It was in Junior High School (way back in the latter portion of the 80s) that I became aware of a certain book series that every girl in school seemed to be reading in the cafeteria during lunchtime. These books were traded with sidelong looks and anxious, crooked smiles. They were discussed in hushed, eager tones. The books were always checked out of the library. Always. I began to hear rumors from the other boys about these books...rumors that they contained bizarre, lascivious (probably not the -exact- words they used) acts.
I'm talking of course, about the Xanth series.
*****
Kidding, kidding. It was Flowers in the Attic, and the seemingly endless supply of other V.C. Andrews books with extremely creepy-looking children on the cover and garish neon-colored titles.
Now in my adult years and vaguely intrigued by my faded memories, I decided to flip through the books the twelve year old girls were obsessed with.
...*...explicit incest, poisoning, murder, incest, adultery, incest, arson, fornication, incest, and more incest.
*blink-blink*
Kinda makes kids reading about talking animals or young wizards seem extremely harmless, doesn't it?
Posted by SoaPiNuReYe (Member # 9144) on :
At least it wasn't the 'Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.'
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Urg. I hate those books. I stopped after the dippy second one.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
My vague memory was that they were disturbing. I read the wikipedia summary and the summary convinced me they were even more disturbing then I remembered. I didn't read beyond the first one.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
You are lucky The second one is TERRIBLE! Arg. Plus she was 15 years old! How are you going to do that with a 15 year old? Not to mention the whole *shudder* and the writing, oh! The writing! So BAD! And you left out all of the suicide scenes, Puffy Treat. All the poison doughnut eating. *rolls eyes*
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I remember going through a Goosebumps phase, back in the day. In retrospect I can't identify one thing appealing about them.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I read Goosebumps when I was really young, and collected Animorph books throughout junior high.
A friend of mind handed my Flowers in the Attic when I was I think a Sophmore in high school. It was insane. I can't remember what it's called, but maybe out of morbid curiosity, I read the sequel, which is easily 10 times crazier than the first one, both in absurdity and in its graphic nature.
They are the only VC Andrews books I have ever read, and I'm convinced that Andrews is SERIOUSLY messed up.
Posted by andi330 (Member # 8572) on :
I never got into the VC Andrews books as a teen. Every now and then I would glance at the books that it seemed like all of my friends were reading and wonder why they were so obsessed, but that was about the time I really started to get into scifi, and I was busy reading other things.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: And you left out all of the suicide scenes, Puffy Treat. All the poison doughnut eating. *rolls eyes*
Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants has suicide scenes and poison doughnut eating?!
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
I mentioned poisoning, Syn.
I take it the "suicide scenes" are in the sequel(s)?
Posted by theCrowsWife (Member # 8302) on :
You want to know what's really scary? I'm almost certain that an excerpt from Flowers in the Attic was included in one of our literature books (I want to say 7th grade). I never read any of them as a teenager, but my husband has a few. Flowers in the Attic is very disturbing, but the sequel is far, far worse. The ending of it is (unfortunately) seared into my mind, where the girl decides that she wants to run away and live with her brother, and lock their kids up the same way that she and her siblings were. Gah! I didn't read any of her other books after that. Enough was enough.
--Mel
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
quote:Originally posted by theCrowsWife: You want to know what's really scary? I'm almost certain that an excerpt from Flowers in the Attic was included in one of our literature books (I want to say 7th grade).
That is scary. Especially since none of the children in that story act, talk, or think like, yanno, actual kids. And they aren't unrealistic in a literary way...
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I didn't read the VC Andrews books as a teen. I did read the first in my twenties when I finally heard of them. Of course I didn't read them - I learned about sex from the Clan of the Cave Bear series. *sigh*
Hmm...I thought it was fine. Lascivious, yes, but...the whole story is about changing from children into adults. I can see why they appeal - it's about a subject that is consuming their lives (I wouldn't return to the times of being a never-ending hormone bomb for anything) but they want to explore it in a safe context. The VC Andrews books are that safe context. Better than Xanth with its misogyny.
---
I didn't read the sequels, so I can't speak for them.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: I mentioned poisoning, Syn.
I take it the "suicide scenes" are in the sequel(s)?
Yeah, but I only read the second one. Not to mention the whole smell in the attic part. That wasn't mentioned in the First book. urg. That book is so stupid compared to Homecoming and Dicey's song is what I thought after reading it in Jr. High School.
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
I read a lot of Bruce Coville books in elementary school. I still have a few, but I wish I had more of them. Great stuff for kids, better than a lot of the junk on the shelves.
I also loved Animorphs and read them for 3 years or so, until the series ended. I still have almost all of those (minus the few I never got around to buying). The writing was reaaaally uneven through the later parts of the series, but there is some surprisingly adult moral situations the kids are faced with. As kids books go, I think they're great.
But the best ever is still Gordon Korman (but not his newer stuff when he got all "literary"). I can't count how many times I've read I Want to Go Home!, Who is Bugs Potter?, Son of Interflux, Beware the Fish!, The Twinkie Squad and all the rest of them. Absolutely brilliant and genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. I wish so much that I'd brought a few of his books with me, because a) they're out of print and b) I don't think they've ever had them in England anyway.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina: Better than Xanth with its misogyny.
The sadistic, torturing granny and murderous, insanely flakey mother seem a -tad- on the misogynist side to me. And I won't even talk about what flipping through the sequel reveals about the lead character.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
I loved Gordon Korman as a kid.
Don't Care High is another good one.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I was vaguely aware of these books when I was in high school, since it seemed every other girl was reading one. But I never knew what they were about.
I just looked them on wiki. Yikes!
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Yeah. Reading them, I found it hard to believe VC Andrews was -ever- an actual child.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
She was evil - a character can be evil without being a stereotype.
Xanth's default characterization of women is very mysogynistic.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
That's just it...the women in the series are all portrayed as being evil because of their active desires. The men? Flawed because of their mistakes and quirks.
(Granted, this is just my surface impression. Then again, these books seem to be all surface.)
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I didn't get the same thing out of the books at all. As a terribly simplified summary of characterizations: the grandmother was evil, the mother was weak, and the main character was valiant and wise.
And then there is Xanth, where a woman's value depends on the size of her boobs and women exist only to make men happy or miserable, depending on what time of the month it is. *wrinkles nose*
Xanth perpetuates misogyny. The VC Andrews books are about fighting back against misogyny.
---
I've been reading the summaries on wikipedia. Those are hilarious - everyone sleeps with everybody. It's like Torchwood.
[ April 11, 2008, 04:14 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:And then there is Xanth, where a woman's value depends on the size of her boobs and women exist only to make men happy or miserable, depending on what time of the month it is. *wrinkles nose*
How many of those books did you read? There's something like 30 of them, and I can think of 10 easy where the main hero is a woman and there's no aspect of them making men miserable or happy. I can only think of 3 or 4 books where your characterization applies.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I quit at around #19. I loved the books - don't get me wrong - but they still treat women will all the sophistication of a six-year-old Calvin.
---
Now I want to see if anyone has done a scholarly study of VC Andrews - the last book in particular looks ripe for analysis. The books have the men equate the beauty of women to the power women have, and the complicated tugs between beauty, money, power and love are fascinating. Apparently the reason Cathy's brother is her own true love is because he shares her looks and her origin so he doesn't fear or covet her power. Interesting.
No wonder teenage girls love it. It is terrifying to be happily wandering along in life being yourself and then suddenly your body hands you something that both makes you vulnerable (men want you) and makes you powerful (men want you) at the same time.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Gee, in JR High I discovered Sci-Fi, Asimov, Clark, Tolkien, and the original Shanara.
And people thought my reading habits were questionable.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
Come on, Xanth treats everyone and everything with the sophistication of a six year old Calvin, not just the women.
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
Me too, Dan.
Okay, so reading The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant in grad 7 was probably questionable, but on the whole...
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Fighting back against misogyny? Well, maybe. What's it called when other women are picking on other women? Personally, if I had a daughter I'd rather her read the Tilerman series as it has very strong young and old women and no incest. ew.
Posted by Bella Bee (Member # 7027) on :
I read a book by V.C. Andrews once when I was a teen. It was called 'My Sweet Audrina'. From the title alone, you kind of knew it was going to be bad. From what I remember, it's about a kid called Audrina turns out to have lost her memory. Her father gives her all these fake memories and tells her she has a dead sister, also Audrina, who was wonderful and perfect.
Of course, it turns out that Audrina is really her own 'dead' sister, and lost her memory after having been raped when she was a little girl. Not only that, but her aunt is the offspring of her father and his sister - so she's her sister too. Plus, the sister/aunt is trying to steal Audrina's boyfriend and murder Audrina...
The strangest thing was that there are about four characters who die by falling down the stairs in their house. The greatest mystery of all was… why did no-one just put up a handrail? It would have saved them so much tragedy.
It was one of the most unintentionally hilarious books I have ever read. In fact, I'm kind of tempted now to read it again.
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