Synopsis:
Trust us, you belong here. Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world’s best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years—summers included—completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends, television, music, even their clothing must be left behind. In return, the school promises a future of sublime power and prestige, and that its graduates can become anything or anyone they desire.
Among this year’s incoming class is Ines Murillo, who expects to trade blurry nights of parties, cruel friends, and dangerous men for rigorous intellectual discipline—only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. Even the school’s enigmatic director, Viktória, encourages the students to explore, to expand their minds, to find themselves within the formidable iron gates of Catherine. For Ines, it is the closest thing to a home she’s ever had. But the House’s strange protocols soon make this refuge, with its worn velvet and weathered leather, feel increasingly like a gilded prison. And when tragedy strikes, Ines begins to suspect that the school—in all its shabby splendor, hallowed history, advanced theories, and controlled decadence—might be hiding a dangerous agenda within the secretive, tightly knit group of students selected to study its most promising and mysterious curriculum.
Disclaimer:
I received an e-book copy of this book via Net Galley. This does not impact my review in any way.
Edition:
E-ARC
My Thoughts:
This story follows Ines, a young woman with a past, through her time at the illustrious, mysterious, controversial Catherine House – a 3 year experimental learning program that has churned out some of the most creative, intelligent, and successful members of society. For someone like Ines, who has a troubled past, this opportunity seems too good to be true. And what do we all know about things that are too good to be true?
The usually are.
Well, it turns out that life at Catherine House is…weird. You can’t leave the grounds, and there’s no outside anything allowed (no clothes, personal effects, etc.). On top of the usual study concentrations, they also offer a rather controversial one. A study which that has caused some rather unpleasant accusations to be lobbed at the school in years past. But don’t worry. They’re still keeping up with this field of study. They’re just keeping their findings much closer to the vest these days.
They also have some strange, and vaguely threatening-feeling ceremonies. In these ceremonies, the students are pinned, and made to do some interesting call and reponse-type stuff. And no, I’m not explaining what “pinning” is. You’ll just have to read the book if you want to find out)
“You are in the house and the house is in you.”
I think that Thomas did an admirable job of creating a dark, unsettling atmosphere at Catherine House. She is a very visually descriptive writer, which really allowed me to picture the gothic, gorgeous, slightly-dilapidated but also very nice and fancy interiors of the buildings and grounds. Where this book really failed me was in the characterizations.
I found that Ines was the character that I was the least interested in. Out of all the people the reader interacts with, she comes off at first as vapid, lazy, and (stay with me here) the human embodiment of a buzzing whine. She’s like a circular saw that is perpetually catching on a knot.
I thought as the story went on I would like her better, but even as her behavior shifted, I couldn’t get on board. She still sort of stayed that way, but a little less so. But only a little less. By the end of it, she still had no idea who she was, what she was doing, where she was going. She was the same non-entity she started as. Just a collection of one bad thing that happened to her, her shame about that bad thing, and her confusion at one person with ulterior motives saying one nice thing about her and suggesting she be enrolled in this incredibly dicey Catherine House program.
I feel like if she had shown more growth as a character, I might have felt differently about the book overall. But she didn’t, so I didn’t. With that being said, there were some really cool elements to the story. It’s just unfortunate that I felt like the main character wasn’t one of them.
About the Author:
Elisabeth Thomas grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where she still lives and now writes. She graduated from Yale University and currently works as an archivist for a modern art museum. CATHERINE HOUSE is her first novel.X
Rating:
Ultimately, the character building of Ines just wasn’t strong enough for me. I never found myself invested enough in her to have any real feelings one way or another about how things ended up for her. But who knows, maybe you’ll like it – just because it didn’t really do it for me doesn’t mean it won’t for you.
Catherine House By Elisabeth Thomas HarperCollins Custom House ISBN: 9780062905659 Published: May 12, 2020 Hardcover, E-book, Audio 240 Pages Publisher's Website
