Catherine House

read for buzzwordathon august 2022: object in titleread for the full moon readathon 2022: set in autumn & dark academiaread for orilium magical readathon 2022: book ok someone's worst list you think you might like


honestly in my dreams i hold a knife meets bunny meets lakewood? the first two i gave both 4 stars so it makes sense i would give this something similar. i had such a good time with this but it's not my new personality or anything 

Being in the head of the narrator is a wild experience in this book. As Ines struggles with who she is, what she will do, and what she has done, we also struggle with that. As she struggles to find truth, we struggle. As such there is not a lot of action. Where there could have been action, there was a mild statement because Ines is not telling the story linearly. I liked being in her head and approaching the story as a series of memories, but that style is not for everyone.

I can see why people might not dig this one, but I was drawn in. I enjoyed the characters, the banter, the slow burn that congeals into a plot, the mysterious culty-ness. Any “horror” in this book is a vibe, a window dressing for the events actually taking place and how the increasingly unreliable narrator and her friends deal with them, or don't. And I like that stuff.

There was barely a plot but the vibes were all there. 
I nearly felt sick at times at the suspense of when everything would go to shit, knowing it was right around the corner.
Ines truly ends where she started. Theo's brainwashedness is so awful to read. CH clearly drugged him on “three pills a day” and the hypnosis-plasm stuff they do. Of course, he was always obsessed but by the end, he's barely a person anymore. Just a shell obsessed with immortality and beauty. It's so gross.

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas is a mesmerizing work of dark academia that is sure haunt the reader long after turning the final page. Ines is admitted to prestigious and secretive Catherine House, a enigmatic post-secondary institution, and hopes to escape her troubled past and begin a new life. Yet what will she discover in the house, and will it ever let her go? With notes of gothic horror, art history, and strange science this new adult coming-of-age dark academia novel presents a story that will likely appeal to fans of Bardugo's Ninth House and Morgan and Paige's The Ravens. Yet Catherine House is uniquely crafted with an esoteric sense of mystery, relationship to time, and observation of the seemingly mundane that creates an almost dream-like quality throughout the book. The atmosphere of the story and way in which the prose and narrative are composed takes primacy over plot at times, yet there is no denying the haunting quality which permeates the book. In critique, I will say that a few aspects of the story strained my suspension of disbelief at times, the plot did meander a bit, and I was left with some unanswered questions. However, upon my second read through of this book I found these complaints bothered me less than on my initial listen to the audiobook. I was struck by how effectively Thomas captures the moment to moment experience of going to college, of how the parts that stand out in memory might not always be the “big moments” but sometimes the parts in-between. This is a book that hints at a lot of big ideas, but perhaps never exactly fully explains them. Initially I was put off by this, thinking that the book just didn't exactly gel, but now...I'm wondering if that might not be the point? The contrast between the world of the ivory tower and the world without, the creative ideal and the object reality of art, the dream of a better life and the grit and emotion that comes with living. The mysteries of Catherine House are, perhaps, just that. My initial rating for this book was ⭐️⭐️⭐️, but I'm am now revising that rating to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Like everyone else is saying, this gives off the same vibes as Bunny by Mona Awad, which is one of my favourite books of all time. And just like that one, this is not a book for everyone. It's intentionally confusing, it's weird, it burns slow,  it's plotless for the most part, characters are unhinged and the air is deeply unsettling.

In fact, Ines reminded me a lot of the protagonist from Bunny. The reason why these books work is because it's fascinating to glimpse into the minds of these characters. It's fascinating to watch them slowly transform and lose their minds, basically. 

The writing was beautiful, just like you would expect from a dark academia like this. The setting was fantastic too. 

My only bone to pick was that it dragged on a little bit in the middle which in my opinion was unnecessary. 

You'll know if these kind of books are for you, and if they are, you'll have a great time with it.