As a lover of The Handmaid’s Tale, which the blurb said this was similar to, I thought this would be a great read.  However, I was very disappointed with it overall.  I lost patience with the main character around half way through and found her very irritating and wouldn’t have continued to the end of the book  except I received this free copy in return for a review and so felt obligated to continue.  There was so much potential in the idea and yet the plot didn’t live up to that expectation and the passive nature of the character and not challenging the controlling/grooming actions of others was unbelievable.  Shame the original idea wasn’t carried through more effectively.

Rose accepts a position as Head of Classics at Caldonbrae, an exclusive girls boarding school. But clearly there are secrets, no-one is willing to explain to her exactly how the school works, and at least one of the pupils seems to be obsessed with her. The school is willing to make sure her unwell mother is properly provided for, but they hold all the power and don't keep Rose informed. Some of her classes are more engaged than others, and start to ask more detail about the women of Greek myths.

It's set in the 90s, but even for the 90s the big secret feels quite dated. That's partly the point, but it does stretch credibility somewhat. And it feels a lot like it could all have been resolved if Rose had just sat down and asked proper questions of her colleagues instead of them all dodging round issues (but then so many books have that issue!). It's readable, and the younger girls who get into the classical myths are an engaging group. And the Greek myths are a nice inclusion, which break up the story but help to give both Rose and the girls more agency.

I received a free eARC of this book via Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Firstly, I'd like to note that the format of the eARC was not very well done - there were random line breaks, sections where paragraphs were not spaced out, no page break between chapters, sections where the font was in a different colour, etc. In the interest of fairness, I must say this impacted on the flow of my reading, and I might have found the narrative a little smoother to follow had this been fixed.

However, I really struggled to get through this book for many more reasons than the formatting. There were definitely elements with strong potential within it, but I don't feel that those elements were ever realised.

My greatest issue with Madam is that it felt centred around some highly tokenistic and hypocritical versions of feminism and anti-racism. In the attempt to liberate its women and girls, this book often falls short with a less visible, more subversive form of oppression. For a story that tries to tackle a hyperbolised form of institutionalised sexism, I was disappointed by how regressive and oversimplified some of the content was. For example, the main character - who is supposedly meant to save the girls of Caldonbrae from their gender-based oppression -  says that she wears lipstick every day to defy her feminist mother.

The intersection of racism with sexism is also inherently problematic, as for a substantial portion of the book, the main character - supposedly outraged at the exclusion of BAME students at the school - simply refers to every non-white student at Caldonbrae Hall as "the Asian girls", making no effort to directly interact with them until she is assigned a brief period of looking after them. They are present as a secondary theme rather than as characters in their own right. A scene in the second half of the book also shows a problematic and appropriative attitude towards geisha culture.

The Gothic elements of the storytelling lack lustre. The prose is not particularly atmospheric - though sections of the book are strong; it feels that the author hits her stride particularly well between 50% and 80% of the digital version - and it is very obvious where each plot device is leading. The structure of the story is very obviously formulaic, and it relies heavily on Gothic tropes which are mediocre in their execution - stormy weather, disruption of private spaces and personal property, cleansing through fire, wrongful imprisonment. The sense of threat to Rose, the main character, does not feel more the vaguely present until very late in the book, and it makes absolutely no sense as to why she doesn't at least attempt to leave the school earlier. 

I took real umbrage to the ending. It felt incredibly lazy and very predictable to resolve the problem of the school with a mass fire, begun during a ball for the upper sixth girls, their future husbands, and other adults involved in their grooming. The most authentic element of this key plot point was that the girls who set the fire referred to Dido, Queen of Carthage, and her suicide atop a mock funerary pyre. This event also has major plot holes, as it is inferred that every one of the younger girls got out safely, whilst every single one of the adults involved in their abuse died - yet only a few pages before the fire begins, the main character sees one of the upper sixth girls slipping into the grounds with an older man, so the reader knows that not every single guest is in the hall where our narrator insists the adults were trapped.

I enjoyed the Classical inferences, but felt that they could have been much better embedded in the story itself, rather than presenting each portrait of a Classical woman as an "interlude". The conversations that Rose, the main character, has with her three favourites - Freddie, Nessa, and Daisy - were by far the best element of the book. I really loved the characters of Freddie, Nessa, and Daisy, and felt that this story would have been better told through their eyes. Most other characters felt quite fragmentary and two dimensional. These three girls, however, were handled well, with a good blend of sympathy and honesty towards their characters.

I have to admit that I'm disappointed that this is one of Quercus' hero/flagship publications for 2021. It feels significantly behind the times, and erroneously lacking in nuance, especially considering the very difficult central theme of child grooming and abuse. I may have been slightly more receptive to the book if it hadn't been lauded so much.

With all the makings of a classic gothic novel, Phoebe Wynne’s MADAM definitely didn’t fail to impress! Following a young Classics teacher and her move to a new private school in Scotland, this book is full of the trials and tribulations of being a stranger in a new place... 📚
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Wynne’s protagonist, Rose, is headstrong, and curious about her new surroundings. As gruesome mysteries start to unfold around her, the truth about her new job begins to creep in.💔
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I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and can’t wait to receive my hard copy in February when the book will be published in the UK! 💚

A gripping chilling read which was horrifyingly uncomfortable in part.  
I think there was just about the right balance of greek mythology mixed in with the 'story' so it didn't dominate but instead provided a backdrop for change.

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

There is something utterly claustrophobic and unsettling about this novel. Rose is a teacher with experience in state schools, and is offered a job in a girls-only boarding school in Scotland - Caldonbrae. It’s prestigious, one of the top schools in the country, and boasts excellent prospects for the girls who are educated there.

Despite being set in the early nineties, Rose seems to be transported into the late 1800s as soon as she sets foot in Caldonbrae. Antiquated ideas and dialogue, an odd feeling of submission, and a lack of independence for all permeates the walls. Tradition must be adhered to, modern progressions are ignored entirely, and the girls seem to be heavily indoctrinated into the system. Rose soon finds that leaving the school, even to visit the nearby village, is frowned upon, alongside her more ‘modern’ ideas for the girls’ advancement in their careers and lifestyles. Feelings of imprisonment soon creep in, and small hints as to the true nature of the school create unbridled feelings of tension.

I was swept along with the mysteries of this archaic school and its belief systems, but I did find the pace and structure to be slightly slow and jarring. Wynne flips around in her narrative regularly, with some sections seeming to be quite irrelevant. There’s a lot of moments of Rose pondering the same things continuously, or walking in moody weather with no real crux to the thing.

The characters, particularly the students, seemed a bit one-dimensional, but I am prepared to put that down to how the school was trying to model them into perfection. Of course, Rose was placed there by Wynne as a conflict, to rise up against the moral problem, but there was no real explanation to why the school had chosen her, despite closeted reasons being hinted at. If there are secrets to be kept, why recruit a young independent thinker who has a high likelihood of attempting to overthrow the whole thing?

Nonetheless, this is a great read for uncovering a mystery. There’s a real creeping dread throughout all of Wynne’s prose, and her cloak and dagger narrative was very well executed. A really disconcerting idea that all is not as it seems in boarding schools, or indeed, anywhere.

This was an ambitious and interesting idea for a book, I did think the author could have gone further though and really tested Rose with even more extraordinary and abominable lessons for the girls! 
It was a bit of a slow-burn and took a little too long for Rose to realise what was going on - especially as the reader knew long before she did! So that was a little frustrating. Plus the narration was a little uneven, moving from scenes/days quite quickly and sometimes even tenses. Also the setting of the 1990s didn't work for me, it felt far older and could have been set easier in the 50s or 60s maybe? 
But I did enjoy it and looked forward to reading every night.

Brilliantly dark.

This is a fantastic read, chilling eerie and atmospheric.

Set in a girls boarding boarding school in Scotland, 26 year old Rose Christie joins the staff as new Classics head of department.

Very clever interweaving of classical tales throughout the story.

I gobbled this book up and I will certainly read anything written by Phoebe Wynne. A great debut.

Oh dear. To begin with, this was quite dark and broody if a little unlikely. By the time I was about two thirds in I was beginning to get a bit fed up with the main protagonist. By three quarters of the way through I thought it became just plain silly. In fact there was one particular scene if I'd not known something about the author, I'd've thought it was written by a frustrated teenage boy. Sorry to be blunt, but this wasn't my cup of tea at all.

This novel's blurb references both The Secret History and Rebecca and I can sort of understand why - it's a novel that contains references and quotes from Greek Classics and in essence is a campus novel (The Secret History) and it has a female protagonist (Rebecca) but beyond that I failed to see much similarity, and I don't think it does the book any favours expecting something to similar to either as I'm fairly sure most readers would be disappointed.

Rose is a teacher of Classics who is unexpectedly appointed as head of department at an elite school for girls - Caldonbrae Hall, elite both in terms of results and in terms of its students, most of whom are from wealthy and established families. The school is a nice creation and is probably the most fully realised thing in the book, you get a sense of it's traditions and how it is run as the story goes on, and it feels mysterious from the outset.

Unfortunately that mystery is pretty thin and for most readers the central mystery/twist will be realised before (perhaps long before) Rose gets there. Whether it's intentional or not, it's signposted and hinted at strongly enough that it's not too hard to work out where the novel is going, or at least where the central mystery is going. 

Rose herself is a frustrating character. She shows intelligence and is inquisitive, yet is extremely slow on the uptake for much of the book. She uses female characters from Myth (Medea, Medusa, Agrippina. potted precis of which begin some chapters - which adds some colour) to teach her students about being strong, about being independent and empowered. In a sense to rebel against the dictates of the school, but at key points Rose is weak. She doesn't stand up when she should, she allows herself to be cowed when you would expect her to yell and so the different elements of the character rub up against each other, and tend to be plot serving rather than actually their to give us a full rounder character.

The same is true for most of the novel, it feels like everything that happens, happens only to reach the denouement, so the feminist teachings of Rose serve no purpose but to make the ending work. Similarly the contrivance of Rose being appointed to her position only exists to bring a dissenting voice into the hallowed halls of the school. You could argue that a lot of literature is contrived in this way, and that may be so, but in other hands, I feel that this novel could have been handled in a slightly less jarring more flowing manner, without the sense that things only happen for the sake of the book. 

It's a shame because there is some promise here, and the idea is a good one, it just never quite hits what it aims for.

I thought this was an excellent premise and I loved the setting and atmosphere. And I was gripped while reading - although it did feel as if it could have been a little shorter. I did figure out the twists fairly early (except for the final one with Jane) but that didn’t matter since I wanted to see how it would all resolve.

I really enjoyed the inclusion of Classics stories and I loved how they began to impact on some of the girls. 

But Rose as a protagonist was frustrating at times - she felt passive and I wanted her to fight more - with her intelligence as well as with her emotion. It was hard to connect with her as a character and I felt held at arm’s length. 

Overall though, this is absolutely worth a read - it will prompt opinion and discussion and it is a brilliant concept.

Absolutely brilliant premise and I loved all the mystery behind the school.
It was a really interesting story and had me shocked, disgusted and appalled pretty much the entire time. Particularly when you find out what’s truly going on! I had my suspicions throughout but when they were confirmed and then worsened, wow!

However, a lot of parts also fell flat for and weren’t for me! I didn’t really enjoy the snippets of the Classic stories interspersed. They were interesting but I felt it broke up the book, rather than add to the flow of it.
I also found it very slow and found Rose to be infuriating! In some moments, she seemed very powerful and in others, so docile. I appreciate the situation wasn’t crystal clear but I really wanted her to put up a fight!

Unfortunately I didn't finish this book. It was way too slow and predictable for me. I struggled laboriously to page 200, then realised I still had 200 pages to go. I had other books I wanted to get on and read, and this just wasn't grabbing me. The teacher was so annoying, I can't believe she stayed in her job longer than a month.  Any real person would have been totally weirded out and resigned, especially after what happened to her within her first 2 weeks of the term.

The idea of the story was great - that's why I requested it. The reality was disappointing.

Rose Christie starts works at Calonbrae Hall, a boarding school for privileged girls that come from wealthy and  influential families. The school has been going for years and is located in a remote part of Scotland. She is employed as the head of classics and cannot believe her luck at being recommended for the job.

Rose soon realises that maybe this is not her dream job after all. The pupils are reluctant to learn and education seems to be on the back burner for these elite girls. 

The male teaches are called Sir and the female teachers Madam . Rose has her own ideals on how to teach ,but this traditional school wants to bend her to their shape and make her like all the other teachers. What did happened to her predecessor and why does nobody talk about her? 

A riveting book that held my attention. 

I loved the classic stories that Rose taught and looked forward to their extracts. Loved how the stories contained strong female characters, where the school is churning out mild, disciplined young ladies preparing them to be the perfect wives!!

A riveting debut book that’s beautifully written. 

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

Madam is an atmospheric, quite intense story about Caldonbrae Hall, a long established boarding school for girls set in Scotland preparing the girls to be “ready to serve society”. Rose, a young teacher, joins the school as a classics teacher, the first teacher they have had join the establishment for quite some time and only following the mysterious departure of her predecessor. It’s not long before Rose starts to question the purpose of the school, what exactly they’re preparing the girls for, and whether she will ever be able to escape the reach of the power in charge.

Madam is an interesting take on a subject that will simultaneously both appeal and horrify feminists, myself included. So not to spoil things, I’ll just say that the school has far reaching connections and is dictated and funded by patriarchy. This isn’t just a school, it’s a cult, a dark secret institution in which rich men have the power and girls/women must answer to them - it’s demonstrated in a very extreme way but it’s a concept that is very easy to understand. I did particularly like the parallel of the classics lessons, with Rose teaching the girls of Greek mythological  women deciding their own fate, these stories not always positive but still women taking back the reins from men in power, whatever the outcome. 

The ending did feel incredibly rushed, with the characters and plot backed into a corner with a very dramatic, explosive reaction to get past this. This ending in a way actually put me off the book a little as I suppose i expected more, possibilities too much. I must remind myself that the purpose of a feminist book isn’t to abolish the patriarchy altogether. It fits with Rose’s lessons but again, it did feel rushed. That said, I did appreciate this story and would recommend it, thank you NetGalley for the early copy to review.

I found "Madam" quite dry to begin with - it was such a quiet and unassuming start to a novel that I almost gave up a few chapters in. But something kept me reading and I'm so glad it did - the twist, when it comes, is so deliciously cruel, and beautifully revealed. The author does a wonderful job of recreating the claustrophobic and insular nature of an elite girls' boarding school, and builds on the sinister feeling so well that it creeps up on the reader almost unawares. 

A dark, disturbing, and eerie novel. Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for providing me with a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

Rose Christie, a 26-year old Classics teacher, gets a job at Caldonbrae, an exclusive girls-only boarding school in a remote windswept coastal area of Scotland. Her excitement at this new challenge soon turns to dismay when she realizes that, at this elite establishment, not all is what it seems. The conservative mentality of the teachers and students is a culture shock for independent-minded Rose. However, this is just the start of her problems. There seem to be more sinister – and dangerous – secrets related to the departure of her predecessor. The more facts Rose uncovers, the greater her conviction that she should escape Caldonbrae. But considering the long-reaching tentacles of the institution, does she even have such a choice?

Phoebe Wynne’s debut novel is touted as a feminist Gothic work, with “shades of The Secret History”. This is what drew me to it in the first place, but I am sorry to say that I was quite disappointed, and it took some effort for me to complete the book. For a novel set in 1992, the facts described in the book are quite over-the-top (even though, admittedly, chauvinistic mentalities are still rampant thirty years later). So, perhaps, Madam is best approached as a fable or fantasy – not unlike the Dyachenko’s Vita Nostra, but with a more feminist slant and without the more abstruse fantastical elements. Even if one is fine with that, though, the story remains unconvincing and the dialogue and narrative style not particularly striking or original. The characters seem stilted and, for a feminist lead, Rose often comes across as rather pathetic. She spends most of the book going around asking questions and getting no answers – at one point, her students actually tell her “…stop asking us questions, it’s so frustrating” and it’s a feeling which, as a reader, I fully shared.

Despite my reservations I did find something to enjoy in the novel. The suffocating sense of dread was well brought out, the Gothic elements were suitably atmospheric and I liked the idea of the notes or summaries about women from Classical history and myth and the way their stories were worked into the tale. For fairness’ sake, I should also note that some reviewers have compared Phoebe Wynne to such luminaries as Naomi Alderman and Margaret Attwood. I must confess I’m less enthusiastic.

Rose, a Latin teacher, is approached by the mysterious and prestigious Caldonbrae Hall to lead its Classics Department. But once there, she discovers that all is not as she expected. Girls in long white dresses crowd the halls, mocking her attempts to teach them Greek and Roman myths. Secrets abound, such as why Rose's predecessor left so suddenly, and what the real purpose of the school is. Will Rose make it through her first year? Or should she run away as fast as she can?

This was a fairly derivative, top-heavy story, with flat characters and an identity crisis. I guessed the big twist early on, and it was agonizing waiting for Rose to get there too. The author held back from fully committing to her surprise: either go all in (and risk alienating some readers) or take out a couple of the more shocking scenes and tone down the story. Rose is incredibly naive, and time after time fails to fully understand the secrets revealed to her. Once she has a better idea of what's going on, I also found it kind of unbelievable that she kept hoping she could effect change.

Unlike some of the other reviewers, I appreciated the periodic stories of Greek and Roman women, including Medea, Medusa, and Dido. But I don't think they were woven into the story as much as they could have been. Instead, they just added to the length of the book, which could have been cut down and become more effective. Or the excess could have been reapportioned to other parts of the story, like Rose's history with her mother. The ending too, needed revision, not fully ambiguous, not fully concrete.

All in all, a rather disappointing read.

What an unpleasant book. Unpleasant characters, setting, happenings. A disturbing read and not one I enjoyed. I received an e-ARC from Netgalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review