Dear FYA readers,
Hi! It’s your friend Erin here, who probably owes you five or ten dollars and forgot your birthday last week, but this week she made you cupcakes, and also bought you a drink, so you grudgingly forgive her as you lick chocolate buttercream icing off your fingertips.
GUESS WHAT TIME IT IS?
If you guessed that it’s time for talking about incest, well, DING DING DING! Give yourself a prize!! (a virtual one, please. Our budget here at FYA is strictly directed towards advanced cocktails research.)
That’s right, folks! It’s time to start our review of that seminal Young Adult classic – Flowers in the Attic.
I know. I CAN FEEL YOUR EXCITEMENT FROM HERE.
A little background on FITA, as I call it (not to be confused with that organization where people run around shirtless kicking a ball back and forth for no reason at all that I can see):
When I was eight, I went rooting through a grocery sack of used paperbacks that someone had given my mom. Most of it was stuff that I’d end up reading eventually, but one book stood out from the rest. It looked mysterious, with a tortured, trapped figure on the front and a brief description on the back that promised intrigue and horror. This seemed right up my already-slightly-deranged, little-kid alley.
The book?
At eight, I didn’t really know much about characterization or plot or prose. If I had, I would have put the book down after the first terrible chapter. But what I did know was that it was super-fun to try to get away with doing things my parents didn’t want me to do, and since at the time I was grounded from reading (the only punishment that ever worked for me as a child), it seemed only right and just that I hide that book away under my bed and take it out at night and read it under the covers.
A whole new world was opened to me with that book; a world that seemed so totally implausible as to be considered endlessly fascinating. And when it got to the incest! Well, hot damn! Here was something I knew my parents didn’t want me reading! So, of course, I wanted to read it all the more. And from there, my obsession grew – I wanted to read every seedy, trashy word that V.C. Andrews had ever written, and I think I continued to read her books for about six more years, until I of course finally realized that there was way more prurient stuff out there with which to offend my parents’ sensibilities. Like The Boy Who Could Fly (inside joke for my mom, if she’s reading).
Recently, I decided to reread Flowers in the Attic to see if it was still as awesomely trashy as I remembered it to be. And, well . . . it’s not. It’s actually just pretty bad. I mean, really, incredibly, “fifteen weeks on the NYT bestseller list, SERIOUSLY?”-type bad.
Flowers in the Attic clocks in at exactly 411 pages, and I can tell you right now that nothing happens on 395 of them. For a book which is a bit of a pop-culture phenomenon, I find this strange. Surely the incest and the whippings and the tarring and, well, the incest deserve whole chapters extolling their virtues, but the actually scandalous/mildly interesting parts are glossed over fairly quickly.
Actually, the VERY GREATEST “OH NO SHE DIDN’T!” part of this ENTIRE BOOK is the dedication page. Now, I don’t know how many of you guys have read Flowers in the Attic. Perhaps, like me, you loved it as a child. Perhaps you’ve never heard of it before, and you are going to come along on this journey with your mind open and prepared to be blown. If so, let me sum up, very quickly, what this book is about: Four kids have the perfect life. Then their dad dies and their mom takes them to live with her in her parents’ grand estate. Cool, right? Except, not really, because her parents disowned her, due to a small, tiny little fall-out when she maybe happened to, uh, marry her half-brother/half-uncle. Whoops! Man! Parents are so uptight, am I right? Anyway, so to win back her father’s millions love, the mom locks her four kids in the attic. For years. And there are a whole host of other terrible things that she does, which I won’t talk about now, in order not to spoil you for the Machiavellian brilliance that is Corrine Dollanganger. BUT! So! Evil, evil, buttfucking evil lady, right??
THIS IS THE DEDICATION FOR THE BOOK:
This book is dedicated to my mother.
WHAT?! V.C. Andrews, you are HARD CORE COLD, lady! I mean, when I want to get back at my mom for perceived slights, I date people with facial piercings. NOT WRITE A BOOK ABOUT PSYCHOTIC MOTHERS WHO IMPRISON AND KILL THEIR INBRED CHILDREN.
Ahem. Anyway. It really doesn’t get crazier than that.
Alas, I shall do my duty to my country this blog and review this book chapter by chapter. Because I am me, and this is FYA, of course I have structured a drinking game to play during these reviews! Check it:
Take one drink when:
Someone mentions how rich Corrine’s parents are.
Cathy says “golly-lolly.”
Christopher is a pompous jerkface.
Christopher talks about being a doctor.
Cathy dances, talks about dancing, thinks about dancing, or shows completely inappropriate levels of dance ability considering she’s had no formal training and she’s suffered from malnutrition for years and anyway, her body is all wrong for ballet so how the hell does she end up being a prima ballerina for a company in New York, GOD!
Cory or Carrie complain.
The words “creamy,” “mansion,” “flowers,” or “grandmother” are mentioned.
Chug when:
Corrine holds any of her children’s hands to her bosom
Grandmother lays down a rule
Corrine evades the truth
The kids eat a powdered donut
Cathy and Chris make Carrie and Cory do something they don’t want to do
You want to punch Cathy in the face. Just a little bit, not enough to do any damage, or anything.
Take a shot when:
Anyone walks in on anyone else in a state of undress
Chris, Cathy, Cory or Carrie sneak out of their room
INCEST!
Chris, Cathy, Cory or Carrie are punished
The Dollangangers’ Hitler Youth Army looks are mentioned (i.e. blond hair, ice-blue eyes, tall, pale, thin)
FYA DISCLAIMER 1: Not responsible for alcohol poisoning.
FYA DISCLAIMER 2: For our underage readers, please substitute alcohol with sparkling cider or OJ. (P.S. Sparkling cider is deliciouso, so also share some with me!)
And now, the start of our review! I’ve structured these slightly differently than the SVH reviews. These reviews include!
Number of drinks/chugs/shots taken: Science!
Chapter Summary: (written from Cathy’s perspective)
The Creepy Award Goes To: Obvs this will be a difficult choice.
Notes from the Margin: (in which I type up the notes I have written in the margin, like a true YA and/or that creep Robbie from Dirty Dancing.) Actual text from book in italics; my comments in normal font.
Let’s get started, home fries!!!
The Prologue:
what’s past is prologue – Billy S.
Number of drinks/chugs/shots taken:
drinks: 2
chugs: 1
shots: 0
Chapter Summary: Good golly-lolly! This is a book about incest and mean parents!! It’s totally true, y’all! My mom is a mean lady! I’m going to tell my story under a fake name and hope someone publishes it! My story is really long, though, cause it involves being locked in an attic for years, having two siblings die, being raped by my other sibling, becoming the teenaged girlfriend to a middle-aged doctor who adopted me, being a prima ballerina, having my toes broken by my abusive husband, having two sons, seducing my stepfather, whipping an old lady, setting fire to a mansion, having my mother try to poison my son’s mind, setting fire to her house, growing up to marry my brother, having my kids hate each other, having one son steal the other son’s wife, having one son paralyzed, and then more fire. But for this book, let’s just focus on the first part! Hooray!!
The Creepy Award Goes To: V.C. Andrews, obviously!! Er, I’m sorry. To “Cathy.”
Notes from the Margin:
And as I begin to copy from the old memorandum journals that I kept for so long, a title comes as if inspired. Open the Window and Stand in the Sunshine.
That title is not inspired. That title is shit.
Certainly God in his infinite mercy will see that some understanding publisher will put my words in a book, and help grind the knife that I hope to wield.
Understanding Publisher should have demanded rewrites.
Chapter One:
daddy happy shiny five dollar now? – d. sedaris
Number of drinks/chugs/shots taken:
drinks: 20
chugs: 8
shots: 15
Chapter Summary: Daddy travels every week because he is a super-special PR person for a computer company! Every Friday he comes home with presents for me!! First I have to kiss him and shower him with affection, though, cause Daddy’s sort of needy. Then my mom, who spends all of Friday getting her hairs did, makes out with Daddy in front of my stupid older brother Chris and I. It’s not gross at all! I want to be just like Mommy so I can make out with a handsome man like Daddy too!
And now Mommy’s pregnant! She’s having twins! Great, now my creepy daddy isn’t going to want me anymore! But he makes me feel better by buying me something shiny! And then the stupid babies come and they smell but then I like them because I am a Female and so I must love babies.
And then the babies grow up a little and we have a birthday party for our wonderful Daddy! Only he’s tardy to the party! Whoops! Turns out he died in a tragic car accident on his 36th birthday! And now mommy is all depressed and I have to heat up casseroles and it’s so boring and then the debt collectors come and mommy explains how we’re living the American dream by financing our upper-middle-class lifestyle with credit. And she can’t pay the bills cause she’s not Destiny’s Child and also because she doesn’t have any training/doesn’t want a job. Cause she’s a lady, duh! Ladies aren’t supposed to work!
So Mommy tells us that we’re going to live with her super-rich mom and dad in a mansion in Virginia! Wow! That’s going to be awesome! Hey, I wonder why she’s never, ever mentioned her parents before and why they’ve never once visited us or sent us a letter! Oh well, I’m sure it’ll be fine!
The Creepy Award Goes To: Daddy Dollanganger! I guess it’s only right that everyone in this fictional family is creepy, even the dead ones, but boy, let me tell you: Daddy Dollanganger is CREE.PEE. I mean, one would expect some mild creepiness from a guy who married his half-sister/half-niece (spoiler!), but I think Garland Christopher Foxworth, Jr (aka Chris Dollanganger, Sr) really goes above and beyond the standard acceptable levels of mouth-breathing and staring at you while you sleep.
In what ways is he creepy, you ask? (I heard you asking in your head.) Well. First of all, I mistrust someone who works in PR for a computer company in the 50s. What is he doing for them? To whom is he publicly relating? The only people who used computers in the 50s were MIT nerds and spies, and neither group gets out much in public. He travels Monday through Friday, sometimes even overseas, which makes him not only mysteriously employed but also an object of my envy. And every Friday he comes home seeking to buy his family’s affections with material goods he can ill-afford and demanding to be kissed and cuddled like a hero coming back from war. Check it:
“Do you love me?-For I most certainly love you; did you miss me?-Are you glad I’m home?-Did you think about me when I was gone? Every night? Did you toss and turn and wish I were beside you, holding you close? For if you didn’t, Corrine, I might want to die.”
Um, I am sorry, but that? Is creepy. Creepy, passive-aggressive, needy, daddytouchedme behavior that grosses me right the heck out. Coupled with his demand for displays of affection from his daughter when she hurts his feelings and his overwhelmingly Aryan features (the entire family is like a poster for Hitler’s Youth Army, which is unsurprising, given that they all share the exact same DNA.), this is a man to run away from! Not marry and cling to!
Notes from the Margin:
“It’s freezing outside, Momma! . . . I wouldn’t live down south where it never snows, for anything!”
Good!! We don’t want you!!
“Go away!” I yelled I already hate your babies!”
I ALREADY HATE YOUR BABIES TOO!
I thought I would hate them both, especially the loud-mouthed one named Carrie . . .
Oh. You will. We all will.
” . . . but a piece of machinery had fallen from another car, or truck, and this kept him from completing his correct defensive driving maneuver, which would have saved his life. But, as it was, your husband’s much heavier car turned over several times, and still he might have survived, but an oncoming truck, unable to stop, crashed into his car, and again the Caddilac spun over . . . and then . . . it caught on fire.”
JESUS. Worst. Delivery. Ever.
Yet I hated it every time someone asked how he died, and what a pity someone so young should die, when so many who were useless and unfit, lived on and on, and were a burden to society.
Okay, Glenn Beck!
She paced, her long shapely legs appearing through the front opening of her filmy black negligee . . . our mother spun around and the black chiffon of her negligee flared like a dancer’s skirt, revealing her beautiful legs from feet to hips.
In. Appropriate.
”I can’t even type. I can embroider beautiful needlepoint and crewelwork stitches, but that kind of thing doesn’t earn any money.”
It does on etsy!
======================================================
That’s it for this week, folks! Check in next Friday for a continuation of our saga!
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{ 49 comments… read them below or add one }
Dear God. The creepiness has come back to haunt everyone!
Wow. Excellent work Erin! I never read this book as a child, because 1. I wasn’t allowed to, and 2. I was a goody goody who was v. v. afraid of disobeying, because I was sure I would get caught, and 3. by the time I was old enough to realized I *could* read it, I had heard it was terrible. So once again, you make my life easier and more enjoyable by doing the work for me. And getting me drunk.
ROFL! What an excellent way to end my week, thank you for being hilarious. Why did we all read this book when we were young? I was no older than 10 I’m sure. Could FITA be to blame for any and all problems we face as adults?!
I’m pretty sure it is what turned me into a (relatively) moral adult. I mean, it’s a slippery slope to locking your kids in an attic and then strutting around in front of your bed-ridden daddy, trying to get him to want you/die of a heart attack.
Ahh, Flowers in the Attic. You were my total middle school porn! My friend Hayley lent me her books and I found them deliciously taboo. It’s disappointing to discover that they were actually incredibly boring.
You have to do a review of the movie, too! We can watch it together next girly night.
ha ha ha ha ha!! WE TOTALLY SHOULD!!!
Let’s hope that the RGB plug on my tv gets fixed by best buy by then, cause right now I can’t watch any dvds/use the wii for netflix streaming.
I bought this one at a student’s request when I was a junior high librarian, and the school bookkeeper confiscated it.
Yeah, I bet she confiscated it for her own nefarious purposes . . .
I think I love you more than I loved this book in 8th grade. You are one of my new book blogger heroes.
I read this when I was about nine and when I asked my mom how someone can be your father and uncle at the same time, she told me to ask the school nurse.
So, there’s my story.
wow, yr mom knows how to DELEGATE.
Man, I kept getting this confused with Flowers for Algernon. And I was like, I SO don’t remember any incest.
Yeah, loving the C-names: I’m naming my kids Cloying, Crappy, Creepy and Cock. Hehe. On that note, I have to read his book. And apparently get really drunk – I can totally see why you’re doing it chapter-by-chapter.
This made me laugh a lot – a welcome break for the ever-tiresome revision of this weekend. Nothing like incest to take your mind off exams.
I never read this book and I kind of want to now, just to have an excuse to get lashed. Because reading is fun, but reading when the words swim across the page is a challenging.
Basically, I am only commenting on the part about your parents grounding techniques, because the rest is just too perfect for words. When I was younger, the only thing my parents could do that would keep me upset and on my best behavior was confiscating my books. It was during one of these many, many, many groundings that I had the good fortune (or bad? depending on the way you look at it) to pick up FITA and not put it down until I reached page 411.
My parents still haven’t figured that one out…but my mother does occaisionally – when I’ve been REALLY bad (doing idk what, I swear) – steal my iPod AND my laptop…and that leaves me, weeing over Suzanne Collins, going “at least I still have you guys! You wont leave me, will you?”
Hehe, I jus realised that, instead of “weeping”, it sys “weeing”. Goodness me.
And I thought I was the only one whose parents punished me by taking away my access to my books. Since they could never be sure that they’d gotten all of them, my parents would send me outside and tell me not to come back until dinnertime.
Happily, my parents almost never said what I could and couldn’t read – my “rebellious” reading involved secretly stealing Stephen King books from their bookcase, until I learned that they didn’t mind me doing that, and especially didn’t mind that I was attempting to plow through a German copy of Pet Sematary. The only time my mom said “no, not until you’re 30″ was when I tried to buy a used copy of Jacqueline Susann’s Yargo from the library book sale. I’d have gotten it anyway, but my mom got the librarians on her side. They refused to sell it to me, and, if I had stolen it, the guilt would have killed me.
you see?! THEY DID THIS TO US! They should have just let us have our books, right??
Yeah, I read all SORTS of stuff I probably shouldn’t have while being grounded . . . basically anything in my parents’ bookshelves was fair game.
oh, i got grounded from reading, too! but i was such a goody-goody, they didn’t take my books away because they knew i just wouldn’t read (much) if they said not to. and now i know what i was missing! FITA! holy smokes, i wish i’d read this as a preteen so i could really appreciate it. there’s no WAY i’ll read it now.
also, it’s TOTES the most requested book in any library i’ve worked in (mostly by preteens, but sometimes by grownups, too). and author.
my mind is still trying to figure out how someone can be yr uncle AND brother, unless yr parents committed incest, and then why would they be mad at you for following in their footsteps? danielle, did the school nurse help you out?
If I recall correctly (it’s been probably 20 years since I read the whole series) – Daddy Dollenganger was the illegitimate son of Corrine’s dad and his sister-in-law. (I think that’s right?) Corrine’s dad’s brother died, Widow Foxworth came to Corrine’s parent’s house, and Corrine’s dad and Widow Foxworth got it on. That’s how he ended up being both her half-brother and uncle.
And Corrine’s mom (the evil grandmother) hates Corrine because she is the product of Corrine’s dad raping her. So she already hated Corrine for that, and then when Corrine married her step-brother, the shizz hit the fan.
I had to draw a diagram to figure that out! I’m proud to say incest confuses me.
Sheesh, and I thought Gone With the Wind was gross because Ashley & Melanie were cousins.
Actually I just read Garden of Shadows not too long ago. Corrine’s father had an affair with his stepmother, Alicia (making Corrine her daughter/grandaughter). Christopher was Malcom’s father, Garland’s son with Alicia. And that’s how Corrine and Christopher are half brother-sister/half uncle-niece.
by the way, guys, you’re not supposed to WANT to read this! It’s TERRIBLE! Obvs I’m not doing a good job detailing the (boring, monotonous) horror!
erin, i’m really glad you’re including actual quotes in yr review system because I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT IS ACTUALLY THE REAL TEXT. i’m pulling a david in the dentist here like IS THIS REAL LIFE?
no, it’s obvs NOT real life, which is why FITA is so awesomely terrible. i wasn’t allowed to read it as a kid, and now i kind of want to call my mom and say, “THANK YOU.” cos even though i’m not a fan of censorship, i would say my mom’s ban was a public service.
p.s. i still can’t get over that dedication. that is some serious mommy dearest shizz right there.
Holy crap. This recap is the BEST THING EVAR. I am dying of laughter here!
The quotes and margin notes are great because we get glimpses of just how bad her holy god awful writing is. But I love your cheerful-Cathy-is-a-moron summary voice. And I expect the “creepiness awards” are going to get even better and better in each chapter. (although, I’m not sure how they can top Daddy Dollanganger. WOW.)
PS: “grounded from reading”?? That is beyond cruel!
I am hooked. I don’t normally read blogs, but the whole FITA topic got me curious. I not only read FITA, but the whole series after it too. My sister and I were obsessed with the books and now I wouldn’t give a V.C. Andrews book a second glance. I can’t believe it has been over 30 years since I read that piece of tripe.
I too read a lot of books pulled from my parents’ shelf. Anyone read North Dallas Forty? Full of sex and drugs. I’m sure my parents would not have been happy to know I was reading that at 10.
PS–Erin, thanks for the new drinking game–as if I needed another way to get smashed.
No, but I read Naked Lunch at WAY too young of an age. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s wrong with me, actually.
P.S. Welcome!!
P.P.S. we have drinking games all over this site! Click on the Cheers! category to see them all!
Brilliant. FITA ranks as possibly one of the sickest book I read as a teen, yes, worse than “Carrie” for its diabolical influence on a young mind. But I must give this twisted melodrama its due. I read it, re-read it, and read it again. I sobbed when Cory died. I was enthralled with it. The gothic atmosphere clouded around my imagination for days. I gave it to a Catholic school friend, whose mother had strictly forbidden her to be within 5 feet of the book, or to go near a girl who had read it. Lord, we were all reading it, so many mothers had forbidden it, it was like a box of chocolate candies.
Later in life I subjected my husband to the audio book. And while he was utterly disgusted with it, he could not help being drawn in by it. He described it as “watching a horrible car wreck in slow motion. You can’t look away.”
omg they have an audio version!? yikes!
Discovered these books in middle school in the 80s. Oh baby, did they get passed around. Clandestine meets in the hallways between classes, book transfers between backpacks on the down low, and tucking the books into large hardcover text books during boring classes…and rereading the sex scene in book one over and OVER ANDOVER!!
Ah, the memories.
Holy, Mother of God, I laughed so hard reading this I choked on a grape. I just found this blog via a link from smart bitches/trashy books.
I read this book in high school (certainly not almost 24 years ago, nope). I seem to recall thinking it was like so, so tragic and like super intense. I’ve since moved on to other better-written trash. I have absolutely no desire to pick this book up and read it again, but I have every intention of vicariously enjoying the drama!
‘Scuse me now. I must go and waste hours and hours of time reading your archived posts…
I read this book when it first came out. But this recap is just brilliant!
I can’t believe I’m just finding this. I was OBSESSED with V.C. Andrews as a child. I read everything she ever wrote. And then other people started writing her books and it got really bad. I mean really really bad. Did you ever read the Melody series or Rain. I liked Flowers in the Attic as a child but I think I liked the Heaven series more. Ruby was pretty good as well. I’ll shut up now. My dorkiness is showing.
Ruby is my favorite, I think. It’s just SOOO trashy. I mean, tehy all are, but THAT ONE!
Thanks for reviewing this book, now I will know it is creepy and can stay far away from it.
Oh dear god, I hated Cathy when I read this book,while reading this book I noticed how the author wanted people to see how beautiful Cathy was. I honestly think, V. C Andrews lived vicariously through this,( she wasn’t very beautiful)! My 9th grade English teacher assigned me this book to read, she said she loved it as a teen. I HATED this book. This was so taboo.. I thought it was stupid, and so childish for a so- called “professional” to write this piece of junk.
I still have the stupid book. I feel like burning it to show how badly I hated this book! Honestly NO ONE in this universe should read this book. It was horrible. Gah!
Wha? A teacher actually ASSIGNED you this to read? WHAAA?
Yes, but hey…
She’s the only teacher with a facebook…
Her picture was quite shameful as well.
I had to write a book report on it.):
I just started reading this. Oh goodness. Horrible (the book, not this blog, btw <3 FYA 4eva). But oh, the police's delivery of the death is the kicker of the chapter. Holy poop.
OMG. I never read Flowers in the Attic… until now. Seriously. When my friends were into them, I was into tamer fare (along the lines of Beverly Cleary).
I decided to go back and read them now for a laugh, and may I just say the first one (so far) is quite hilarious?! You’ve highlighted some of the parts that made me laugh out loud. Also, I downloaded it to my ipad so I don’t have to hang my head in shame over my awesomely bad reading selections. For all people know, I’m totally reading Jane Austen.
You’re doing it wrong.
V.C. Andrews is an amazing author, but not if you read her drunk.
You have to be really, really stoned
Shit. If I did that, I’d just totally be paranoid that VC was out to get me and she was trying to hypnotize me to be a sleeper agent with her purple prose.
I mean . . . not that I would know, or anything. *whistles*
Ok…. so this is the story of how I read this book.
I was in 7th grade. I was very sheltered. All the girls at my school were reading V.C. Andrews. One day, in the school library, they were talking about how good one of her books was… (I don’t remember which one.) I said “I’ll read that!”, and I went to check it out. After I checked it out, the girls said “the sex scene in that book is just amazing.” I said “oh, there’s sex in this book? I’m not allowed to read books like that.” And I returned it. The girl said “Well, maybe you could read ‘Flowers in the Attic’– there’s no sex in that one, because, you know, they’re brother and sister.” AND I BELIEVED HER!!!!
Girls are mean.
(But I devoured the book anyway. Tee hee.)
Now, that I’m an adult, I’m tempted to re-read it.
Thank you, dear, for making this review available on the internet. I just purchased the book, and now I am going to turn right around and return it.
Incest? YUCK.
I’m shocked by the number of people who didn’t read this as a tween/teen? Its like a right of passage – a horrible, deviant right of passage. And I think V.C. Andrews is a genius – throw a little incest in a book and no one will remember the awful writing! (Kinda like putting cheese on broccoli to disguise the taste.)
My parents never ever attempted to take away my books. They sent me to my room and told me to stay in there until I could behave. As if learned, I read instead. And they would have NEVER been so stupid as to censor any books for me, too much fascism for them. So the VC books I borrowed from my mother when everybody read them, in like eight grade. They had this really appealing 80s cover. I wasn’t to impressed with the sex though, because HELLO!! Jean M Auel?! I read those way before. I remember they were popular in school too. I bet it wasn’t because of the accurate history descriptions.
Drink every time Corrine’s hand flutters nervously up to her throat to twist/play with her pearl necklace, or every time Carrie’s love of purple and red is mentioned. Also, bonus points if you lost your virginity on a stained mattress.
P.S. You’ll be hard pressed to make money on Etsy if you can’t type… or, most of the time, even if you can.
I just read the VC Andrews entry on Wikipedia, and was quite interested to find out that the dude who wrote VC Andrews after she died was the same guy who wrote Pin.
That says a lot, if you’ve seen the movie. More serious creepdom.