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Catherine House
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August Group Read Discussion: Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas
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I haven't read this one, yet. So I will be discovering it along with you. When I was looking at the book it seemed like it had mixed reviews. Hopefully that will lead to some debate and interesting discussion. But for now.How much do you rely on reviews before you pick a book?
I often times don't read reviews at all. If somebody reccomends a book or it has a high star rating and fits a prompt I don't want to be spoiled by reading reviews. But I might if I know nothing at all about the book or if I'm reccomended it by somebody who I don't always agree with about books.
Usually I just subtract the number of 1 star reviews from the 5 star reviews (I figure everybody has friends and enemies and those should cancel each other out) and then take an average.
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I do rely heavily on reviews. I also find for the most part the average review score does align with my own ratings. I skim through the comments and scroll through to mainly look at the actual star ratings. As I read books, my rating is fluid and can change as I read further. The ending always plays a role in the rating, too. I’m halfway through Catherine House and so far, it’s higher than the 3 star average GoodReads rating. 4 stars for me at the moment.
Megan wrote: "As I read books, my rating is fluid and can change as I read further...."Yes, I do this too. My rating can change while I'm reading a book and a particularly disappointing ending or a particularly satisfying ending can really change my rating.
But I often wait a couple of weeks to put in my official star ratings because I find that sometimes a book I think I didn't love has stayed with me and I've kept thinking about it or a book I was really impressed with in the moment has become something I only vaguely remember. And that will shift the grade up or down by a star as well.
Catherine House is Elisabeth Thomas's debut novel. How do you normally find new authors? What are some great debut novels you have read that made you take notice?
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I don’t shelve debuts as debuts, so I can’t easily go back and find titles I loved. My daughter is currently reading Tweet Cute, so that one is on the forefront of my mind right now. It was adorable and I loved it and I don’t remember how I learned about it. I think it came out in the year that we needed a book involving social media? so it caught my eye that way.
How much do you rely on reviews before you pick a book?If I'm on the fence about a book after reading the synopsis, then I'll read some reviews and see if they sway me in either direction.
Catherine House is Elisabeth Thomas's debut novel. How do you normally find new authors?
Goodreads, mostly. I didn't used to read recently published books before joining this group. I'm still an active part of booklr on Tumblr too.
What are some great debut novels you have read that made you take notice?
I think The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Burial Rites, and The Song of Achilles were debut novels. Someone correct me if I'm wrong about any of those. I've read everything (or want to read everything) those authors have published since.
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The Mothers by Brit Bennett
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Smaller and Smaller Circles by F.H. Batacan (I wish she would write another book!!!)
The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka
Island of a Thousand Mirrors by Nayomi Munaweera
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (I've never actually read any other full length novels by Diaz because he gives off "sexist guy" vibes, but I did really enjoy this book)
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn (I was SHOCKED that this was a debut!!)
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
The Martian by Andy Weir (just as with Diaz, I haven't read any other full-length books by Weir because he gives me "sexist guy" vibes, but I LOVED The Martian)
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (I was not expecting to like this book as much as I did, so I was surprised by that AND that it was her debut)
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (I didn't LOVE this book, but it definitely did not feel like a debut)
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters I'm just going to stop saying how shocked I was that the book was their debut, because it really applies to ALL of these books I'm listing.
There There by Tommy Orange
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Stay with Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
The Dry by Jane Harper
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
In the Woods by Tana French
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (some of the best space opera I've EVER read. I can't wait to see what she writes next!)
I'll stop there. My list got too long!!! I guess I've read a lot of debuts.
and these books maybe aren't "great literature" but they were fun reads and they took the world by storm:
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Divergent by Veronica Roth
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
In the course of researching, I kept seeing All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood listed as a "debut," and I guess it was her first book with a major publisher, but it was not her first book. I've loved everything she's written so far, including her first two books that came before AtUaWT. Now I'm wondering if any of the other "debut novels" that I found on various lists were not truly the author's debut novel.
I’m listening to the audiobook, and just finished the chapter “The Tower”. Definitely creepy so far, and a perfect fit for dark academia. Not sure yet how much I like it.
Sorry for going a it MIA for a while. Real life real lifed in the most unexpected and tragic way there last week. Ready to get back to discussing this book... and starting to read it...
This book is shelved on like all the shelves. |
Fiction, Mystery, Horror, Thriller, Gothic, Contemporary, Fantasy... and the theme of the month has me thinking it might have an element of dark academia?
As you read think about where you would shelve this book and on a more general topic how general/specific do you tend to get when you shelve?
Nadine wrote: "I use the Millions Most Anticipated lists to learn about new-to-me authors, and I guess I’m also susceptible to general GR buzz. I don’t shelve debuts as debuts, so I can’t easily go back and fi..."
I'm not on this list... must rectify.
Nadine wrote: "I've had some time to look through my past reads. Great debut novels that I've read:The Mothers by Brit Bennett
Homegoing by [author:Yaa Gyasi|14..."
Some really, really good books on that list. Very randomly and before the grand tragedy my life took both my sisters and I found out we were reading Weir's most recent novel. I enjoyed it but like the Martian it is mostly devoid of women... I'm going to have to think about that.
Ella Minnow Pea is one of my all time favorite books. It is JOY.
I have read a huge number of your list and really liked most of them.
I'll toss one in. Meet Me At The Museum by Anne Youngson (who was 72 when her first novel was published in 2018. I really enjoyed but haven't tried her second.
Always good to be reminded we aren't done, yet.
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Ready to get back to discussing this book... and starting to read it...
This bo..."
I am sorry that you had to deal with tragedy.
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WOW!! So it's still not too late for me to write a book!! Of course, I have to have an idea for a book first ...
So, is anyone else reading this? I just finished the first year.
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Not at all. If I want to read a book, it goes on my TBR, though since I've become much more active in Goodreads reading challenges, I constantly am adding to my TBR from the reactions of other Goodreads members... So maybe I kinda do? LOL
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Through Goodreads members and also email messages from publishers, bloggers, and authors.
What are some great debut novels you have read that made you take notice?
Oh, wow.
The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
The Friday Night Knitting Club (Friday Night Knitting Club #1) by Kate Jacobs
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
Season of the Dragonflies by Sarah Creech
(Book club members STILL talk about all four of these years later!)
A Lost Wife's Tale by Marion McGilvary
The Blue Rose (English Garden Mystery #1) by Anthony Eglin
Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan
The Expats (Kate Moore #1) by Chris Pavone
The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow
Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist by Sunil Yapa
Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff
(Pretty much straight romance, fairly unique for me...)
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
The House Girl by Tara Conklin
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
Big Stone Gap (Big Stone Gap #1) by Adriana Trigiani
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Serafina and the Black Cloak (Serafina #1) by Robert Beatty
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
Jam on the Vine by LaShonda Katrice Barnett
The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan
The Atomic Weight of Love by Elizabeth J. Church
Finding Jake by Bryan Reardon
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye
(Kinda depressing but an amazing "atmospheric" novel!)
Okay. I am stopping now! 😉
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Ah, yes, both of those books! 👍😁
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The Mothers by Brit Bennett
Homegoing by [author:Yaa Gyasi|14..."
Ah, yes! So many great ones!!
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I am so sorry about that! Sending you positive coping energy. Thanks so much for picking this back up when you could!
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I just started this today and just started the second year. So far, I am enjoying it much more than I thought I would. But I don't know...it all depends on how grisly and/or scary it gets...
Lynn wrote: "Chrissy wrote: "So, is anyone else reading this? I just finished the first year."I just started this today and just started the second year. So far, I am enjoying it much more than I thought I wo..."
That's where I'm at too, exactly... the location and I'm liking itmore than I thought I might. But.... we'll see.
What was your craziest pet?I had small aquatic frogs. They were not against the rules.
If appropriate what is the craziest/most dumb flaunting dorm rules story you have?
usually there was some warning that the dorm inspection was coming down the hall so you had time to toss your decorative candles and other contraband in a drawer but once when we didn't the RA was like "You have to remove the wicks from those candles" and my roommate gras a candle and starts to take out the wick and he was horrified and under his breath in a cough, "You don't actually do it.. you say you did it when I ask you next week!"
Yes my school life was very tame.
I just finished Year Two, and although I think the setting and characters are well done… every time I think, ok, this is it, something will happen… nothing happens.
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It's true, not much happens in this book, it's all atmospher and no plot. Normally that kind of thing drives me crazy but this time it worked for me, I really clicked with this book and gave it five stars despite its thin plot.
Yeah, but for something that seems like a suspense or thriller, just seems like something should come of all the suspense? I still have 1/3 of the book to go though!
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Yes I completely understand why some readers are frustrated with the lack of action.
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Ha! Ha! I'll date myself here...a "pet rock"! Anyone else remember those? LOL 😉 Actually, for some odd reason, my mother actually brought home a baby chick in a cage and it ended up dying... 😢 She was working at Lilly at the time and it was some sort of give-away. Who knows what had been done to that chick or it's mother/father?
If appropriate what is the craziest/most dumb flaunting dorm rules story you have?
Nothing extraordinary. Of course, I wasn't in a dorm situation until college. My 'dorm room' freshman year was a temporary one setup in the basement of the dorm building to handle overflow since it was an unusually large entering class that fall. There were two bunk beds for four of us. I had the upperbunk right where one of the two small windows was. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time at night opening and closing that window and helping others in and out of it through MY bed! Naturally, there were nights when I was not in my bed 'cause I had snuck out as well! LOL 😁
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I don't remember us having a lot of restrictive dorm rules. I had a single in an all-girls dorm, so rules like "no smoking" didn't really matter so much, since I was the only one in my room; technically I wasn't supposed to be smoking in my room, but I probably just opened my window and hoped it didn't go under my door out to the hall. And we had no restrictions on overnight guests or visitors, we never had room inspection, and there were no rules on when we had to be in our room (so no need to "sneak out"). The drinking age was 19 back then, so I don't think the school even had rules about no alcohol. And we must not have had rules about no candles or incense, because I had both and I don't remember feeling "sneaky" about it!
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So I basically read this book in one day. I thought the writing was excellent for a debut novel. So very atmospheric! I mainly read for characterization, so the lack of action didn't bother me a bit. I was gratified that there were (at least IMO) no truly horrific moments other than (view spoiler)
I'm sure I'll have more thoughts since this book will sit with me for a while. But I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
Would you knowing only what the characters know at the start of the book take the deal and attend Catherine House?
Nadine wrote: "I didn't really have pets in college, but I did have a bird feeder suction cupped to my dorm room window. I was on the 5th floor. I got a lot of grackles at my feeder, and in retrospect I wonder if..."Guests had to check in after a certain hour and until a different hour in my dorm but it was coed and any dorm resident could go anywhere in the dorm without restriction at any hour of the day. And if your boyfriend came to visit during check in hours they would let him in and let him stay he just had to pick up his id in the morning but my roommate's boyfriend just usually arrived before the 9pm check in time and honestly was around so much I think most people thought he lived there... or he'd come in with a group of us so nobody's pay attention to him. Checking in wasn't a problem it was just a hassle when he'd get halfway home on Sunday and realize he'd left his ID.
We had a large first floor window that a friend of mine used to climb in occasinally but he lived in the dorm, just sometimes he chose to come in that way rather than walk all the way around.
And one year I lived in a place with tree branches that were scratching at our windows and it was midterms or finals or something so I grabbed my roommate's good kitchen sheers and leaned out the window and pruned the trees. Totally ruined the scissors but she says to the day it was worth it because those branches were ANNOYING.
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But all of these kids - especialy Ines - had absent parents, families that never checked on them, or they were completely on the run and disconnected from everyday life. Thats how these kids were selected for this program.
Yes I do remember the rooms, furnishings & decor being described as shabby. I don't remember everything being up-to-date.
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If I had been who I was at 17? NO WAY.
If I had been Ines? Yes, quite likely. Even if she had known the details, she still would have taken that risk. She was a deep optimist, always sure that things would somehow turn out ok in the end, although she would probably never describe herself that way.
Didn’t read reviews before reading and now 34% in I still hardly have a clue about what’s going on…I do like the book though! As I’m a struggling student my self working through summer exams I absolutely connect to Ines’ study behaviours 😂
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I can't imagine ever living/studying in such a place! For one thing, there were few "females" I liked much at all when younger. It wasn't until I was 30 or so that I finally discovered several females with whom I bonded in a close interpersonal relationship. I don't get into most things the majority of young girls wanted to dwell on: BOYS/DATING, CLOTHES/FASHION, GOSSIP. Yeah, none of that interested me. I dated, but as soon as a boy began getting "serious," I was outta there! I despised talking about other people. Still do. And I guess I'm fortunate not to have had much interest in clothes or fashion, 'cause I didn't have much money to spend on such things...
I am an only child who lived with her mother and grandmother and had no contact with my biological father or his family. I often think I might have felt much different about females if I'd had a sister, but who knows? I may have disliked them even more so! LOL 😉
As much as I disliked my mother, I would have never wanted to leave my grandmother until high school was done. I think I was a rather "late bloomer."
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That is hysterical! I can just imagine someone doing that! It would be annoying, especially when trying to study or just concentrate on something!
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I do like the book though! As I’m a struggling student my self working through summer exams I ab..."
Uh-oh. I hope your grades are okay in the end! 😳
I'm pretty close to my family so I wouldn't take that deal, but I can absolutely see people who would. I could see situations in which I would. I'm finding the atmosphere in this book to be much more of a character in the book than most of the characters. Do you feel the same way? Discuss the atmosphere... or the characters.
I'm having a hard time with the characters. I don't feel like I've spent enough time with more than 2 or three of them to get a feel for anything much other than Inez.
I think the narration helped me with feeling like the other characters were different people, Yaya in particular. But yeah, Inez is the focus for sure.
I'm not a visual person. I don't visualize when I read which is unusual and so often if there is a lot of physical description in a scene it goes a bit over my head. So, I say this with the full realization that I might have missed it but I feel like there was far more description of the physical locations in the school than there were the people, but like I said visualization is a bit beyond me.
I finished and though I liked the experience of reading the book, the narration is captivating and hypnotic, I do not actually like the book. It feels like it didn't add anything to my life, or mind or viewpoints. I was very excited in the first 1/3 of the book (year one), where everything gets set up for a major adventure! Creepy house, creepy students, strange experiments, what more could you want. But these things do not get worked out as they could have. Towards the end I checked if maybe this was part of a series of books or something, if it were I would probably be more on board with it. Several more books dedicated to exploring the ground and mystery, yes sign me up just make sure I actually find out something in the end.
Plasma. Would you want to work with Plasma? Would you have submitted to all those plasma experiments? Were you curious to learn more?
I finished the book and definitely enjoyed it. However, I was hoping for more with the ending. For me there were a few, "oh, that's surprising" moments, but nothing earth shattering, which I was hoping for in this "dark academia" book. Glad I read it though. Just one more reason I like the Pop Sugar Challenge - it keeps me reading all kinds of different books I might not have picked on my own.
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yes I was hoping the ending would be a bit more somehow.
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The whole plasm thing confused me and it's a testament to how much Iiked her writing style that I was able to look past the fact that the plasm didn't make sense. What were these "clips"??? Were they like hair clips? Were they needles that went into the skin? How did plasm affect people? was it injected into you? breathed in? absorbed through the skin? some sort of remote osmosis effect???
Chrissy wrote: "Yeah, but for something that seems like a suspense or thriller, just seems like something should come of all the suspense? I still have 1/3 of the book to go though!"I'm about 75% in, and I'm hoping that all this build up leads to the conclusion I'm thinking.
Ok… i’’ a bit late but i’m starting the book 🤣
Just finished it (long august months lol).Had a hard time finishing it.
Lacks action i find.
Really did not like it
Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge
Books mentioned in this topic
Homegoing (other topics)The Mothers (other topics)
The School of Essential Ingredients (other topics)
Tell the Wolves I'm Home (other topics)
The Friday Night Knitting Club (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Brit Bennett (other topics)Kate Jacobs (other topics)
Marion McGilvary (other topics)
Carol Rifka Brunt (other topics)
Erica Bauermeister (other topics)
More...
Brandy B is the 'mover and shaker' who has graciously volunteered to lead this discussion. Thank you, Brandy!
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