Flowers in the Attic

[mrv3000]

Ack! Flowers in the Attic flashbacks! Help me!

[Poll #935739]

ETA: Stupid lack of editing polls! Of course it should be "Not only haven't I read it, I've never heard of it." Yay for pedantic tendencies.

Comments

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

I had a serious love for My Sweet Audrina in about eighth grade, I suspect mostly because I had simply never run across any fictional family quite that fucked-up before. I still kinda like it, I suspect mostly because it wasn't part of a series, and thus the fucked-upness was relatively finite.

I probably wouldn't have read anything else of hers if I hadn't started there. I read FitA and another book or two in that series before I got bored, and didn't even bother with any of the others.

[misssimm.livejournal.com]

I loved FitA, although I was a bit fed up of the whole family by the time I finished the series!!

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of My Sweet Audrina before so had to google. V.C. Andrews really liked doing twisted family relationships, eh?

I can't remember how many of those FitA books I read. It may have just been one more. But I lost interest as well. The first book was all about the shock value, and the rest...

[geneeste.livejournal.com]

What was the plot of this book? Is it worth reading? (Incest? *Really*?)

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

So did the brother and sister end up getting married? I really can't remember.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Well...it's sorta a book you read in junior high because your parents have no idea what it's about if they happen to see it lying around. :D

The plot - basically there's 4 children whose mother takes them all to live with their grandparents. And there's a reason - I don't remember what - but the kids have to live in the attic and never let the grandfather know they exist. They can *never* leave the attic. I think a couple of years go by, the older kids start having sex, and the grandmother tries to kill them all off by poisoning them.

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

Isn't the grandfather actually the father? Or something like that. I seem to recall the kids being the product of incest themselves in some way, and the grandmother having brain embolisms about it all starting "again" or something...

[misssimm.livejournal.com]

Yep they did!

Then in the prequal it's explained that the reason the grandmother thought they'd sleep together (which they obvious did in the end) was because their parents were actually brother & sister as well but didn't know it.

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

It's a fairly dreadful book, which was made into an even more dreadful movie. Both are train-wreck fascinating.

[misssimm.livejournal.com]

Yep, their parents were half brother & sister but didn't actually know it.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's RIGHT.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

ACK! I'd blocked the movie!

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

I thought I remembered either reading that or having friends tell me that. It was quite the book in my circle of friends. :D

And *now* I remember that whole thing about their parents.

[kammgirl.livejournal.com]

I read a few of the books. There was some major cursedness (I know that's not a word) in that family.

[kammgirl.livejournal.com]

I thought the father was her uncle. Half brother to the grandfather?

[mylittleredgirl.livejournal.com]

YES. I totally saw, like, half the movie on TV one time and I think my eyes were bugged out of my head for a week.

I love your icon to a completely ridiculous degree. LOVE. EET.

I never read the book, though! I am newly fascinated by dysfunctional Young Adult Lit. I browsed through some great ones at Powells the other day -- a gay girl doesn't keep her gayness enough of a secret and is kicked out of the house and, liek, hunted down by her relatives; another girl is locked in an asylum for cutting herself and there's graphic detail of how she continues to injure herself from inside a padded room; and of course, all the usual ones about people getting raped by step-siblings and how anorexia is actually a pretty cool disease. I was totally disturbed at The State Of The World, because I totally forgot that Young Adult lit has always been a shock genre. So thanks for the reminder, yay! I guess!

I miss the Sweet Valley twins!

[mylittleredgirl.livejournal.com]

I'm oddly disappointed that no one on your flist wrote FitA fanfic, actually.

[misssimm.livejournal.com]

Nope, that's what they thought but they actually had the same parents (so no clue why I said half brother &sister before) and Camille (the mother) was raised by the grandmother but wasn't actually her bilogical child.

[misssimm.livejournal.com]

I've seen FilA Sims if they makes you feel any better! ;)

[kammgirl.livejournal.com]

Ah. I remember the mother always hating her and the attention the father gave her.

[mylittleredgirl.livejournal.com]

How? I thought there were some sort of morality defaults in the Sims that doesn't let your sim children have disturbing incestuous love. NOT THAT I TRIED OR ANYTHING.

Half-siblings, mebbe?

*disturbed*

[misssimm.livejournal.com]

Yep because Camille reminded her of her biological mother, Malcolm's young step mother whom he raped and hence she became pregnant!

And they were half brother and sister! Because the father (who's name escapes me) was the son of Malcolm's father as well.

I'd forgotten how twisted the family tree was until now! Once you get to Cathy's children it becomes even more ridiculous. There should be charts.

[kammgirl.livejournal.com]

Wow. Was the father's name Peter? The oldest son was Stephen I think.

[misssimm.livejournal.com]

It was for a photoshoot on Sims Top Model so maybe she didn't set them up as siblings? Unless there's a hack which is somewhat disturbing!

Link

[misssimm.livejournal.com]

I think it was Christopher as Cathy's brother was named after him, then the twins were Corey & Carrie.