possibly see how any individual possessing a lick of common sense would even consider going. Thus, initially it was very difficult for me to get into the story. It's so far outside of what I would do or what I'd expect any intelligent person to do that the story bordered on absurdity.
I did begin to understand more as the book unfolded, but I never could fully shake that disbelief. Some of the minor characters (there's a ton of irrelevant peripheral people within this book) explain how badly they needed the free tuition and board. I still think the deal is completely not worth it, but my judgment lessened with this new perspective. It also eventually fit into the bigger picture of Catherine House.
This book is dull. It's concerned primarily with atmosphere over substance. I don't read a lot of gothic horror or dark academia. I know that to a point this is to be expected so I acknowledge that part of my indifference is on me. I dislike books that are only pretty, meaningless prose. I want character development and plot progression. Catherine House has neither.
To be fair to Catherine House, it doesn't technically promise this once its underway either. However, keeping that in mind, the synopsis is seriously misleading.
Almost all of my complaints are centered around Ines; who I despised near immediately.
Ines is depressed due to a tragic event in her recent-ish past that we're led to believe warped a lot of her personality. Before this tragic event she was recommended by her mentor/teacher to Catherine House. Though, no longer the same bright eyed bushy tailed student who went through the rigorous application process she nevertheless decides to attend anyways as she has nowhere else to go.
The issue is that Ines' depression manifests as apathy. She is totally disinterested in absolutely everything from grades to sex to eating. Despite going through the motions she's barely scraping by. That's realistic of depression for some people. It affects everyone differently. For what this story intended to do it was a poor choice of direction for its protagonist.
First off, Ines' continued acceptance at this school makes no sense. She doesn't attend classes or do any work for basically an entire school year. When not sleeping, she's partying. She gets put on academic probation, three warnings from three different sources, and a visit to 'the Tower' (a name for the mysterious Restoration Room designed to put wayward students back on the right track) before she straightens up. One of her warnings is a private talk with the Headmaster of the school Victoria in which Victoria says that some other kids have already been asked to go home. Why isn't Ines one of them? This school is so elite one of Ines' interviews to get in lasted NINE hours. I don't buy a school like this giving her more than half a chance before dismissing her. They even make it a point to say her transcripts weren't particularly good yet they see some 'potential' in her so they'll keep her around anyways. That just made me dislike her more. Other kids, especially her roommate Baby, are working their butts off but Ines isn't even trying and they coddle her. She supposedly thinks in some special way that would make her useful for all the spooky secret shenanigans going on in the background. Except even taking into consideration what the big secret is at the end it doesn’t work because she didn’t seem to be on that track until the last quarter or so of the book and as a result of another character pushing her towards it. I needed way more evidence to support this claim of her apparent cleverness to buy the ending. As it was I couldn’t see what the big deal was which hurt my suspension of disbelief.
I understand that she's facing a mental health crisis. I also know that Catherine House intends to exploit that vulnerability. It’s more that it didn’t make sense to me to pursue Ines when there had to be other equally as malleable kids with better if not actually good grades. Their multitude of chances for her contradicts how ruthless Catherine House is presented to be.
Other Catherine House oversights that undercut its reputation include:
- There aren't any cameras anywhere.
- The kids are given unrestricted access to almost every part of the campus.
- There aren't any security guards patrolling.
- The students are encouraged to find their balance between partying and studying on their own. That's normal. But the amounts of unrestricted drinking, and sexual activity is a recipe for disaster. That's why colleges have policies on it. How are there never any sexual misconduct accusations or actual incidents of sexual assault? This school does nothing to mitigate it, going so far as to provide alcohol at every meal.
- There’s a rule about not speaking about your life before Catherine House. This is never enforced. The kids often reference details of their personal histories with no consequences.
Ines' apathy also lessens the impact of the transition to Catherine House. This book seems to want to explore how vulnerable people can fall into certain manipulative and/or dangerous groups. Ines being already so mentally downtrodden from the beginning does this theme a disservice. There is no difference between her before or after Catherine House to examine. Ines has no rising or falling arc as a character. She's more or less miserable the entire time. How am I supposed to see how Catherine House utilizes coercive tactics to suck people in without any evidence of how it can corrupt a persons' worldview? The entire book is Ines' introspection and Catherine House never meaningfully affects anything about her mindset. She is drawn in on occasion only to abandon that line of thinking almost immediately every time. It makes the book exhausting to get through.
Two ways to fix this; Ines can be apathetic at the beginning. Then, this apathy needs to transform into devotion to Catherine House a lot sooner than it does. By the time Ines is expressing an aversion to leaving it feels jarring. Or Ines starts off more like Baby trying way too hard to succeed allowing her to be more susceptible to Catherine House's web. Without any kind of tangible transition in actions or mindset her character was boring. How can I root for a character that is so empty? I was so tired of hearing about her hypersexuality, her bottomless drinking, the parties she barely remembered. I get it, she's sad, hungover and has loads of irresponsible sex. Can we move on now? If the plasm/plasma thing wasn't included this would have just been another pretentious rich college kid adventure.
The story beats would hit harder if there was more contrast.
Also she displays so little moral fiber when it matters. A character is cheating with a married professor. Shrug. Animals are being experimented on. Oh well. I cannot stress enough how unlikable I found her. If Ines was intended to be unlikable instead of relatable this would have gone over infinitely better. Other than that there’s not a lot to comment on. Ines is woven into every aspect of this story thus it is hard to separate any other facet from my disdain for her.
I wish the tragedy of Baby mattered more. It’s implied to be a pivotal moment in the synopsis. It’s not. Once the tragedy strikes in maybe one chapter it no longer is of particular significance. It’s not a catalyst for change in one direction or another. I struggled to see why it was included in the first place. I certainly could have done without all the romanticizing of Baby and Ines non-existent relationship.
Again, Ines is so distant from everyone whenever the book tried to act as if she had friends I could not believe it. Especially since she was always so wrapped up in her own head she barely knew anything about anyone else. Yaya figured out what Catherine House was about (at least the obvious parts) on her own. Ines could have too if she bothered engaging Yaya on a level other than stereotypical early 20s debauchery. It also made figuring out half the 'secret' impossible. We're not supposed to talk about past lives as that's crucial to figuring it out, but since that's not even strictly enforced it really feels as if the author has purposely created these artificial boundaries rather than writing stronger, practical obstacles.
There were too many instances to count of Ines totally ignoring anything resembling a plot point. Ines sat on suspicious information for the entire duration of the book.
Surprisingly, I found the mystery at the end to be quite absorbing. I did not understand the plasm/plasma stuff at all. I wish the details had been glossed over or Thomas left the inner workings more up to interpretation. Any attempt to go into specifics went totally over my head. It made it harder to see why Ines cared when I had no idea what was being talked about. Still, the last quarter disregarding Ines' jarring shift was genuinely interesting. It was super unsettling to me, but I am easily spooked so take that with a grain of salt. The reveal kind of made sense in hindsight based on pieces of what we learned beforehand. But, still I don’t totally ‘get’ plasm/plasma so I couldn’t have predicted it. If you understood better than me you might be able to figure it out.
This was an intersection between my lack of familiarity with the genre, a bias against the premise from the get go and some flaws inherent to this specific book. I was intrigued by this concept. I plan on reading other books with similar ideas in the future. If you read the first 10 pages and can live with exactly what happens in those 10 pages repeating unendingly for the next 300 then I say go for it.
jbridges99's review
1.0
I was excited to win this ARC from a Goodread's giveaway and it seemed promising from the description but fell flat. I rarely DNF a book but came close with this one. The premise was good but the pacing was slow, the characters didn't inspire any connection or feeling from me and the story just never really went anywhere worthwhile. It seemed more YA in some ways (although I question some of the contents appropriateness for YA) so maybe I'm not in the target demographic for this book.
tnt31's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
lilbookowl's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
stephaniejnl's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
annithebookaholic's review against another edition
5.0
I don't even know what I just read, but I know that I loved every second of it!
The way that this is written is so strange, but it also really pulls you in and doesn't let go. This book is literally no plot, just vibes. Like nothing happened, but at the same time, so much was said. The main character is unlikable but very interesting to follow, and all of the other characters were so intriguing as well!
The small element of sci-fi was also very interesting, and I absolutely loved the setting of the physical Catherine House! The hazy, almost drugged like atmosphere really adds to the weirdness of the book!
If you liked Bunny or Wilder Girls, I feel like you will really love this!!
The way that this is written is so strange, but it also really pulls you in and doesn't let go. This book is literally no plot, just vibes. Like nothing happened, but at the same time, so much was said. The main character is unlikable but very interesting to follow, and all of the other characters were so intriguing as well!
The small element of sci-fi was also very interesting, and I absolutely loved the setting of the physical Catherine House! The hazy, almost drugged like atmosphere really adds to the weirdness of the book!
If you liked Bunny or Wilder Girls, I feel like you will really love this!!
llovemsg's review
4.0
(3.8/4 stars) i haven’t been on here for a hot minute but i just finished this book and was surprised by its rating- i thought it would be higher i guess. idk i really liked this book; think “secret history” but creepier. super atmospheric and creepy, really great worldbuilding and writing.
i also received a shock at the amount of dislike the popular opinion has of the MC, especially bc i felt like i related to her a lot. to quote one of the reviewers, “i hated the heroine. she is just creepy, living in her head with so many obsessions, introvert, feeble, indecisive. i didnt find any good qualities to like her a little bit!” what does this say about me? hm. anyway, i liked this book :/
i also received a shock at the amount of dislike the popular opinion has of the MC, especially bc i felt like i related to her a lot. to quote one of the reviewers, “i hated the heroine. she is just creepy, living in her head with so many obsessions, introvert, feeble, indecisive. i didnt find any good qualities to like her a little bit!” what does this say about me? hm. anyway, i liked this book :/
greljo76's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
2.75
I liked the atmosphere and the writing was good, but the story just didn't do it for me. It was lacking depth, so ended up being all vibes, but no plot and no real charachterstudy either. What is really left then? Still the ghotic atmosphere and the writing makes it not a totally dreadfull reading experience, but not something I would recommend
starrywonder's review against another edition
3.0
Cultish and Strange
Catherine House is a unique book.
At times it feels as if the whole house is a cult with strange experiments, and others its just a private school.
I wish I liked Ines more, she was not an interesting character. I care more about the lives of her friends than her.
Catherine House is a unique book.
At times it feels as if the whole house is a cult with strange experiments, and others its just a private school.
I wish I liked Ines more, she was not an interesting character. I care more about the lives of her friends than her.