It's such a richly immersive read for its atmospheric detail that gives the spooky ooky factor while also making me desperate to know what happens next. The story thrillingly shows how certain characters utilize or exploit this grey area for their own purposes.
As the book progresses and we move slyly between the past and present, there are numerous twists and turns in the plot which skilfully tread the line between the supernatural and the realistic. Interspersed with this tale is a contemporary story about a Hollywood film being made about the deaths of these girls and the supposed curse upon this school. A number of girls are found dead amidst mysterious circumstances which gives rise to rumours and local legends. This book is partly a historical novel about a fictional New England boarding school for girls called Brookhants which briefly existed at the beginning of the 20th century. The text is also beautifully illustrated with evocative drawings making it feel even more like a Victorian novel. Of course, it's a technique that's most commonly and potently used in ghost stories and gothic tales so it's ideally suited to the content of Danforth's creepy and darkly playful novel. It only shows up occasionally so as not to be intrusive but it does add another dimension to the story and there's something so playful and comforting about this “dear reader.” style of telling where we all agree to sit down to lose ourselves in a riveting, imaginative tale. I'm sure this has been done in other recent novels but going into Emily M Danforth's “Plain Bad Heroines” I was thrilled to find it includes a narrative voice that self-consciously interjects and steers the story.
Since I've been reading more 19th century fiction in the past year I have been hungering for a contemporary writer to utilize the particular kind of authorial voice often found in these classic books.
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