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.