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A 16-year-old girl in an isolated Boarding School of Horrors full of tension, fear and emotional issues begins to write in a diary, confiding her growing suspicions of the dark-eyed new girl, Ernessa, and unrealised crush on her roommate and longtime friend, Lucy. The series of ominous disasters that occur throughout the academic year cause paranoia to spread through the school, until reality and dreams mingle together into a corrupted blend of the anxieties, lusts and neuroses of adolescence. At the center of the story, written in diary form, is a question that gives the book its undercurrent of gothic menace - is Ernessa really a vampire, or is it all part of the narrator's imagination? Originally a book by Rachel Klein and published in 2002. A film adaptation was released in 2012 directed by Mary Harron.
This work provides examples of:- Abstract Apotheosis: Ernessa, representing sublimation, sex and the future.
- Adaptation Decay: The writing in the book was both horrific and stunningly atmospheric. The movie was pretty good, but left out the major theme of mental illness, something that the entire plot hinged on.
- And YMMV, but why the hell did they decide to set it in the 2000s instead of the 1960s? The setting in the book really added to the stifling unpleasantness.
- Afraid of Blood: Beth, the "little mouse" who feebly attempts to kill herself for attention and interrupts the narrator's sleep.
- Aloof Ally: Dora.
- Anger Born of Worry
- Animal Motifs: Moths, who cluster in Ernessa's room trying to get to the moon. The narrator also reminisces about one evening with her father:
"One night, in a tangle of wild honeysuckle that grew over the fence and buried us in its scent, we saw a pale green moth with two long tails that fluttered like ribbons in a little girl's hair. The luna moth was as large as a bird. The yellow eyes on its wings gleamed in the light . . . Finally, we went to bed, but I couldn't sleep. I listened to the whirring wings and insect bodies banging against the screen. Every sound outside was the green luna, trying to get into my room to show itself to me one more time." - Antagonist In Mourning: Averted.
- Anxiety Dreams: All of them.
- Apocalyptic Log: Or possibly not.
- Asexuality: The narrator assumes this about Ernessa.
- Badass Bookworm: Dora, shown in her verbal spar with Ernessa on Dionysian mythology.
- Beauty Is Bad
- Birds of a Feather
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Lucy.
- Break the Haughty
- Bungled Suicide: Ernessa, in a way.
- Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them
- Chalk Outline: In blood after Dora's death.
- Cherry Blossoms
- Clingy Jealous Girl: The narrator.
- The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: Twice, in passing.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Or was she?
- Cultured Badass: Ernessa, Dora and the narrator.
- Daddy's Girl: Lucy, with the added hints of abuse (with sinister implications, her father won't let her cut her long blonde hair), and the narrator.
- Damaged Soul: Ernessa and the narrator's father in her dreams.
- Dandere: The narrator thinks of herself as this until the revelation in the diary entry just before Lucy's death.
- Dark Magical Girl
- Daylight Horror: Lucy's body being found at dawn.
- Death by Sex: Implied.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Ernessa
- Devil in Plain Sight
- Did You Think I Can't Feel?:
"My father died too. Has everybody forgotten that?" I shouted." - The Disease That Shall Not Be Named
- Dissonant Serenity: Ernessa and the narrator.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!
- Dream Within a Dream: Several times, often simultaneously occurring with sleep paralysis-induced hallucinations.
- The Drifter
- Driven to Suicide: Ernessa may or may not have committed suicide by slitting her wrists after her father's death (also a possible suicide), which act could have made her a vampire - if she was one, considering the Unreliable Narrator. The narrator states this in one of the very last entries in her journal before she tries to burn down her school, Through the Eyes of Madness. The narrator also contemplates this act, but doesn't go through with it. Her father did this, too, opening the possibility that the narrator was imprinting her past onto Ernessa, and fantasising about ending her life in the same way.
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Lucy, and the mentioned-in-passing character The Zombie.
- Dying Alone: Averted; the narrator's father is described as saving "one last breath" for her, but her cat deliberately tries to avoid company as it is dying.
- Dying as Yourself: The narrator's father.
- Eating Lunch Alone: A couple of times.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette
- Emotionless Girl: Ernessa, who never once displays any emotions, even when alone, and barely has vocal inflection.
- Empathic Environment: The seasonal changes.
- Empty Shell: Portrayed realistically as a result of grief and depression!
- Erotic Dream
- Evil Eyebrows
- Evil Foreigner
- Extreme Doormat
- Five Stages of Grief: The narrator, in the entries reflecting on her father's suicide and Dora's death.
- Flower Motif: Blossom.
- Friendless Background: The narrator is never mentioned as having friends before she came to the Residence.
"I had to learn how to have friends. To be normal." - Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Lucy, who even after her return from the hospital and the brink of death talks about her new ones all the time; partially lampshaded when the narrator comments on how Lucy seems to have not changed at all from her experience.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: The narrator's diary entries are noticeably more distressed and insane in periods of isolation from her fellow pupils.
- Gossipy Hens: Most of the girls.
- Groundhog Day Loop
Ernessa's old, old. Her life repeats itself like Lucy's horrible record, skipping over and over, always at the same spot. The moon shadow. She's waiting for my life to become stuck like that. - Growing Up Sucks: For Sofia physically, who suffers from extremely heavy periods, and for a good deal of the other characters emotionally, including the narrator in her wish to return to her childhood before her father's suicide.
- Averted, however, where a younger narrator compares her body to that of her fellow students in the changing rooms.
- Hair Contrast Couple: Ernessa and Lucy.
- Hands Off Parenting: The narrator's mother, who (for bonus points!) is also an artist.
- Hates Everyone Equally
- Hates Small Talk: Both Ernessa and the narrator.
- Haunted Heroine
- Heroic BSOD
- Horror Hunger: The narrator theorises.
- How Dare You Die on Me!: Even after all her preparation for Lucy's death.
- Ice Queen: Ernessa, who only defrosts so the narrator can witness her practical immortality and ancient wisdom and talk to her.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad
- The Ingénue: The narrator's interpretation of Lucy and perhaps even the major theme of Lucy's personality.
- Inhuman Human: Possibly.
- Intelligence Equals Isolation: The narrator, after the respective death and expulsion of Dora and Charley.
- In the End, You Are on Your Own
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy
- Jerkass: Dora.
- Karma Houdini
- Kick the Dog: When Pater, the small dog whose only crime is a rather annoying yapping, is presumably killed by Ernessa, the narrator practically quotes this trope summary.
- Lesbian Jock: Assumed by Charley about Miss Bobbie.
- Lesbian Vampire
- Lipstick Lesbian
- Loners Are Freaks
- Luminescent Blush: In the restaurant scene.
- Mind Manipulation
- Mind Screw: Everywhere.
- Mood Swinger
- More than Mind Control: How vampires are described as getting close to their victims in one of the narrator's father's books. Exemplified in her interpretation of Lucy and Ernessa's relationship.
- Alternatively, one might be able to see it between her and Mr. Davies.
- Motor Mouth: Charley.
- Nietzsche Wannabe: Dora, to the extent that she writes a novel based on a fictional dialogue between the man himself and Brahms.
- Not Afraid to Die: By the end of the book.
- One Gender School
- The Ophelia:
"I was thinking about hair streaming out in the water like golden seaweed. The drowning Ophelia, with hard pink breasts." - Opposites Attract: Ernessa and Lucy.
- Parental Substitute: Mr. Davies.
- Personal Horror
- Psycho Lesbian: Possibly?
- Psychological Horror: THE WHOLE BOOK
- Rant Inducing Slight: Basically everything the narrator gets upset about.
- Sadist Teacher: Mrs. Halton.
"It's too late to see Lucy, ever. I don't think I can cry anymore. There are no tears left. When Mrs. Halton came out to check on us at quiet hour, I was waiting for her outside her sitting room. At first she tried to deny that anyone had been allowed to see Lucy, but when I said that I knew Ernessa had been to the hospital, she admitted that Ernessa had visited, but only twice, and very briefly each time. "Lucy asked for her." She said it in a very mean way. She knew she was hurting my feelings. When I insisted that she allow me to see Lucy, she said, "If we must continue this conversation, come into my room."" - Sanity Slippage
- Schoolgirl Lesbians
- Shadow Archetype: Ernessa and the narrator, or more popularly Ernessa and Lucy.
- Soap Opera Disease: Lucy, who seems to vary from day to day, although the narrator is convinced that there is a concrete reason.
- Sugar and Ice Personality: Lucy.
- Super Strength: Ernessa.
- Survivor Guilt: The narrator experiences this after both her father's suicide and Lucy's death.
- Tall, Dark and Bishoujo
- Teacher's Pet: The narrator is Mr. Davies's, and she believes that Ernessa is threatening her similar relationship with Mrs. Norris.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Everyone thinks it's there, but it's barely noticeable until near the end of the book.
- Time Lord: Ernessa seems to be able to do something like regenerating.
- Alternatively, Mrs. Norris is one.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl
- Victim of the Week: This is practically literal by the time the book ends.
- Virgin Sacrifice: Lucy?
- Weather Dissonance
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds
- Yandere
- You Are What You Hate
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