Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas-

My Review

Introduction:

In my search for more Dark Academia books I came across Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas in the same article which recommended Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. Seeing as I loved Ninth House so much, I thought I’d also give this book a try. It was… creepy… eerie… unusual?

There are so many words I could use to describe this book, so let’s take a look at why.

**Catherine House By Elisabeth Thomas**
Synopsis

'A delicious, diverse, genre-bending gothic, as smart as it is spooky' Chloe Benjamin

During your three years at Catherine House you will have no contact with those in the outside world.

Each of our students has been selected as someone who belongs here. You will give to Catherine and Catherine will give to you.

We will not let each other down.

Catherine House is a university like no other. Into its celebrated world steps Ines, a young woman who welcomes the school's isolation rather than its illustrious past. As the gates close and Ines finds herself start to be inevitably seduced by its magnetic power, she begins to realise the question isn't why she chose to come to Catherine House; but why Catherine House chose her.

'A brilliantly observed tale brimming with subtle malevolence' Irenosen Okojie

'Echoes of The Secret History and Never Let Me Go' Daily Mail

'Moody and evocative as a fever dream, CATHERINE HOUSE is the sort of book that wraps itself around your brain, drawing you closer with each hypnotic step' Washington Post

Check It Out

My Review

Rating: ★★★★

Catherine House follows Ines as she journeys through the three academic years required of students at Catherine House. Catherine House, an American college set behind enormous iron gates, requires much more of its students than the average American College student, who are not allowed to leave the premises for the entire duration of their studies. The students are promised a life of success and luxury after graduation, but at what cost? The syllabus is highly unusual, allowing each student to ‘concentrate’ on subjects which are both extremely niche, and specific to the college, such as Plasm Studies. Plasm, the material which makes up all other materials, is a bone of contention throughout the novel, surrounded by mystery and secrets.

This novel, at first, felt like a cult. Honestly, I expected there to be red Kool-Aid passed around at the ‘coming in’ that takes place during the first semester of the student’s first year. Instead, I was met with a rather unorthodox group hypnosis session featuring more Plasm, this time in pins that were embedded into the skulls of the participants. I was frustrated with Ines during the first part of the book. I didn’t understand why she’d tried so hard to get into the college only to not try and almost fail out during her first few months there. However, as the book went on, and I saw how caught up she became in the secrets of the college, I started to root for her a bit more. The turning point was definitely Baby’s death in the Tower, as after this she seemed to start taking things a bit more seriously. Honestly, I was still getting cult vibes, especially after Baby’s death, but I hung in there, my curiosity only growing as I got further and further into the story.

I found Ines’ relationship with Theo to be at first sweet, and exactly what the plot needed. It was only in the final chapters that I realised how contrived it had all become between them. I was rooting for Ines as she stole his key card and broke into M. Neptune’s lab, and I was especially horrified when I finally realised that the house was not a cult, but a front for experiments with Plasm which were trying to put an end to death and human suffering.

This sounds great in theory, right?

Wrong.

The house begins to turn out students who are neither dead, nor fully alive, instead being sustained by plasm itself, and fully connected to everything around them. This puts the coming in, and evening sessions the students go to a few times a week into perspective and context, as we realise that the staff at Catherine House are trying to relieve the student body of its individualism, and ‘free’ them by creating a collective instead.

Ines, confessing to breaking into the labs with Theo’s key card and setting one of the rabbit test-subjects free from its cage onto the lawn outside, is sent to the tower, and left there for months, naked and alone. It is then that we realise Theo and the Dean of Catherine House have been readying Ines for integration into their Plasm project. She has nobody outside of the school, and her happiness during term times during years 2 and part of 3 in the novel come to be a leverage point as Victoria tries to convince her to become part of Catherine House forever.

I loved this novel. It was a bit up and down at times and the main character was not one who was easy to love, but I felt overall it was well put together, and the concepts and plot twists were pulled off masterfully. The ending was perfect, and in a way I was glad that this was left open. It seems almost, to the reader, that outside of the walls of Catherine House, Ines might cease to exist, so I was glad that as soon as she made her escape, we were left to decide what happened next for ourselves. Overall, a stunning and creepy story, which I rate four stars!