Flowers In The Attic

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Apropos of absolutely nothing.

Does anyone else remember these cheery tales of incest and child murder? I read the lot of them, despite not being able to remember who wrote them... fairly racy stuff in places.

Incest is best...

― Al_Ewing, Sunday, 30 March 2003 20:51 (twenty-three years ago)

("Apropos of absolutely nothing" - What does this mean, it keeps popping up all the time?)

― Cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 30 March 2003 20:56 (twenty-three years ago)

V.C. Andrews.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Sunday, 30 March 2003 20:58 (twenty-three years ago)

I suppose in this case it means that this is something that just popped into my head.

― Al_Ewing, Sunday, 30 March 2003 21:01 (twenty-three years ago)

BEST BOOK EVER

― rosemary (rosemary), Sunday, 30 March 2003 21:17 (twenty-three years ago)

What about the three sequels? And the prequel? It got a bit mad.

― Al_Ewing, Sunday, 30 March 2003 21:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Mommy, Dead People Can’t Write Books, Can They? Mommy?
Victoria Cleo Andrews, writer of an endless stream of "twisted family" thriller romances, has been dead since 1986. While a certain amount of posthumous publication can be expected from the estate of any author, new books on the Times Bestseller List in 1998 are enough to stretch the credulity of even the most ardent reader. Andrews has been issuing novels from beyond the grave at the rate of one a year for the last twelve years. The definitely living ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman, "under an arrangement with the publisher and the author’s heirs, concocts ersatz V.C. Andrews novels," ("Ghostly writer¼" 363). Notes from the Andrews family began appearing in the novels of a new series soon after Andrews’s death, explaining that they had chosen a gifted writer to "organize and complete Virginia’s stories and to expand upon them by creating additional novels inspired by her wonderful storytelling genius," ("Ghostly writer¼" 363).

No one, excepting presumably the family, the editors, and Neiderman himself (now an accomplished author of mystery and suspense fiction in his own right), is quite sure what was actually written by Andrews and what has been created by Neiderman "in the style of¼" The books are selling, though—so well that the Andrews estate was "disputing with the IRS how much Andrews’s name was worth after her death," (Streitfeld D1) in 1993—the name itself was a declarable asset in the estate’s tax returns. So, presuming one is talented (and lucky—Neiderman shared an agent and editor with Andrews) enough to be asked to write under the name of a safely deceased billion-selling writer, it would seem to be a valid reason for choosing a pseudonymous existence.

http://www.jbx.com/~boethius/forged/pseudonym.html

― weatheringdaleson (weatheringdaleson), Sunday, 30 March 2003 21:25 (twenty-three years ago)

Holy jumping Christ! That explains why the last three FITA books were toss... or does it? OR DOES IT?

Maybe the whole FITA premise was a concoction of a mad ghost-writing fool?

― Al_Ewing, Sunday, 30 March 2003 21:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Hmm. Turns out Andrew Neiderman wrote "The Devil's Advocate," which gave Keanu a vehicle and Al some scenery to chew.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/authors/Andrew_Neiderman.htm

(I haven't read any of these things, fyi.)

― weatheringdaleson (weatheringdaleson), Sunday, 30 March 2003 21:48 (twenty-three years ago)

I read the Flowers in the Attic series and the Heaven series in the 6th grade when these were all the rage and parents didn't understand how racy these things were. They had incest fever (not the parents, the books). The movie with Louise Fletcher and the original Buffy Kristie Swanson (also your Deadly Friend) was absolute shit. My parents kept buying me the new ones that came out every Xmas but they were so horrible. The same incidents, dialogue, incest. I think the new heroines carried on in the tradition started by the Heaven series by giving out fanciful names :Heaven , Rain, Cinnamon, Ice, Rose, Star, Bongwater... But those first 2 series sure were great and boy did I have a lot of questions about the way life worked after them.

― Carey (Carey), Sunday, 30 March 2003 22:04 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah in my addition of 'flowers in the attic' the brother and sister fucked on the old mattress on page 367.

― Clare (not entirely unhappy), Monday, 31 March 2003 05:10 (twenty-three years ago)

10 times better than "Night in the Ruts"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 31 March 2003 05:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Was the thingy in the jar REALLY the aborted mutant bastard incest spawn or not? Either it wasn't explained or I gave up before that

― dave q, Monday, 31 March 2003 08:51 (twenty-three years ago)

I covered Virginia Andrews once I'd worked my way through Francine Pascal.

― Lara (Lara), Monday, 31 March 2003 08:56 (twenty-three years ago)

This add weight to my hypothesis that books by an 'author' with TM after their name are rubbish. Also applies to most novels by more than one person - see crap money-spinning SF series and current (eurgh!) chick-lit for many examples.

But anyway, VC Andrews (I thought the V was for Virginia): nastier than Judy Blume but appropriate to same age range. 'My Sweet Audrina' is a standalone which is grebt for warped family making girl believe that she is younger sister of herself after she is traumatised by (and supposedly died after) childhood rape - time is all screwy in their knackered-old-house-in-the-woods and she has birthdays twice a year in order to catch her up to her real age and everything. O how we larfed.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Monday, 31 March 2003 09:02 (twenty-three years ago)

The first few books were great in a trashy way: all twisted gothic melodrama. Kind of shocking after the Francine Pascal canon, at any rate.

― Nicole (Nicole), Monday, 31 March 2003 12:14 (twenty-three years ago)

V.C. Andrews C/D:

Classic:
-main protagonist falls in love unknowingly with close relative, usually brother
-sex in graveyards
-evil matriarchal figure desperate to control the life of outcast beauty--the true heir to some ridiculous fortune being controlled by said evil matriarchal figure
-cover art

Dud:
-aforesaid names of characters
-ridiculous naivete of characters (esp. about matters of a sexual nature)
-frequency of rapes at parties/balls

― cybele (cybele), Monday, 31 March 2003 12:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Dude, Heaven was the absolute shit. Those girls were always having sex with their brothers and uncles though, who does that? By the later part of the Flowers in the Attic series, I think the brother and sister were MARRIED, I mean thats not even feasible.

― Ally (mlescaut), Monday, 31 March 2003 12:48 (twenty-three years ago)

That was the book "Seeds of Yesterday". They got married, never had children and then in the prequel to that series you learn that they were the offspring of a half brother, half sister relationship I think.

Biggest moment in Heaven = The scalding Lysol bath.

― Carey (Carey), Monday, 31 March 2003 14:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, there is always a formula. Young, beautiful social-outcast girl who comes from a very POOR family, but has ONE TALENT (singing, playing "the fiddle", painting, something). Girl also has a name like Melody, Dawn, or Rain. Girl then finds out her family IS NOT REALLY HER FAMILY, but rather she is the illegitimate/kidnapped/something of a very RICH RICH RICH family in the SOUTH (ALWAYS) who are controlled from some mean GRANDMOTHER (who there will be a prequel written about later on in the series and turns out to be a real softie down underneath it all but was actually molested/beat/etc.) who is out to RUIN our young heroine because there's actually ANOTHER FAMILY SECRET LURKING AROUND THE CORNER THAT WILL BE REVEALED IN THE SECOND BOOK... Girl feels torn between her new family life and her previous life that was actually a LIE and suddenly feels attracted to the boy that she thought was her brother HER ENTIRE LIFE!!

― Mandee, Monday, 31 March 2003 14:23 (twenty-three years ago)

It's such a fantstic formula.

I once called into a radio talk show to discuss FITA.

― rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 31 March 2003 17:48 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think it was ever determined whether there really was a mutant fetus.

I love the anachronisms in the second book. You had a mistress on the pill and were watching TV in 1947? Ok, WTFE.

― rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 31 March 2003 17:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Also, the timeline for My Sweet Audrina makes NO SENSE.

― rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 31 March 2003 17:53 (twenty-three years ago)

but didn't you like the imagery of hot seed spilling over someone's ripe egg.

― Carey (Carey), Monday, 31 March 2003 17:56 (twenty-three years ago)

It's kind of like if when a boy shoots a scorcher of a load you could blow the the smoke off the tip.

― Carey (Carey), Monday, 31 March 2003 18:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Was that in there? That's just awesome. And Vera throwing her miscarried embryo (or was it a fetus at that point?) at her mom? How great was that?

― rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 31 March 2003 18:03 (twenty-three years ago)

FETUS FIGHT! (ew)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 31 March 2003 19:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Wow - once again my isolated commune-ish childhood has left me completely without connection to my peers through pop-culture things. *sigh* This is getting pathetic.

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 02:15 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

REVIVE

Are we all fucked up for life for reading these books when we were 8-12 or what?

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:04 (twenty-one years ago)

there is nothing I love more than a fresh copy of Flowers in the Attic. It has to be replaced every few years, as I cannot get ENOUGH of reading about all the food and milk delivered by the evil grandmother.

― gunther heartymeal, Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I still think I remember the two of them having kids in a later book, because wasn't there some fucked up kid they were taking care of who didn't have proper nerve endings so that he couldn't really feel pain and stuff like that? Was he not really their kid? I KNOW I'm not making this up cos I remember a pretty disgusting graphic description of him picking up dog poop and squeezing it and smearing it around because he couldn't feel the sensation??? Like you can't smell the fucking smell.

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:08 (twenty-one years ago)

I almost thought this was a you-know-who thread.

I never actually read these - they were all over my house, though, because MY MOM read them. The covers were always watching me. The kid staring out the attic window = brrrrrr.

dog poop xpost - What the FUCK?

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:09 (twenty-one years ago)

and there was one bit where the female character had a nasty miscarriage in the middle of a ballet performance or something as well. and didn't she end up having a relationship with the doctor who delivered the deformed foetus or something?

*disclaimer: i potentially have made this up

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I DON'T THINK YOU MADE IT UP!

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:10 (twenty-one years ago)

phew

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:11 (twenty-one years ago)

between this and Sweet Valley High it's kind of amazing women still have brains left when they get out of puberty stage.

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes! The doctor said it was just some sort of bad period, but I think he was totally lying and she had some kind of weird mutant baby.

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:14 (twenty-one years ago)

The movie was nowhere near as good/bad.

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Did they take the incest out of the Flowers in the Attic movie? I ran across it on one of those digital cable-only Showtime channels about a year ago and I watched it having never read the books, but knowing all about them. There was one or more scenes where the brother was bathing his sister but there wasn't anything more that I remember. Actually, the movie had a very "made for TV" quality to it. Was it an actual theatrical release or not? Either way, it's shit.

― Mike O. (Mike Ouderkirk), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:19 (twenty-one years ago)

The movie WAS shit, I saw that when I was like 8 or 9 too. Total bollocks.

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:20 (twenty-one years ago)

you didn't make it up, it's in the sequel "petals on the wind," cathy totally becomes a big time slut.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:21 (twenty-one years ago)

haha it must have made an impression on all of us. i reckon its 20 years since i read it, and i can still remember details? wtf

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm surprised I'm not more fucked up from reading these and SVH/SVT.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:26 (twenty-one years ago)

All I can keep recalling is the description of the evil grandma being naked and something about her bald pubic mound... omg yuck. But I read all the books in horrified delight anyway.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:26 (twenty-one years ago)

OK this is perhaps not quite the right thread to ask this but: does anyone else remember a series of books, they were all put out by some Xtian fundy group with ads in the back for like Jesus loves you half way houses and shit, and they were ALL about runaway teenage girls who became prostitutes?? They all had really seedy descriptions in them, and in the end of every single one I mean the girl would go to a church or something and be saved but the first 200 pages nothing but raunch, wtf???

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I think I pretty much have the whole book memorized. I have read it probably 20 times.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Ally, I do not remember that series, but I would LOVE TO READ THEM!

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I did read them! I was kind of disappointed none of it ever happened to me when I ran away! Talk about false fucking advertising!

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:33 (twenty-one years ago)

errrrr no ally but they sound tops!!

also i did read an article in the australian a few weeks ago about 'jesus chick lit'. apparently bridget jones has inspired an avalanche of god-lovin' mid-30s single women who don't booze or smoke fags or shag before marriage but are apparently still crazy and cool! i'm a bit dubious about this myself.

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Ally: I havent read those ones, but the ministers wife gave me some fucked up "whats this sex thing about then" kind of books as a teen, which informed me of things like the fact masturbating is Bad For You because you'll never learn how to orgasm. What in the....

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Also girls who dont shag before marriage are always sucking a lot of cock anyway, the little liars =)

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:36 (twenty-one years ago)

god I wish I even remembered a name of one of the books so I could link to it but I remember no details besides the basic plots.

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:37 (twenty-one years ago)

haha trayce. i wonder if there's some kind of wacky euphemism for sucking cock in the pure-n-innocent chick lit

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I wonder if any girls read those books and got all excited and ran away to see if it worked.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:39 (twenty-one years ago)

"Heaven Leigh Casteel was the prettiest smartest girl in the backwoods despite her ragged clothes and dirty face...despite a father meaner than ten vipers....despite her weary stepmother who worked her like a mule. For her brother Tom and the little ones, Heaven clung to her pride and her hopes. Someday they'd get away and show the world that they were decent, fine and talented--worthy of love and respect. Then Heaven's stepmother ran off and her wicked greedy father had a scheme that threatened to destroy the precious dream of Heaven and the cildren forever!!!! His father sold each kids off to break them up. Heaven got placed with Kitty & Cal Dennison who basically freed her. Except for the extensive work that Kitty left Heaven to do basically work her like a slave. The only one the really paid attention to her was Cal who treated her like gold. Until Kitty had a nervous breakdown or so they thought that's what it was but really she had a tumor in her breast. At the end of the book, her father was trying to find her to patch things up with her and also she was in the process of flying to Boston to look for her two youngest brother and sister."

Thank you amazon!

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Won't someone think of the cildren!

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Heaven Leigh!

― Mike O. (Mike Ouderkirk), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:57 (twenty-one years ago)

HER FATHER WAS MEANER THAN TEN VIPERS!

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 06:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Axis Sally and I watched the FITA movie in out hotel room while waiting for the reception after the wedding of our friend the Swiss Miss. AS said the series is "Stars Wars for Girls".

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 06:11 (twenty-one years ago)

can vipers really be mean?

― gem (trisk), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 06:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I Love Books thread:

VC ANDREWS - Classic, Dud, Or Criminally Insane?

The lone post from August last year is a bit creepy. 'Insight into how she got her ideas'? Ew.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 10:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm quite sure I read Flowers in the Attic When I was 9 or 10 and didn't understand most of it. I'll give it another look one of these days...

― Un investigador del siglo XXI (AaronHz), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 10:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Ally, I do not remember that series, but I would LOVE TO READ THEM!

Yes, that sounds great.

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 14:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Heaven went to that horrible all girl's school that gave her ex lax and caused her to send her poop down a laundry chute. i have always feared girl's schools and laundry chutes.

― S!monB!rch (Carey), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 14:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Is there an equivalent set of books for boys looking to experience similar thrills & spills? Besides the More Than Human series?

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 14:44 (twenty-one years ago)

i remember reading a book in the "young adult" room at the library about a girl who ran away to new york city and got picked up by a pimp at port authority and turned out. at first he was nice to her and bought her teddy bears and took her out for dinner, but then things got bad. i never finished it because i was afraid to take it home. my mother would have freaked out, about both the hooker and the jesus aspects.

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

vc andrews was the gateway drug to jackie collins in my school.

― S!monB!rch (Carey), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 14:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to love this series of books called Firebrats, about 2 teens that survived a nuclear bomb (dropped by the USSR) and were traveling to California to find someone's parents and they were running into all these mutated survivors. But then the writers stopped writing the books after the 4th one! Nothing was answered. Did they survive? Did they make it to California? Did they choose Krakow or Jordan Catalano?

― S!monB!rch (Carey), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I think I may have read this one, was it from the seventies? I remember reading it in the eighties and thinking it was kind of dated.

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 15:30 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, i think it was the seventies. there were references to afros and leather trenchcoats and things like that.

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 15:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I think that's one of the first books in the series I was talking about, because I remember that! Either that or I was just reading really weird shit in the young adult section of the library.

Libraries are secretly a hot bed of porn for 10 year old girls.

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 15:33 (twenty-one years ago)

totally. i recall one series in which the teenage characters had sex all the time. it was like sweet valley high but everyone was doing "it".

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 15:39 (twenty-one years ago)

That's why I love them so.

x-post

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 15:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Did anyone ever do it in SVH?? I don't remember anything like it. The closest I can think of right now is when Elizabeth was having her identity crisis after the motorcycle accident and ALMOST did Bruce Patman but then "came to" and ran out on him.

― Allyzay Dallas Multi-Pass (allyzay), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 15:43 (twenty-one years ago)

she snapped out of it while he was feeling her up, then she bit him.

i don't recall any actual sex.

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 15:47 (twenty-one years ago)

No, I don't think they did. But my sister in law was telling me about Sweet Valley University books, which came out long after I stopped reading the SVH books -- apparently everyone started having all kinds of sex.

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 16:08 (twenty-one years ago)

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