#Plain Bad Heroines

[chaoticmiserablelover]

My taste in books: sad queers being unhinged.

[mayasaurusss]

"Most crucially for our purpouse here, you should know that when they're in distress, yellow jackets relase a pheromone to call on potenitially thousands of their angry friends to help them come get you" -"One macabre afternoon to begin" from Plain Bad Heroines.

[positivewlwvibes]

i need more queer horror and less queer coded BEING the horror, y’know what i mean???

[libinih28]

I just attract books about lonely women and mothers I think. even ones I don't even realize they're about women before I pick them up.

[bookishfreedom]

this story out of context: 🐝🍎👭📖🍂🚬🌊🪆🎥

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Characters, book, and author names under the cut

Maurice Hall/Alec Scudder - Maurice by E.M. Forster 

Tatianna/Clarissa - Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Nick Russo/Andy Fleming - We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian 

Audrey Wells/Harper Harper/Merritt Eamons - Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M Danforth

[thedevilundercover]

TFW you read a new book or watch a movie and you fall in love with it but it literally does not exist on the internet

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[hangsawoman]

i shouldn’t be on instagram i should be completely obsessed with reading mary maclane under angel’s trumpet until my clothes and hair smell of it and my pupils blow up and i’m more carcass than body and i eventually die of poisoning

[thefiresontheheight]

A very minor, minor thing but it’s extremely funny to me in modern lit when we’re supposed to feel sorry for the celebrities/kids of presidents/the kids of the rich/royals/literal emperors because they get bullied for being gay or bi or dykes or whatever. It’s like….you’re literally among the most powerful people on Earth, stop feeing sorry for yourself. Especially when the “people being mean to me” thing is solely online.

[esme-elora]

Happy birthday to me! My lovely wife got me a huge book haul for my birthday. I'm already done with one and am onto the second! 🥳

[yellow-kudzu]

Someone please tell their favorite books in the tags. I love to discover new books from people and not algorithms.

[honey-from-hell]

Books to Read if You want to Look/Feel like a Literary Snob

AKA dark academia and literary novels that’ll make you look smart but are also enjoyable (in my option).

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Edited by Carmen Maria Machado

This is the OG vampire novel and also the OG toxic queer romance novel. Published in 1872, this book predates Bram Stoker’s Dracula by 25 years. The story follows Carmilla and her increasingly possessive relationship with the protanganist, Laura, following a carraige incedent. So, yes, this is a classic, and I know these arn’t always the easiest to read. But is it less than 150 pages, it is queer, and Carmen Maria Machado’s commentary is hilarious and also helps with the reading process.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I feel like everyone knows this book, and it is for sure popular—and for that reason alone, I debated not adding it to this list—but I’m not sure if I would consider it overrated. It is one of the prettiest books I have ever read and it is objectivly good. It is a retelling of the Trojan War told from Patroclus’ point-of-veiw and focuses on his relationship with Achilles. And for sure, if you get one of the pretty editions, you will look like a snob. 

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

This is the most pretenious novel I have ever read. It has its issues, don’t get me wrong, and its preteniouness is one of them. Regardless, it is quite the compelling novel with an interesting cast of characters and a solid twist at the end. TAS is about a group of six young adults who are in the process of becoming part of a secret society that protects the suposidly burned contents of the library of Alexandria. Their intiation process consists of eleminating one of the chosen six. 

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

This 600+ page book is not nearly as prentious as it appears, but I imagine if you’re just wanting to look like you’re into literary horror, this is the book for you. It follows two different timelines and is a bit trippy to think about. It is a book about a book that is in the process of being made into a movie based on real-life events. It is mildly creepy, very well written, and gloriously feminist and queer. 

Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom

I havn’t read many feminist books written by men, but this one does a solid job, and I’m kind of mad about it. This wonderfully atmostspheric tale takes place in 1666 Conneticuit. It is full of magic, witchcraft, demons, and staight white bible-thumpers getting what they deserve. Also, yes, we are all into the goat man. It’s okay.

These Violent delights by Micah Nemerever

Listen, it's bleak, but in a way that's fascinating and intriguing, and you don't want to put it down. It's about two boys who are the smartest people in the room—one alienated, grieving, and awkward, the other popular, personable, and easy-going. Their friendship turns towards an intense relationship where their toxic sensibilities take a turn for the violent. The question: can they get away with it?

These are not peak snob, but they are the ones I have read/listened to that I would recommend if you're in the mood for something a bit pretentious.

[rhywhitefang]

Thank you so much @warriornunsgirlfriend for for donating again and thanks to @thelockedtombcfp ! ! These are the two main characters from Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

[romantic-musings]

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Gothic | LGBT | Historical Fiction

Our story begins in 1902, at The Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way. Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins.

[scify65]