Don't Worry Darling (2022) Spoiler Free Review

 

So it's old news by this point that the film Don't Worry, Darling directed by Olivia Wilde, has been something of a joke for a while now. In fact, people were making fun of this film months before its September release. Gossip about the nightmare production and publicity around this film already seemed to make it a pariah before anyone had even seen it. Between lead actors refusing to go to the premiere - to that photo of Chris Pine dissociating during a press conference - people have been talking about this movie, and not in a good way. But that leads some people to wonder: is the movie itself any good?

I first saw the trailer for Don't Worry, Darling back in August while in the cinema to watch Jordan Peele's latest masterwork (seriously, if you haven't watched "Nope" yet - go and do it) and, while I was intrigued, it wasn't super high on my radar. Mainly I ended up seeing it yesterday because my mom wanted to see it. I was a big fan of Florence Pugh since watching her in Midsomar and had no problem watching her again. Much like in Midsomar - she's very good when she's put in high stress, surreal situations where a bunch of shitty guys are trying to gaslight her. Weird bit of typecasting - but go off, I guess. 

Darling is, in a lot of ways, very much what I was expecting - and at the same time, had another layer or two that surprised me. Much like is shown in the trailer, the film shows classic 50's housewife,  Alice (played wonderfully by Pugh) living an idealized life in a private community known as Victory, run by the mysterious and charismatic businessman, Frank (played by Chris Pine not ripping his shirt off in front of a waterfall). When she, her husband Jack (played by Harry Styles, whose acting was much better than I was led to expect) attend a party at Frank's house with the rest of their community, all seems well until one of the other wives, Margaret (Kiki Layne) calls out demanding to know "Why are we here?" looking absolutely haunted. Later, Alice sees Margaret confronted by her husband as he's trying to force some kind of pill on her while she refuses, staring straight ahead at Alice. 

Part of the controversy of the film was Kiki Layne stating that most of her scenes had been cut from the movie. I personally find that to be a huge disservice - not only to her as an actor - but to the film itself. Her performance, though short, is what kicks the plot into gear and starts to make Alice question everything around her, showing the first sign that all is not well in paradise. 

Many of the mysteries and bizarre scenes are shown in the trailer: Alice wrapping plastic wrap around her face, cleaning the windows only to have the wall behind her slowly move in and crush her, her crumpling an egg to find that it's nothing more than an empty shell - but while these are certainly some of the most memorable imagery in the film, they give nothing away and only serve to make the viewer more eager to know just what is going on.  
More than that, the view is led further and further down this idealized rabbit hole with the sharp, disorienting visuals (constant flashback of black and white swimmers, a close-up of an eye dilating and close up shots of pouring coffee, cutting toast and frying eggs to show the repetition of each day - to name a few) and an utterly haunting soundtrack, composed of  the sounds of gasping and hyperventilating that keeps the audience constantly on edge. 

Overall, between the visuals, soundtrack, costumes (the 50's were a cesspool of an era but they knew how to look good while being scum) and great performances from Pugh and Pine (Styles was alright too - bastard had a couple moments of being absolutely charming and I hated his character even more for it) this movie is nowhere near the garbage fire many clickbait articles would have you believe. Is it the greatest thing ever made? No. But if what you're looking for is a psychological thriller that looks and sounds great, and could be compared to a moderized Stepford Wives, you could do much worse. Give it a watch for yourself once it comes around on streaming. 

Acting: ****/ 5 
Like I said, Florence Pugh is a powerhouse in this type of role, though I do have to wonder how she keeps finding herself in these kinds of situations

Visuals: ****/5 
Surreal, confusing and occasionally breathtaking (though I'm taking off points for that close-up of the raw steak.) This movie made me feel like my brain was in backwards

Score: ***/5 
This one reminded me of the soundtrack to Gone Girl - a lot of low tones and reverberating echoes - plus the aforementioned gasping/breathing melodically into the microphone. It's incredibly effective, but I could also see how it could put some people off after a while. 

Story: **
Without giving much away, I will say this is where some of the movie starts to slip. While I found the ending twist unique and interesting (and there's a lot of implications that I'd love to go into in a more in-depth look) I also feel like some parts of it could have been elaborated on more or tightened up just a bit. All in all though - it said what it wanted to and got its message across

Overall rating: High ** 1/2 to low *** out of five stars. 
As stated above - it's not the most groundbreaking thing I've ever seen, but what it does - it does well. 

Flowers in the Attic, Part 12 - or "You Mean You Little Fuckers Could Have Left This Whole Time?!"

 

   Hello again, let's get into it! 

    In the last chapter, the four idiots had been creeped on, shaved and starved for two weeks...and now they're going swimming - hurray! 

Cathy and Chris climb down the rope ladder (they keep calling it that - it's a bunch of sheets tied together) and sneak out to the small swimming hole that their mother told them was near by. 

Sorry - I'm still stuck on the fact that one of them could have left and gotten help in the three years they'd been up there and yet none of them thought of that. 

When they get to the lake, Chris's first question - of course - is if they're going to skinny dip, and at this point I keep thinking I've reached my limit of being disgusted by everything this kid says, and yet... 

Cathy shoots him down and they both dive in wearing their underwear (though Cathy makes a point in saying she still doesn't own a bra so I'm guessing she either just kept her shirt on or she's got an undershirt or something? Unclear) Chris decides to remind us he's an asshole and stay under the water so long that Cathy thinks he drowned - nice thing to do when you've both lost a family member in a tragic accident recently. 

So Cathy freaks out - he pulls her under the water, sings a creepy song about a ballerina - usual stuff you'd expect. While they're laying on the grass afterward, talking and looking at the stars, and Cathy's gotta make it weird and talk about how her brother is all wet and glistening and details about how his body is changing, all the way down to the "hillock of his maleness before his strong thighs, starting to swell." 

...just gagged a little there. 

They talk about where there mother might be - seeing as she's been visiting them less and less and didn't show up once during the weeks they were starving to death. Chris, as usual tries to defend her, saying that, maybe she's sick or on a business trip for her father, but Cathy rightly shuts him down at every turn. Good on ya. Why is Cathy the only one with a brain in here? Chris gets all pissy about it, because he doesn't want to start doubting her, but Cathy asks if he still loves and trusts her as much as always. He tries to insist that where ever Momma is, she's thinking about them and - listen - I've read three of these books and I can assure you... no she's probably not. 

When they get back to the house, Cathy makes the argument I did in the beginning of this that they could leave and get help - not go back up to the attic at all - and Chris....ignores her and climbs back to the roof. Okay, guess that's the end of that for a while? There's almost some tension when Cathy has trouble climbing back up to the roof and is actually relieved to be back in the attic but- again - why aren't you more concerned your brother doesn't want to go for help? Ugh. 

The next chapter opens with Cathy cutting out pictures from magazines and planning for the future, daydreaming about having an emerald tub that she can fill with perfumed oil and soak in all day. It's things like this that really make it hard to feel any sympathy for this character. It's not just that she's fantasizing about her future life it's just that the things she imagines are weird and shows she really hasn't grown much as a character despite the years going by. She just always comes off as spoiled and vain. 

Anyway, she tries to ask Chris about their mother again and want to escape with the rope ladder now that they're not starving anymore. This really feels like it should have come earlier.

Chris bites her head off, because he's an asshole, and keeps staring out the window. Cathy's first impulse when he's in a bad mood is to start kissing and caressing him and putting his head in her breasts like their mother would. (-gag-) but holds off, because she realizes that it's Momma he wants and misses. That does not make it better. This entire family still has huge boundary issues that I'm sure I've ranted about before but - oh my God. 

They talk wistfully about wanting to go somewhere warm where harsh wind never blows and the sea is warm without any big waves and then Cathy asks Chris to move away from the window again, because they're not supposed to open the drapes or look outside in case someone sees them. Chris flips out again and starts shouting that they can't leave and get help because where would they go - they have nothing - he'd never get into med school and be stuck supporting a family of four at sixteen and... Dude, go to the police. No one's suggesting you just try to live on your own. Go to the cops and have these people arrested and I assure you your lives will be infinitely better. 

Instead the Grandmother comes in and yells at Chis to get away from the window - and he rounds on her, causing her to rehash all the reasons she hates them because of what their parents did that we already read about in part one. Chris full unloads on her, giving the Grandmother a "Reason you suck" speech and calls her out on what she's doing. Almost makes me like him. But not quite. 

The Grandmother storms out of the room and comes back with a willow switch and tells them that if they try to hide in the attic they wont eat for another week and then she'll whip Chris, Cathy and the twins as well. She drags Chris into the bathroom and makes him strip down (because her "no looking at people of the opposite sex" rule doesn't apply to her, I guess) and the twins come out of the attic right as she starts whipping him. Cathy tries to shield the two of them on the bed while screaming bloody murder while Chris doesn't make a sound. 

When she's finished, the Grandmother orders her to be quiet and when Cathy doesn't stop screaming she drags her off the bed toward the bathroom. The twins run to try and protect her (Cory biting at the Grandmother's legs again - I'm convinced this kid is actually a chihuahua) but but the Grandmother flings them aside and pulls Cathy into the bathroom and makes her undress. 

    " 'I am going to get even one day, old woman... There's going to come a day when you're going to be the helpless one, and I'm going to hold the whip in my hands.... God sees everything, and he has his way of working justice, an eye for an eye in his way Grandmother!' " 

Keep all this in mind, it will definitely come up in the next book. 

And honestly, Cathy screaming her revenge to the heavens is kind of awesome. Part of me wishes we got to see more of this side of her than the part that takes after their mom. 

The Grandmother, however, is not as impressed and starts beating the shit out of her while the twins scream from outside the bathroom for Chris to protect her. When the willow switch breaks, the Grandmother grabs a hairbrush and starts beating her with it, finally hitting her in the side of the head and causing her to black out. 

I just need to address that I normally don't talk about abuse this casually but... honestly, the descriptions aren't that strong and even though it's from Cathy's POV, it's still really not as intense as it could be and you don't really feel any danger for any of them. 

When Cathy comes-to, Chris is treating her injuries and has soothing ballet music playing. Both of them are naked and I'll let it slide this time since they're both covered in open wounds that haven't been patched up yet. (But Chris is on thin ice) He sent the twins up into the attic so they could avoid seeing the worst of this. 
It's when they start cuddling under the sheets - not having put anything on even when the cuts and bruises were taken care of - and Cathy mentions her breasts a few more times - that I start getting really squicked out again. Seriously - people with siblings, what are your thoughts on all this? Because I'm grossed out. 

Chris starts kissing her and for once Cathy actually puts up an argument, saying that this was what the Grandmother thought they did and that it's wrong. Chris blows that off saying "there's more to love-making than kissing" and - bro - you're still not supposed to have naked cuddles and make-outs with your sister. 

Cathy drifts off while thinking overly romantic things and I'm gonna go take a very long shower and maybe feel clean again sometime next century. 

Flowers in the Attic, Pt. 11 - or " The Part Where it Gets Weird"

Hey welcome back

See what happens when I get ambitious and recap three chapters a month?
In my (weak) defense, I did attempt to write this several times over the last year, but I never had my book on hand.


As promised, we begin part two with things getting immediately more bonkers.

Clearly Cathy was just as bored with the first half of the book as we were, because the first sentence of part two is that two more years went by. I guess nothing significant happened in that entire time. Whatever, I don't have to read about it, so it's fine by me.

By this time, all the kids have gotten pretty careless about what they do in that room. They have clothes thrown everywhere, and the twins have toys all over the room, they don't always put on bathrobes on and lay around in their pajamas and don't really care when someone of the opposite sex sees them in the bathroom - things like that. Honestly, they've been locked in one (actually two if you count the attic) room for three years. It's bound to happen. I don't fault any of them for that.

I do fault them for this next bit, however.

Cathy's moving into her teen years and has never really gotten a good look at her body.
You can see where this is going.

One day when they others are up in the attic, Cathy goes into the main bedroom (bathroom mirror's too small) and decides to do just that. While she's admiring herself in the big vanity mirror... um... this happens... :

'A rippling sensation on the back of my neck gave me the awareness that someone was near, and watching. I whirled about suddenly to catch Chris standing in the deep shadows of the closet. Silently he'd come from the attic. How long had he been there? Had he seen all the silly, immodest things I'd done?... He stood frozen. A queer look glazed his blue eyes, as if he'd never seen me before without my clothes on - and he had, many a time....

His eyes lowered from my flushed face down to my breasts, then lower, and lower, and down to my feet before they traveled upward ever so slowly.' 

GET AWAY FROM HER - YOU CREEPY, FUCKING FUCK!

She rightfully asks him to go away and stop staring at her... he ignores her. Great. What's worse is when she starts to cover herself he tells her not to and asks when she got so beautiful...and I just threw up a little.

Tell me something - I'm an only child but - people with siblings - how does this kind of thing make you feel? My best guess would be "icky"

And naturally, this is when The Grandmother decides to walk in. I swear, she's got cameras in there or something.

She accuses them of all the usual thing and Chris retorts that they haven't done anything and... listen, we the readers know that's true (at the moment) but I kind of have to side with Gramma on this one. This doesn't look great.

When she's done yelling back and forth with Chris, The Grandmother turns on Cathy and starts accusing her of vanity and whatnot - specifically mentioning her hair, and I think we all can tell where this is going.

When she leaves the room for a minute, Chris turns on Cathy, demanding to know what she was doing and telling her that they all knew The Grandmother spies on them (see - cameras. Told you.) but - excuse me, the real problem here is mostly from you watching her - you creepy fucking fuck! 

I'm sorry about just how many rage gifs are going to be in this post. It's really the only way I can express just how pissed off this makes me...

-ahem- sorry.

The twins wander down from the attic, and I'm only mentioning it because shit starts getting crazy real fast and I don't remember them having any reaction to it -but I could be misremembering.

The Grandmother comes back into the room carrying the world's biggest pair of scissors....

She tells Cathy to sit her ass down (okay she doesn't use those words) and that she's going to cut her hair off down to the scalp. Cathy reacts badly, thinking that it's her worst fear (I find it very hard to feel any sympathy towards this girl) and that she'd rather be whipped because her skin would heal. She's had nightmares about The Grandmother coming into their room and cutting off her hair and her breasts (Okay- yikes) and points out that The Grandmother never actually looks at her completely, she always seems to be glaring at a part of her she doesn't like and wants to remove it.

That's actually pretty insightful - I just wish it was in a better book. 

Chris tries to get Cathy to run into the bathroom and hide, but she's too scared to move. He tells The Grandmother she wont be touching a single hair on Cathy's head, and Gramma takes this about as well as you'd expect, saying that none of them will eat until Cathy cuts her hair off, and Chris will be the one to have to do it. 

Cathy, considering there are three other people in that room with you - two of which are very young children, maybe just cut your fucking hair off and save everyone a lot of grief? 

Still, they're not too worried yet, figuring that their mother will come see them any minute and they'll explain what's going on. Cathy has a bout of nightmares ranging from Hansel and Gretel candy house  ("...the shrubbery of ice-cream cones, seven flavors." ) with The Grandmother as the witch, to their mother turning into some kind of Medusa-style monster strangling them all with her hair so they'll never be a threat to her inheritance. I think Cathy's finally starting to get the big picture. And it only took her three years.

She wakes up feeling drugged and her head feeling weighted down. That's probably not a good thing.
In fact, when she tries to sit up her whole body feels pretty numb and useless and she has a splitting headache. I'm really surprised she hasn't mentioned the smell yet...

(For a bit of IRL context here, my apartment complex recently repaved all the roads and everything - everything - stunk to the high heavens for longer than I care to remember. I don't believe that this child could wake up to what's about to happen and not immediately notice something is wrong and/or throw up)

Without all of VC's flowery language building up to it - Cathy's head is covered in tar.
That was the Grandmother's solution. Don't want to cut your hair? Tar.Where did she even get the tar? Who just has hot tar lying around their giant mansion?

For some reason, whenever I read this I seem to forget that tar is, well, tar - and it takes me a minute to think "hey - why isn't that stuff all over the bed instead of just on her hair?" "Why hasn't she been badly burned by said hot tar?" "Why didn't her siblings wake up when they smelled the aforementioned hot tar???" because, really, none of these things are addressed. Cathy acts like it's gum or something - albeit a lot of gum, but still. There should be more questions raised here.

So Cathy is still groggy from whatever the Grandmother drugged her with, but manages to wake up Chris and the twins. Carrie instantly starts yelling and making it about her, saying she "doesn't like [Cathy's] head now" and I want to throw that child into a wall.

What follows is an agonizingly long scene of all the ways Chris tries to get the tar out of Cathy's hair without cutting it. Because God forbid. The conclusion they come to is for Chris to cut off her "front hair" and no matter how many reviews of this book I read, no one seems to be able to figure out just what that means.
But anyway, they cut off her "front hair" and then wrap the rest of her head up in a towel so that The Grandmother will think that Cathy is just ashamed of her horrible baldness (I guess?) and not - y'know - rip the towel off and cut the rest of her hair.

So outside of all of this, they haven't received any food for that day and only have some cheese and crackers left. The Grandmother keeps her word about not letting any of them eat until Cathy cuts her hair - although she never actually comes to check. All I'm saying is, either she really does have cameras in there, or she's fucking with them. 

So days go by and they run out of food down to the cheese in the mouse traps and are living on nothing but tap water. They run out of toothpaste, soap, and toilet paper and have to use the old books from up in the attic. The toilet backs up and they have to deal with that themselves too, hiding the soiled towels and bedsheets from mopping it up in the old trunks. Unfortunately, this is - again - slightly something I can relate to a little too closely, having lived in a few places that just had the worst plumbing ever. 

Too real. 

Days go by as the four of them can barely move and just sleep or lay in front of the TV for hours. At one point, Cathy remembers seeing Chris slash open his arm and start feeding the twins his blood. Suddenly making this a vampire or cannibal story would really improve this entire series. 

Two weeks go by like this and they finally realize that they'll die if they don't get out or if their Mother never comes back. They decide to make a rope ladder and climb out the attic window with the twins tied to their backs, but realize that they're too weak to do so. Y'know you guys might have decided to do something sooner. 

Chris the Vampire Overlord decides they can eat the mice they'd caught in the traps and that will give them energy (ew) and when he goes back down to the bedroom for salt and pepper (no comment) and finds the picnic basket overflowing with food. Along with the soup and milk and sandwiches is a foil wrapped packet containing four powdered donuts.

They go downstairs, Cathy confirming that now they finally realized that they were the only ones responsible for each other and that their mother really didn't care about them anymore. Guys, it's been three years. It took you being starved and neglected for three weeks to finally get that? 

So the first thing Cathy does is go to look in the mirror to see how much of a skinny, weird-haired circus freak she looks like, and low and behold the mirror is gone! ( -insert monotone screaming-) They look in the bathroom and the one on the dressing table and both of those are broken. Cathy goes on to say that she didn't need to wonder why the Grandmother had done all that....and then goes on to explain it anyway. Pride is sinful - blah blah - you know the drill by now. 

So things start going back to whatever they might consider normal at that point - no more hair-tar and starving to death, at least - and there's some awkward, really pointless conversation and a monopoly tournament that I'm ungodly grateful we don't have to hear about, and then Cathy and Chris decide to sneak down the rope ladder and go swimming. 

You mean....you could have left....at ANY TIME?

....

....

Flowers in the Attic, part 10 - or "Puberty makes everything weird when you live in a shoebox"

The next chapter starts off with Cathy saying that for the next three months it was too cold to go up into the attic, so she and her siblings spent all their time in front of the TV their mother had given them. In a way this makes sense, but it's the 50's and there really weren't any good movies yet, so this sounds unbearable to me. (I hate the sound of the television, honestly. It just gets really grating after a while. This room would make me nuts)

From there, she could on to say that in April she'll be turning thirteen and the people on TV had warned them all what to expect in their awkward teen years.

She moves on to say that she's noticed Chris staring at her chest.

At least this is consistent with the last bit we read?

Chris also catches her in the bathroom pulling out armpit hairs with tweezers. First of all - OW

He tells her to stop fighting to look "childishly neat" and "start thinking of those hairs as sexy."

This is gonna be another chapter where I need to pause every few lines and question my life choices.
On the other side of the puberty argument, Chris starts having wet dreams, and when Cathy calls him out on it, tells her that her time for messing up beds is coming and their mother should get around to explaining all that to her.
Hey Chris, can you stop making everything you say sound misogynistic? Seriously, not only does he act all high-and-mighty because he knows something about his sister's body that she doesn't, but the way he phrases it is just so damn rude...

Again, I'm probably over thinking it, but something about this character makes my blood boil.

I hate the 50's.

Right after talking about the less savory aspects of the two of them going through puberty, she starts talking about the five year olds in the room.

Look, I don't know if VC Andrews was doing this kind of stuff on purpose or if she was just really bad at segueing to different subjects, but I'm noticing. And it's weird.

Carrie is apparently in the habit of talking to her dolls constantly as she plays with them, still always wanting to hear the sound of her own voice. Cory is perpetually building things with tinker toys and slamming them together to also make as much noise as possible. Paired with the TV being on all the time, Cathy has successfully described my personal Hell.

One day, as the beginning of the chapter hinted at, Corrine does come in with "a large package" (how big were pads in 1950? Did you really need a huge box for them?) and Chris takes the twins up to the attic so they don't have to hear about gross womanly things, and Cathy gets the period talk. Cathy is actually hoping that her mother explains love and sex to her as well, and is severely disappointed when she doesn't. That conversation is going to have to happen someday, Corrine, and your daughter is horny as Hell. You might as well get on with it.
Cathy gives her mom a polite "no thank you" and tries to explain that she's not planning to have kids so she doesn't need to know any of this. Corrine clearly neglected to mention that this happens whether you like it or not. She also, when Cathy asks if it hurts, says there is "a little crampy pain" and as someone who has passed out several times due to that "little crampy pain" I would like to give her a hearty:

I really don't know why this chapter is hitting so many of my berserk buttons today, but man, is it ever.

Cathy tries to argue again and Corrine asks if she wants to be a child forever. Cathy has a bit of a crisis over that, because while she wants to be a woman, she doesn't really like all the "messiness" that comes with it.

" 'And Cathy, please don't be ashamed, or embarrassed, or dread a little discomfort, and the trouble - having babies is babies is very rewarding.'"

Big talk coming from a woman who locked her kids in one room to keep them from ruining her evil schemes to inherit an obscene fortune.


"' Someday you'll fall in love and marry and you'll want to give your husband children - if you love him enough.'" 

...

 Wow there's a lot to unpack there, isn't it? First of all, fuck this woman. Second of all, fuck the 1950's and the goddamn mindset that still hangs around to this goddamn day.

Third of all, did Corrine kind of just admit that she had her kids because her husband wanted them? Nothing in that inspirational bit of rhetoric of hers said anything about if the woman wants kids. She basically just said that "if you don't give your husband children when he wants them, you don't love him enough."

I.... I gotta sit down after that one.

Never in my life have I been happier to be a demisexual lesbian with a deep aversion to the very idea of pregnancy.

 Cathy asks what kind of painful indignities Chris will have to go through to become a man and is very disappointed that there really isn't. So am I, Cathy. Corrine also adds that Cathy shouldn't be afraid if her period starts out of nowhere like when she's asleep or dancing, and says that her own mother told her absolutely nothing about any of this and I need to put this here:

Despite the subject matter, Cathy is actually very grateful for such a warm and open moment with her mom, since it's not only been a long time since she's visited, but also since she'd felt really invested in her children. However, as soon as Chris and the twins come back downstairs, that gap between them reappears as Corrine only seems to give any kind of affection to Chris (ignoring the twins entirely) and Cathy is left feeling very empty. The twins climb into her lap and she acts as a mother to them instead, feeling that they haven't changed at all in all the time they'd been in that room.

"As Chris and I moved on into puberty, the twins stagnated, went nowhere."

This is a really heavy chapter once you get down to the meat of it.



After a page break, Cathy talks about birthdays coming and going, most notably the twin's sixth birthdays where Cory gets a bunch of instruments that he can play instantly and already make up full songs. Okay, this kid is a prodigy. If you're worried about money, why not let the kids out of the attic and take that one on tour?
Corrine notes that Cory must have gotten his musical talent from her own brothers who died an icy death in a deep frozen chasm and/or dangerous mountain pass.
Think I'm joking? Check this shit out:

" '...Both of my brothers were musicians...[her brother Mal] would escape the life he hated by riding up into the mountains on his motorcycle. ...One day he took a curve too fast in the rain. He careened off the road and crashed down hundreds of feet into a chasm.' " 

" [Her younger brother Joel] had been killed in a skiing accident in Switzerland. ...He had fallen into some deep ravine filled with snow, and to this day we never found his body." 

No one can just die in this book, huh?

Also remember that bit about her brother's body never being found. I swear to God, it comes back later.


With that happy bit of information in hand, Chris and Cathy go up to the attic to try and teach the twins to read and write. It goes about as well as can be expected, but at least it gives them all something else to do.


With summer coming, they start spending more time laying around in the attic on an old mattress in front of the window trying to catch any kind of a breeze. They have a chat about nudity being or not being sinful and about the human body (Cathy mentions she's on her period and wants to know if that grosses Chris out) and I can't really find any reason it's particularly relevant to what's happening because next they wonder about why their mother keeps them locked up. This is something that could have and should have been touched upon much sooner than this.
Cathy suspects that Chris loves their mother too much to see any flaws in what she's doing and he even admits that out loud.

The chapter - and the first section of the book - ends with Corrine reporting that her father does seem to be getting worse and it shouldn't be much longer. Cathy goes to their big wall calendar and crosses off the day.

They've been in the attic for a full year. Two more to go!



And we are officially done with Part One!

I promise part two has (a little bit) more going on!

But that's next time

Flowers in the Attic, part 9 - or "Oedipus is lucky he can't read any of this"

Hey, trying to do this more frequently so I don't lose focus on this goddamn book.

Last chapter, we saw the elaborate Christmas party Corrine's parents throw every year and Cathy and Chris got to hide in a cupboard and spy on part of it.

Then Chris gets the brilliant idea to go sneak around the house while their door is unlocked.

Okay off we go then.


We see the repercussions of this choice immediately, as Cathy is woken up by her mother shaking the bejesus out of her while she's sleeping and yelling in her face. Corrine demands to know where Chris is, because - of course - it's been hours and he's still not back in the room yet. Cathy doesn't know what to say and is pretty much just cowering on her bed. She finally answers, trusting that she can tell her mother the truth. It doesn't go well and Corrine starts pacing and says "Damn" a bunch of times.

 - side note: do people actually say "Damn, damn, damn!" when they're upset?

Corrine says she'll never let either of them out of that room ever again no matter the circumstances, which I'm sure is exactly what Cathy wants to hear.

' "You both gave me your word-and you broke it! How can I trust either one of you now? And I thought I could. I thought you loved me, that you would never betray me!" '

Alright, I don't normally make jokes like this - but this woman needs to get on some fucking lithium and get on it now. I guess we see where her daughters picked up the habit of going from zero to sixty in three seconds flat.

As anticipated, Cathy's not crazy about her mother confirming that she's going to keep them locked in one bedroom for the rest of their lives. When Corrine turns to storm out of the room like a Disney villain, Cathy talks more about her dress and points out that Corrine's perfume smells too nice and doesn't match her bad mood. I'm paraphrasing but that's what she said. I don't get it either.

Chris comes back right as Corrine is about to leave and as soon as she sees him, it's his turn to get the bejesus smacked out of him.

It's super effective! 

After quite literally slapping him twice, hard enough to leave red marks on both sides of his face (and I just remembered that Corrine's wearing a bunch of diamond rings - the fuck, lady!) Corrine threatens that if he ever does this again she'll whip not only him, but also throw Cathy in there for good measure.
Hey Corrine, you're starting to act like your parents.
Are you okay with that?

She snaps out of it a second later and starts frantically apologizing to Chris and hugging and kissing him, probably because she knows if Chris isn't on her side, she's fucked.

'Kiss, kiss, kiss, finger his hair, stroke his cheek, draw his head against her soft, swelling breasts, and let him drown in the sensuality of being cuddled close to that creamy flesh that must excite even a youth of his tender years.' 

First of all, I hate that this is all one sentence.

Second of all, that is a sentence written from the POV of a twelve year old describing her mother's interactions with her older brother.

Please, please tell me I don't have to explain why I want to throw up every time I have to read this passage.

Corrine apologies, claiming that she's not herself because everything's going her way. This really just makes me wonder why these kids never noticed that their mother is a harpy - but I digress.

She kisses him on the mouth and hugs him some more and asks if the two of them will forgive her. Honestly, she's kind of the one keeping them alive, so it's not like they have a real choice. Instead of thinking about that, Cathy realizes she has "... never felt her cheek against the softness of [Corrine's] breast."

Can you both stop being horny for your mom for at least half a freaking page?

So Chris and Cathy both forgive Corrine because - again- what other option have they got? Once she leaves, Cathy asks about everything Chris saw when he explored the house.

He talks a lot about how beautiful it is and the room full of hunting trophies and a painting of their Grandfather when he was younger, saying the name "Malcom Neal Foxworth" again - and I hate that name more than anything after reading the third book in this series, so typing that actually made me cringe.

Cathy makes him get to the good part and Chris talks about spying on their mother and her sentient mustache, Bart Winslow making out and flirting. Creeping around in the hallway and digressing about wanting to try on a suit of armor, Chris overheard Winslow asking to see "The Swan Bed"

Probably something like this? Both movie adaptations have gotten this wrong, so don't trust either of them.

Not to be confused with the Phantom of the Opera Turkey Bed

Try and tell me it's not a turkey - I dare you!

Apparently Corrine's grandmother (rumored to be a French courtesan, but we'll get to that in a minute) had this massive bed shaped like a swan, and Corrine had always begged to have her furniture. Corrine's father, figuring that she couldn't get any more corrupt than she already is, finally agreed to let her have it.  When asked about it, Corrine said that, of course, her Grandmother hadn't really been a courtesan, the bed of someone like that would have been "burned at night while prayers were said for its redemption." I can't make this shit up.

Chris describes Corrine's whole bedroom in agonizing detail - but I refuse to even bullet point that because it's way too long and I don't care. What we're meant to take away from it, however, is that Corrine is not living in the lifestyle of a woman trying to save money for a small apartment for herself and four children.

He finishes up talking about, while this house is beautiful - definitely more so than their little house in Pennsylvania, it's not pretty or cozy. This is an observation I can understand, and it's actually not a bad thing to have in here, especially comparing what the kids want to what her mother wants. Corrine's used to riches and a big fancy mansion - but that house and those riches feel very hard and cold. The kids, however, wish they were back in their cozy ranch house where they didn't have whatever they wanted and huge piles of money, but had love, warmth and parents that cared about them.

I dunno, it always struck me as pretty good imagery in that respect, but maybe I'm just rehashing the obvious. It's still a nice touch.

Unfortunately, the chapter ends with more of Chris's Oedipus complex when Cathy feels like he's been hiding something and thinks she sees him crying after they turn in for the night. Basically Chris is upset and feeling betrayed because his mother was making out with someone else.

I mean, it could also be he's starting to realize what's really going on with Corrine - how she's been lying to them and her priorities have changed and how he's going to have to face that someday. I'd like to think that's what it's leaning towards, but all of the interactions and language with Chris and Corrine is so gross that it's really a coin-toss.

I'm only doing the one chapter this time because I feel like there was quite a bit to this one, but I'll probably get back to double chapter parts again later. We'll see.

Flowers in the Attic Pt. 8 - or "The Most Horrible Time of the Year"

.... I have no excuses, really. Sometimes I just get really tired of talking about this book.


So it is approaching the next chapter ("Holidays") that I finally notice the chapters themselves are not numbered. That makes my job both easier and harder all at once.

Either way this chapter begins with the attic children getting ready for their first (but certainly not last) holiday season in confinement. Cathy opens up telling us about the amaryllis plant from their mother that's supposed to bloom around Christmas (that their mother said "No - of COURSE we wont be here that long!") and then proceeds to talk about the Thanksgiving decorations they've set up in preparation for the big meal. Their mother assures them that she'll bring up some of Thanksgiving dinner for them so that they can actually eat something different for a change (not to mention something actually hot.)

Let's see how that goes wrong, because this is a book where even something like getting fed on time has to have some sort of inconvenience or misfortune. That's just the kind of story this is.

So they wait around for about three hours, not letting anyone eat because "Momma will be bringing us special hot food" and again, what is with the dialogue in this book? Maybe it's because I haven't looked at this in a while but - ye Gods - it gets worse every time I do!

It's 3:00 when their mother finally shows up, apologizing and saying that her father decided at the last minute he wanted to eat with the family at the table so that made it harder for her to sneak away and prepare some extra food for her kids.

Real talk now - the Grandmother knows their up there, she couldn't give Corrine a hand with this? She already feeds them - what makes this so big a leap? I'm just saying.

So they say a speedy grace and Chris starts divvying up the portions - giving the twins really small amounts because they hate everything, Cathy gets a medium size, and Chris takes huge portions for himself, because he is a raging dickbag. Also the food is cold by the time they get it.


The twins begin turning into a pair of spoiled, bratty little demons again (shocker, I know) saying that they don't like cold food (please see the recap about raisin bran for debate on that) and we get probably the weirdest exchange so far (well, that's a tough call) :

"The brown stuff is called gravy and it's delicious. And Eskimos love cold food."
"Cathy do Eskimos like cold food?"
"I don't know, Carrie. I guess they'd better like it, or starve to death."

Oh hey, we're getting into this part of the drinking game early!

- Racism! 

Seriously, what the actual Hell, VC? - also, pretty sure Inuits would cook whatever they hunted, but I'm no Chris Dollanganger trying to read dictionaries to get into med school, so what the hell do I know?

After Thanksgiving the twins both get sick and are stuck in bed for weeks. This is one of the few times Corrine seems to notice and fusses over them throughout most of it. Everyone, Corrine included, seems to think they should be taken to a doctor in case they have the flu and because they don't seem to be getting better the more time goes on.
Grandma shuts this down, saying that colds only last nine days ("Three to come, three to stay, three to leave") and worrying about them is pointless and really makes me believe this woman would be an anti-vaxxer in a current AU.

Needless to say, they were sick nineteen days and after that, never quite recovered completely.


At this point, Cathy's getting restless and fed up with being locked in one room at the mercy of the germs and sickroom air. Again, can't really blame her. Their mother suggests they take vitamins and, Corrine, that's really not the point here. (Your kids are locked in one room and eat the same thing every single day - you'd think that might have come up before now)
Cathy fights back against all this, wanting to know how much longer they were going to stay locked up there.

"Do you expect me to kill my father?" 

I mean, if you think that would speed things along...




Christmas fast approaches and we get a couple pages of the Dolls getting ready and making things for each other and wondering what the first Christmas in the attic will be like. Chris also gets the bonkers idea of making the Grandmother a gift to try and win her over (which I'm pretty sure is breaking another rule of hers, but whatever. Points for trying)
On Christmas morning they wake up to find piles of presents and full stockings and real candy for the first time since they'd come to that house. ("There will be no trips to the dentist until your grandfather dies" I believe was the rule about that) Cathy goes on about all the gifts their mother brings them, pointing out that they all really only want one thing, and that's to get out of that goddamn room.

When the Grandmother comes in, Cathy gives her the present they made (some kind of picture done in collage with lace and beads - actually sounds pretty nice) and the Grandmother doesn't even look at it. Cathy gets upset,  calling them all fools for trying, and stomps the picture into oblivion. Very mature. 

Later their mother brings in this huge antique doll house that's been in her family for generations

Listen. I'm required to make this joke, okay?

and explains that it's an exact replica of the house, and all the furniture is also exact replicas and it's worth a "fabulous fortune" so... why are you not selling it to get your children away from your crazy family?
Just saying.

We get some more Christmas merriment - Corrine gives them a TV set that her father gave her and dodges any questions about if that means he loves her enough to put her back in his will - and Cathy informs us that there was nothing special in the picnic basket from the Grandmother - just month old turkey leftover from thanksgiving that still had ice on it - and she ends the chapter saying that chocolate sweetened the sourness of her roving wicked thoughts. It's lines like this that give me enough ammo to write more psych analysis on why everything in this book has to come off sounding weirdly sexual at the worst times.


That interesting note follows us right into the next chapter "The  Christmas Party" when Corrine comes in dressed in a  shimmering green gown that we'll hear about in great detail in the next book as well so I wont bore you with it. Cathy describes her smelling like
 "a musky, perfumed garden, on a moonlit night somewhere in the Orient"

- ignoring certain terminology, I really do have to ask, how the FUCK would you know what that smells like? You live in a shoebox!

She sees Chris drooling over their mom (ew) and hopes she looks like that someday with "all those swelling curves that men so admire" and I'm gonna take another "ew" for that one. Thanks.

 Corrine helps sneak Cathy and Chris out of the room and shows them a hiding spot in some kind of cabinet with a mesh back that overlooks the downstairs ballroom so they can watch the party for a while. I see this only going well.

They stare down at all the well-dress people, showing off how obscenely rich everyone is. And they are RICH - make no mistake! God forbid the reader not know the exact amount of their freaking wealth.
Since I really don't want to retype everything she describes, lets get some bullet points!

• three, five-tiered crystal and gold chandeliers
• Hundreds of richly dressed people
• servants in black and red uniforms
• Giant crystal fountain that sprayed out amber liquid into a silver bowl
• Huge gold framed mirrors that reflect the whole room
• the walls are even "gold-colored" so.... they're gold, is what you're saying
• "French chairs, of course- they just had to be Louis XIV or XV. Good-golly day!" 

I'm gonna be using this one a lot, aren't I?

Also since when was Cathy an expert on French Antique furniture? I'm only bringing it up because - well, she's twelve and lives in an attic - and also because I'm pretty damn sure she does this again later.

  More importantly than all of this nonsense, Chris and Cathy get their first ever look at their grandfather, who looks right up at the place where they're hiding as if he knows exactly what's going on. I'm betting that's not gonna come back later or anything.

 They also see their mother letting herself get groped by a young guy with a mustache and hear some conveniently times gossip about Corrine and said mustache.

 His name is Bart Winslow, he's their father's lawyer, and he's been making a pass at Corrine for a while - and she doesn't seem to mind in the least. From the descriptions from Cathy, it seems like the two of them are just making out and groping each other right in the middle of the ballroom. Hey kids - get a room that isn't this one!

For some reason everyone seems to know about Corrine eloping with her "half-uncle" (-shot-) and for the record, I'm pretty sure that's not a phrase human beings outside of this book actually use. The drunk people gossiping dish out some more exposition that we already know and then finally walk away and - I guess Chris and Cathy are just hiding out in that cabinet thing for hours and nothing else of import seems to happen because suddenly it's super late and they both have to go to the bathroom.

As soon as they get back to the room and deal with alltheir bathroom needs (side note: I read another recap of this book somewhere and the blogger also brought up the fact that VC Andrews has this weird fixation on people peeing or shitting - and honestly, I'm starting to notice that myself)  - Chris and Cathy begin to discuss seeing their mother with another man and wondering what that will mean for them. Cathy seems to think that they should be the only company their mother needs but Chris points out that people have sides of their personality you don't see and that of course she would want romance in her life again. He also calls his mother a "sexy young window"

They decide it's the perfect time to explore the house while everyone's distracted and their door is unlocked. So Chris finds a disguise up in the attic and sneaks out to go have a look around. But not before undressing his sister with his eyes and kissing her on the cheek.

"He seemed impressed and dazzled, just as he had when he'd gazed so long at Momma's swelling bosom above the green velvet bodice."

Alright, number one: stop talking about your mom's boobs. Number two - your brother shouldn't be looking at either you OR his mother that way. And three - this line that follows directly after that:

"No wonder he'd kissed me voluntarily - I was so princess-like!"

I can't stand this girl's ego, you guys. I can't even imagine how anyone could read through this and be like "Yes - this is our likable and relatable protagonist!" (I don't know if anyone did that, I'm just saying...)

So Chris leaves and Cathy goes to bed, thinking "Merry Christmas, Daddy" and - damn it, don't make me feel bad for this girl!

Chris's exploration will be looked at in the next chapter - I'll try not to wait five months before writing that one.

Flowers in the Attic, pt. 7 - or "Dear Lord the first half of this book is BORING"

Hello - it's been awhile because - once again - as much as I love picking on this book, I'm really tired of reading it.

I'm going to try and do more than one chapter per recap, since less seems to actually be happening for a while. At least for now. The significant events kind of all happen at once and, as of right now, there aren't too many.



In the last chapter, the kids were told why their mother was disinherited by her father and that they would have to wait in that locked room longer than they'd originally thought until Corrine can save up for an apartment for them.
Or win back her father's love.
Or until he dies.
This is around the time when there's a million potential outcomes and we, as readers, are pretty damn sure it's not going to be any of them.



Chapter seven is titled "Minutes like Hours" and is essentially Cathy explaining how they spent their time in the attic over the next two weeks or so.

Their mother did make good on her promise to bring them games, books, and books about games (bridge, particularly) and Chris and Cathy were easily entertained enough. Unfortunately, the twins had much shorter attention spans and it seemed like none of the fancy toys their mother brings them amuse them for very long.

She next goes into their morning routine, waking up early, getting washed and dressed and then waiting for The Grandmother to arrive with the picnic basket full of their food for the day. In the beginning she would also ask them for bible passages to make sure that they were reading it. She stops after Chris and Cathy keep finding lines like "Wherefore you have rewarded evil for good?" and "Great men are not always wise" and I really must admit, I liked this part. Just little petty little things to get back at Evil Grandma (TM) make me almost like these characters.

A couple of weeks go by and Cathy starts nagging Corrine about how much longer it will take to win back her father's love. Corrine's answer is about as vague as ever, and when Cathy asks what would happen if their Grandfather found out about them... well, it's honestly not very clear.

Y'see, the Grandmother already said that they would be good Christians and wouldn't just throw them out on the street (though considering the things she DOES do to them, I think getting the boot would be much nicer...) so... what could possibly happen to them? Corrine's worried about not being put back into the will, but if it's really a matter of having a place to live until she can get a job and set some money aside (spoiler: she doesn't) and just bearing with it temporarily ... well, can it really be much worse than what happens? I don't believe this is ever brought up again, by the way.

There's some more nothing talk about the attic and what they find in it, how they pass the time, and some really weird info about the twins. We get more of Carrie yelling and wining that she doesn't like things (I HATE this child!) and Cathy explaining that slowly she was becoming like a second mother to them, since their actual mother wasn't always around. There's also this weird bit about Carrie liking ruffly underwear and how she makes everyone look at them (kay....) and a more-than-necessary in-detail description of her getting the shits if she eats the wrong kind of fruit..... why did we need this? Either way, I had to know about it - so so do you.

The meat of this chapter seems to be when Corrine finally shows up again after not making an appearance all day (they kids are used to her spending her Sundays with them, you see) and when she finally shows up she's decked out in a sailing outfit and smelling of sunshine and fresh air and basically flaunting her freedom in their faces. Mom of the year, this one.

Cathy flips out at her, and once again, I really have to agree with her this time. If I'd been locked inside for weeks on end (involuntarily) I'd be pretty pissed off too. This little tantrum finally gets Corrine to fess up that, while the letter she got before they left was written by her mother, her father added a note at the end, saying that the only good thing about her marriage was that she hadn't created and "Devil's Issue" - which is a term you hear a lot in this series.  Alright so I guess the "what-if" of her telling him does come up again... (my bad, but my brain falls asleep reading this part)
So Corrine and the Grandmother plotted in secret to hide the kids in one room (plus attic) without the Grandfather knowing. Cathy suddenly realizes that Corrine has no intention of telling her father about them and their stuck their until he dies. Which is what pretty much everyone except Corrine has been telling them...

Thank you, Giles

She makes them promise to chill out and waste their lives a little longer because her father's going to goes toes up any day now - REALLY. Chris agrees, because of course he does, and Cathy doesn't really say anything else, knowing that there wouldn't really be much point to it.
So that's good.

Next chapter (and about a third into this book) finally brings in the titular "flowers" in the attic. They begin spending most of their time up there, trying to entertain the twins and themselves and after Cory says he misses the garden, they get the idea to turn the attic into one. They spend a week cleaning it up and their mother even helps them (which I'm really amazed at, seeing as that means getting off her ass and actually doing something other than sitting around and looking pretty) and even provides them with art supplies and a few real potted plants because - hell, they'll never set foot outside that room again, might as well decorate?

Through what Corrine tells the kids, Cathy seems to realize that their mom is really starting to get into this whole "rich heiress" thing again. She goes to the movies with old friends, possibly goes on dates (though she denies it) and while she claims to be taking a typing class, I really don't believe that in the least. Because that means work. And Corrine doesn't work.

Insert more bland stuff about Cathy and Chris being Kindergarten teachers for the twins, the twins not liking it, and a little note from Corrine about how their's a book for everything. Remember that later, it comes back in a weird way.

So they decorate the attic with paper flowers and ribbons and foam mushroom chairs (what the what???) and even paper animals taped to the wall (there's a bit in here where Corey makes a weird looking orange snail and Carrie makes a giant purple worm that's too long to put here, but it's the only time I really like these kids)

Like most information in this book, it comes at sort of random intervals in an almost stream-of-consciousness kind of way. Cathy tells us about the Grandmother and how she wont go into the attic because according to Corrine, she's claustrophobic because her parents would lock her in a closet when she misbehaved, and I'm legally obligated to put this here..

The Grandmother one days asks them what they do up there, implying some pretty creepy stuff between Cathy and her older brother and ... look, just wait. We all know what's in this book. Just give it some time. Still, Cathy has no idea what she's talking about and - at that point - no, there's nothing going on, Grandma, you're just setting these kids up to live out your creepy incest suspicion fantasies.

Anyway, that one got away from me.
Where were we?

Two months have gone by and the Grandfather isn't dead yet, Chris suggests that they should keep up their studies so their not too behind when they finally get out, and says he's going to attach a bar to the wall in the attic so Cathy can practice her dancing. Cathy takes this idea less than well because you need costumes and music to dance to and runs down the stairs, fantasizing about if she fell and broke her legs and her neck and died and how they'd all be sorry then.

....I need some tea if I'm gonna get through this one

Her mother shows up a few days later with boxes of ballet costumes and records with a note "from Christopher" and, honestly, this is really sweet. It almost makes me forget how much of a creep Chris normally is. This is a genuinely nice thing he does for his sister and I appreciate it. Then he wrecks it by acting like a fuck-boy again two pages later. So that's that.

This chapter is about forty pages long and the only other significant thing is Corey getting locked in a trunk when they're playing hide and seek in the cold-as-hell attic (it is now November) and almost freezing to death. This bit really only serves two purposes,

1. to illustrate just how helpless they are up there if something happens to one of them
and 2. some really early foreshadowing for the next book.

and with that, I'm bringing this to a close. We're nearly done with part one and then maybe something honestly significant will happen.