Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Ines is alone and scared after a mysterious incident her senior year of high school.  Luckily, she has been accepted into the prestigious Catherine House.  It’s a school of higher learning with a three-year plan.  Part of this plan is cutting off contact with the outside world including your family and wearing the same clothes as everyone else.  Ines at first feels adrift at the school, but she makes friends and starts to realize that things are not quite right at the school.  There is a mysterious program, Plasm, that was ridiculed on the outside world and dismissed as a hoax, but Ines discovers it is still alive and active at Catherine House.  What is this mysterious Plasm curriculum and how does it impact the students?

 

I’ll admit the book was a bit slow for me at first.  You are following the prospective of Ines who is drunk and confused a lot at the start of the book.  Luckily, she settles down, makes friends, and starts to investigate.  Ines was running from something in her past that is alluded to, but not fully fleshed out.  I wish we would have learned more about that. It did stay consistent with the rest of the story and the confused thoughts of Ines.  I appreciated that this was the freshman class of 1996, which was the year I graduated from high school and started college.  There were a few references to music and CD players, but once at Catherine House, students are not allowed those luxuries.  It was also strange as you started getting into what was going on at this prestigious school of learning, it was very cult like and creepy.  I liked it.

 SPOILER ALERT:

Let’s talk about that ending.  I thought the ending was quite good.  Ines discovers that Catherine House is looking for lost souls like herself to use as part of the overall experiment.  They basically get plugged into the system and stay static in body and without thought.  Ines seems to be heading to that fate, but luckily through help from her friends she is able to escape to the outside.  What will happen to Ines now?  It’s interesting to think about.  Will the experiments ever be stopped at Catherine House?  Would she ever go back and set Baby free?

SPOILER END

Favorite Quote:

“But what if the space between this world and eternity wasn’t a happy place?  What if it was infinitely lonely and sad?”

Overall, Catherine House was a unique suspense novel with a flawed narrator.  I liked the concept and thought the ending gave one a lot to think about.

Book Source:  Review Copy from William Morrow.  Thank-you!