#emily m danforth

[amberjacket]

if anyone knows any other pieces of media like this please please lemme know em

[booksandrainyyfilms]

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018) director Desiree Akhavan

[bones-clouds]

favourite books of 2023:

“plain bad heroines”

emily m. danforth

“that version, as with so many of the stories we tell about our history, erased a woman – a plain, bad heroine – in favor of a less messy and more palatable yarn about two feuding brothers from new england.”

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Historical Fiction Book Bracket: Round 2B

Choose a book:

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

Voting ended onJul 5, 2025

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

When Cameron Post's parents die suddenly in a car crash, her shocking first thought is relief. Relief they'll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl.

But that relief doesn't last, and Cam is soon forced to move in with her conservative aunt Ruth and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. She knows that from this point on, her life will forever be different. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in and leaving well enough alone (as her grandmother might say), and Cam becomes an expert at both.

Then Coley Taylor moves to town. Beautiful, pickup-driving Coley is a perfect cowgirl with the perfect boyfriend to match. She and Cam forge an unexpected and intense friendship—one that seems to leave room for something more to emerge. But just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, ultrareligious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to 'fix' her niece, bringing Cam face-to-face with the cost of denying her true self—even if she's not exactly sure who that is.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a stunning and unforgettable literary debut about discovering who you are and finding the courage to live life according to your own rules.

Setting: Montana, early 1990s

Coming of age, rural literature, 1990s, young adult

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

Endorsement from submitter #1: "In an alternate London, boys born with violet eyes become Speakers, mediums who can communicate with the dead, and girls born with violet eyes become their wives. 16-year-old Silas Bell is desperate to avoid becoming another man's wife, but his attempts end with him institutionalised and diagnosed with 'Veil Sickness', a disorder turning violet-eyed girls mad. When the ghosts of former patients appear to beg him for help, he must solve the mystery of what, exactly, happens to everyone society throws away."

Endorsement from submitter #2: "T4T and autistic representation"

Mors vincit omnia. Death conquers all.

London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he’ll be married by the end of the year. It doesn’t matter that he’s needed a decade of tutors to hide his autism; that he practices surgery on slaughtered pigs; that he is a boy, not the girl the world insists on seeing.

After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton’s Sanitorium and Finishing School. The facility is cold, the instructors merciless, and the students either bloom into eligible wives or disappear. So when the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton’s innards and expose its rotten guts to the world—as long as the school doesn’t break him first.

Setting: Victorian London, 1883

Horror, historical fiction, gothic, fantasy, paranormal, Victorian, 1880s, young adult

[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.

[dearest-loveliest-elizabeth]

Oh, Cameron, we’re really on it now

[plainbadpodcasters]

Plain Bad Podcasters | Lark & Alex

Join Lark and Alex as they re-read and analyze the lesbiest book of all time, emily m. danforth’s ”Plain Bad Heroines.”

The podcast It destroyed its cage Yes YES The podcast is out

[rayless-reblogs]

2024 Book Recommendations

I have an embarrassment of riches this year -- I had the chance to read a lot, and I kept finding so many good books. So many that instead of my normal ten recs, you're getting fifteen.

As always, these recommendations are not complete endorsements. Especially with the older books, there are definitely elements present that are questionable and even offensive.

Dragons – Pamela Wharton Blanpied (fantasy written as nonfiction, the first section recounts what happens when dragons invade Earth, the second section is a treatise on the habits and biology of dragons, and the third is a fascinating series of field notes from those who dare to befriend the monsters)

The Chatham School Affair – Thomas H Cook (mystery, a rural school, a beautiful lonely teacher, a lake, luscious language, loaded with atmosphere, you keep making and remaking your theories as you guess what happened)

Plain Bad Heroines – Emily M Danforth (mystery, braided narrative between the early twentieth century and present day, copious narrator commentary, cheeky footnotes, extremely funny but also extremely dark, gothic tropes, mostly female cast)

Cloud Cuckoo Land – Anthony Doerr (sci-fi, braided narrative spanning centuries, the story of one ancient text's journey through history, ancient Greece, medieval Constantinople, the present day in a small-town library, space travel and ai, it all comes together across the endless reach of time and you feel a lot)

Fanny Herself – Edna Ferber (pre-WW1 coming of age women's story, old-fashioned Anne of Green Gables thoughtfulness and sweetness in some places, rousingly modern in other places, strong focus on the heroine's Jewish identity, extremely funny narrative voice, the love of nature versus the industrial verve of Chicago, will our heroine keep her soul?)

The Vows of the Peacock – Alice Walworth Graham (Middle Ages, poetic fantastical language, Isabella the She-Wolf of France, messy politics, a darkly sexy historical villain, a complex but at times quite moving arranged marriage, an absorbing female protagonist)

A Thousand Ships – Natalie Haynes (Homer's women retell Homer's stories, angrily, tragically, bitchily, including many women you might not have thought of [and it isn't just the women Homer mentioned – we get into the weeds], the story is cut into bite-sized pieces that still offer filling food for thought)

The Masqueraders – Georgette Heyer (Georgian-era glitz and witty repartee, the heroine lives as a man, her brother lives as a woman, their father is full of wild schemes that might very well get them all executed for treason, the romance is a slow burn, and we get highwaymen)

Venetia – Georgette Heyer (a Regency-era GH romance, if you know GH then you know she's the author every other Regency romance writer is trying to be, it's funny, it's daring, it's tender, GH's romances are solid, but this one especially stands out for its strong-willed and capable heroine)

The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson (the house is a character, and not a nice one, psychological instability, unreliable narrator, creeping inchoate horror, whose hand am I holding, let's dwell on the unhappiness of being a smart woman in the 1950s)

Thornhedge – T Kingfisher (Sleeping Beauty but WHAT IF, I love the heroine, her name is Toadling, it's funny, it's romantic, it's thoughtful, it's even folkloric, there's a lot about ugly lady lake trolls, the prose reads beautifully, and it's compact, it doesn't waste your time and is short enough to knock out in a day or two)

The Silver Metal Lover – Tanith Lee (sci-fi, awkward dystopian-glam girl falls in love with a robot, whom she does not own, the sci-fi is as soft as pudding but it's more about the vibes anyway, inimitably stylish Tanith Lee weirdness, the robot is an absolute doll along with being a robot)

Pony Confidential – Christina Lynch (a pony is on a revenge mission against his former Horse Girl, but what if it was both funny and serious, but what if there was also a murder mystery, but what if we dwelt on human-animal negligence a la Black Beauty, but what if we also brought in Homer's Odyssey, it gets emotional)

The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich – Deya Muniz (fantasy, graphic novel, nonbinary protagonist lives as a man and is appalled to suddenly fall in love with the local heroic princess, gorgeous gorgeous shoujo-ish art, also very funny, it will make you crave cheese)

The Alice Network – Kate Quinn (WW1 and WW2, braided narrative, women acting as spies in occupied France, little-known historical events unfold on the page, so much Baudelaire, an old heroine and a young heroine and both are smart and bitter and compelling, but there's still room for some sweet romance and sharp humor)