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 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.

Flowers in the Attic: Pt. 5 or "Everyone just SHUT UP!"

-Dusts off my blog-
Damn, okay, so that didn't quite work out. To anyone who looks at this - terribly sorry for the hiatus.

I had actually intended on ... actually posting something, but I work in retail, and the months of October to January are what most people might refer to as: Hell.

As for recently, I'm in the middle of moving again, so things have been a little complicated, and also - it's just really hard for me too keep reading this Goddamn book over and over again...

Anyway, show must go on. I found my marked-up copy of this paperback idiocy, I've had a decent enough break from looking at it - on with the show!

Before I get totally into it, I'd like to thank Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix for getting me back into the spirit. If you don't know what this book is, it's a collection of pulp horror novel artwork done in the 70's and 80's during the paperback horror boom and - let me tell you - some of these, I'm actually dying to get my hands on. They're the dumbest things I've ever seen and would be so much fun to read.
Note: as of writing this, I have found some here and there and have actually read one of them so far. More on that later.


So the title of this chapter is  "The Wrath of God" so we already know we're in for a fun time.

We last left the idiot siblings still locked in their room after exploring the attic and waiting for their mother's arrival. When she finally comes in, Cathy and Chris instantly notice she's moving very stiffly, her face looks pale and she wont look any of them in the eye.
Mum's not doing too great then.

She asks how their day went and immediately the twins start complaining that they were locked in the room, forced to go into an attic and a ton of mediocre things that probably seem like nothing compared to the day their mom had.
To be fair - yeah they're like - three years old.
I don't care, I hate these kids. I hate reading about them. I hate most of their dialogue.

Carrie the moose starts shrieking and hitting and screaming and all the things she's already known for, and Corrine tries to calm her down with little to show for it, when nurse Ratchett shows up.

For the record, the movie from the 80's is a real gem. An insanely campy, terribly melodramatic gem

She commands that Corrine shut her children up that instant (her words, not mine for a change) with a look on her face that suggests she'd do it for her in another few seconds.

To show just how well behaved she is, Carrie goes over to the Grandmother and does this:

"Planting her small feet wide apart, Carrie threw back her head, opened her rosebud mouth and really let go!" 

It's scenes like this that give a perfect example of why I hate this child. I can't do temper-tantrums, and this whole scene has me on the evil grandma's side of this. They're spoiled as Hell and scream whenever they don't like something.

Sorry, I really don't like children.
Let us continue.

The Grandmother grabs Carrie by the hair and lifts her up off the ground, and Cory - the twin I don't hate - takes it upon himself to defend his twin and runs at The Grandmother and bites onto her leg. The Grandmother drops Carrie on the ground and Cory starts kicking her with his tiny little feet.

"...Cory didn't flinch, his only reaction to this very obvious threat was a deeper, more fierce scowl as his small hands knotted into fists raised in professional boxer style." 

Meanwhile I try not to ask why there were so many options when I googled "Boxing hamster" 

They both start screaming and The Grandmother makes it clear she's done fucking around. She starts slapping them both hard enough to send them flying and they go and cower in a corner (still screaming).
While all this has been going on, by the way, neither the older children, nor their mother have done a thing. They're literally all just sitting their watching it. I'll give Corrine a free pass this time (you'll find out why in a minute) but the other two? What's their excuse?

The twins finally stop screaming when their Grandmother actually grabs them both by the scruff and just throws them back on the floor. With as harsh as this is, what she says next really has you kind of agreeing with her:
"... 'Obviously your children have been spoiled and indulged, and are in desperate need of lessons in discipline and obedience... Hear that!'"

I skipped a little in the middle there, I mostly just like the - not a question - "Hear that!" at the end.
And then she says this...

" 'Now take of your blouse, daughter, and show those who disobey just how punishment is dealt out in this house!'" 

So, I lost track of what's been going on in the Dollanganger drinking game, but we're just gonna add:
"Take a shot when something in this book comes out sounding way more sexual than it really needs to" 

So Corrine  tries to reason with her, saying the twins have stopped crying and there's no need for that. However, the Grandmother makes it clear that she wont fall for her daughter's "pretty face and beguiling ways" which really just adds more fodder to that essay - and then calls her a deceitful, lying bit of trash.
Mother of the year, this one.

Speaking of decent parenting, Corrine has a single moment of maybe trying to stand up for herself by telling the Grandmother that if she's cruel to her children (too late) that she'll take them out of the house tonight and the Grandmother will never see any of them again.

I really don't know why she thought this would work.

Cathy gets her hopes up, thinking that they're going to get out of that house and never have to go up in the attic again and ... no.

Predictably, the Grandmother tells Corrine that she can leave and she doesn't care if she never sees any of them again, which - really - Corrine should know better, considering what just happened.

So because she has nowhere else to go and coming to the house was literally the last resort other than....getting a job(?), Corrine doesn't do anything that would get her kids out of a horribly abusive situation and instead ends up doing what her crazy mother says and takes her blouse off, showing them her back, covered in whip marks.

" 'Take a good look, children. Know that those whip marks go all the way down to your mother's feet. Thirty-three lashes, one for each year of her life. And fifteen extra for each year she lived in sin with your father.' "

The Grandmother's full rant goes on to explain that she was the one who actually whipped her even though Corrine's father was the one who ordered the punishment and that her marriage was a sin against God and that she had that many children with him was evil and ... this woman's entire range of dialogue really just is more of the same...

And then we get some more uncomfortable inner monologue from Cathy:

"My eyes bulged at the sight of those pitiful welts on the creamy tender flesh that our father had handled with so much love and gentleness."

Yeah, I always talk about my mother's skin this way - oh wait - no I don't - cause that's fucking weird.

Either way - take a shot.

So this marks the first part of this book where Cathy is filled with hatred and starts vowing revenge on the Grandmother and starts glaring at her, which seems like a great idea, considering.

The Grandmother explains that she'll give the children food and shelter (like a good Christian?) but they can expect no kindness or friendship from her and she would feel nothing but repulsion towards them. She wants them to know that they are the Devil's Issue - which is another phrase that'll come up a lot - and that they're horrible creatures with no hope of redemption and really I'm getting tired of writing the same thing over and over.

Cathy vows that she'll never be made to hate her father and would strike back at the Grandmother someday in any way she can. She looks over at Chris, who is also glaring at the Grandmother but, she realizes, more in anger over what she did to Corrine. Cathy explains that Chris loves Corrine more than the rest of them and puts her on a pedestal of perfection above all others:

"He'd already told me that when he grew up, he'd marry a woman who was like our mother."

You thought I was joking about the Oedipus thing, didn't you?

We end this chapter with Cathy wondering why they were brought to this house, why had their mother thought it would be safe for them, hadn't she known what her parents would be like, why they were brought in the dead of night, etc. etc.

Will we find out the answer to these questions?

Tune in next time and find out!

Flowers in the Attic - Pt. 4 or "In Which Nothing F*cking happens"

Hello again, it's been a while hasn't it?
Mostly because rereading this book so often makes my brain hurt...

Not much happened in the last chapter except the Doll. siblings (oh wait, Cathy did say the neighbors called them the "Dresden Dolls"... forgot about that) received breakfast and a list of rules from The Grandmother and they began to wait until they maids were done cleaning the rest of the floor so they could go and investigate the attic.

The next chapter opens with them looking up in the attic.

Go figure.

Admittedly, the description is rather impressive - as I said back in chapter one - this book isn't complete trash. Cathy describes the wide planks in the floors, the different dormer alcoves jutting off to each side, and the wide assortment of old furniture and junk that seems to be piled up literally everywhere.

They start digging through some old trunks and look through several decades worth of moldy, moth ridden clothes, and yet Cathy is still able to fantasize about wearing some of them:

"How I would love to flounce about in a frilly chemise over pantaloons, with dozens of fancy petticoats over wire hoops, all bedecked in ruffles, lace embroidery, with flowing ribbons of velvet or satin, and my shoes would be of satin and over all of this bedazzled finery would be  a lacy parasol to shade my golden curls, and keep the sun from my fair, unwrinkled complexion. And I'd carry a fan to elegantly cool myself, and my eyelids would flutter and bewitch. Oh what a beauty I'd be!"

There is not a single character in this book of narcissistic sociopaths more in love with herself than Cathy is.

She's pulled out of these thoughts by the twins whining about how it's hot and they don't like it up in the attic. She more or less ignores them and there's more description of the attic as they start looking through old albums and moldy books and Chris starts lusting after a dress dummy that belonged to one of the pretty girls in the photos they'd found - which then instantly shifts to him talking about their mother:

" 'But this girl is only pretty,' Christopher concluded. 'Our mother is beautiful.'
The silence of that space was so deep you could hear your heartbeat."

I can't do paragraph indents on this thing, but that next line is an entirely new paragraph. Still, it reads like there was just this awkward pause after he says that.

After the line about the silence, Cathy is back to talking about what's in the attic and how they could even look in every trunk stored up there for something to do and discover what secrets the attic might be keeping. All I say is - wait a few years.

This immediately jumps to Cathy getting worried over why their grandparents would hate them so much, Chris tries to reassure her, without much success, and they once again start looking around the attic.

If this chapter could pick a tone or a center of focus, that'd be great.

The twins start whining about it being dusty and Chris finds a little school room full of books and a couple of desks and toys in the back of the attic. This is actually an interesting detail because the desks have names, ages and dates carved into them that implies the four of them probably weren't the only kids to be locked away in this attic. I doubt any of this is ever explored - since the Dollanganger series mostly just follows these little shits and their offspring - and most of the later books in the series weren't even written by Andrews at all. If these names were supposed to come into play later, we'll probably never know (but correct me if I'm wrong - but I refuse to read any more of this series than I already have)

Cathy starts looking through some of the books and then screams when one of them is full of centipedes. So that happened.

Honestly so little actually happens in this chapter that I have to resort to mentioning centipedes.

They manage to open some of the windows and let in the air, and Chris mentions leaving one of them open at night, hoping an owl might fly in:

" '...I've always wanted an owl for a pet.' 

'For heaven's sake, why in the world would you want on of those things?' "

Everyone is fond of owls

" 'Owls can turn their heads all the way around. Can you do that?' "

For some reason this exchange has always amused me a little. Cathy wonders why a bird as wise as an owl would even want to come in and be locked away with them, to which I feel obligated to mention that owls are dumb as Hell.

The twins start whining that they want to go outside and play in the garden and swing, which obviously they can't, and Chris tells them to pretend that the attic is outside and he manages to make swings for them out of random rope and garbage that's up in the attic and hangs them from the rafters. This bit is important because it's the scene where they decide to make the attic into a garden, which is where the title comes in.

As someone who was fascinated with attics as a child, I actually relate to this a lot more than I probably should...

They go back downstairs for lunch and Chris and Cathy start talking about what they'll do when they're rich as kings. Cathy talks about wanting a horse or a pony or some generic thing that twelve year olds in the 50's wanted, and says when she's a famous prima ballerina she'll eat nothing but cheese and ice cream all day and work off the fat by dancing. This is not how anything works.

They discuss other things like which games to ask their mother for to make the week go by faster, the twins brat out again and Cathy reads them stories to get them to shut up, following that paragraph with "Thank God we weren't going to be shut up here long" again.

There's really nothing else of consequence to mention here, if I try and recap anything else in, it's just going to be typing the same thing over and over.

Until next time, here's hoping something happens in the next chapter.

Flowers in the Attic Pt. 3 "Your Mother eats Raisin Bran in Hell"

Welcome back and here we begin chapter three and if anyone's been wondering why I hate the twins, you'll find out now...

Our chapter begins with our main characters waking up in the cramped and dark room in their Grandparents' giant mansion. A room on the barely used second floor that is - supposedly - the only room in a giant mansion that has it's own bathroom

 - Sorry, I'm still hung up on that. It's just too stupid for me to suspend my disbelief

Most of the first few pages is Cathy waking up and looking around the room, which as I've already said is dark, cramped with excess furniture and the blinds and shutters are closed.

Oh yeah - and there's gruesome paintings of Hell and damnation all over the walls.

Welcome home, kids

Chris the Art Nerd guesses that the paintings are Goya's work and Cathy kind of ignores him because he's a know-it-all. The twins wake up and immediately want to know how they got there, where they are, and start complaining that they don't like it. (There's going to be a lot of that. Gird your loins)

Now maybe I'm not being fair. It's not "the twins" that are annoying. It's only one of them.
Cathy spends a good deal of time talking about them in this chapter and explains that Carrie is always the one to voice her complaints and talk a lot. A. Lot.

She describes that as constantly chattering like a sweet little bird in the mornings, chirping happily. Two pages later she says she sounds like a moose.

Before Carrie can continue her complaining, the Grandmother comes in with a tray of food that she says will have to last them all day, seeing as she can't keep coming up and down the stairs all day, which I guess is fair, she is an old lady, after all and she doesn't want the servants to notice.

She explains that when they are in the bedroom they must be completely silent, so that no one will know they're there, but after the servants are done cleaning in that wing in the mornings, they may go up to the attic where there is room to run around and make noise.

Before she leaves, she gives them a list of all the things they can't do while they're staying in her home and says that even if they try to hide their wickedness, God will see every sin they commit and punish them for it.

Thanks, Grandma. Love you too.

Once she's out of the room they start to divvy up the food for the day and Chris acts like a complete and utter fuckboy when Cory (other twin) pees in a vase because Cathy and Carrie are in the bathroom.

" 'That should teach you to ignore a man in need. We men are not like you sit-down females. Any little thing will do in an emergency.' "

Go choke on your fedora.

Before they can actually eat, Carrie decides to speak up again, and there's a chance that she is not a fan of the breakfast menu:

" 'We-ee don't like bacon and eggs! Cold CEREAL is what we-ee like! We-ee don't want no hot, lumpy bumpy food that's greasy. Cold CEREAL IS WHAT WE LIKE!' she shrieked. 'Cold CEREAL WITH RAISINS!' "

I'm convinced this is what Raisin Bran ads look like in the deepest level of Inferno

Chris gets the two (actually one) of them to shape up and eat their food and after breakfast they look at The Grandmother's list, which basically sums up as:

- Always be fully dressed
- Never take the Lord's name in vain and say grace before meals
- Never open the drapes and look out the windows
- Never speak unless spoken to
- You're evil and the Devil's issue and there's no possible way for me or your Grandfather to love you so you're going to stay up here until he's dead and no one is to know you exist
- Don't waste food
 - Keep the room clean

" '...you are never to be idle. You will devote five hours each day to studying, and use the remainder of your time to develop your abilities in some meaningful way. If you have skills, abilities or talents, you will seek to improve upon them, and if you have no abilities, or talents, or skills, you will read the Bible; and if you cannot read, then you will sit and stare at the Bible, and try to absorb through the purity of your thoughts the meaning of the Lord and his ways."

The hell did I just read?

- Brush your teeth
- Make the beds

"... if I ever catch boys and girls using the bathroom at the same time, I will quite relentlessly, and without mercy, peel the skin from your backs.'"

So, y'know, usual thing.

They get through the list and Cathy starts freaking out that their mother will never win over the Grandfather and they could be trapped in that room forever.

Oh honey...you have no idea.

Chris assures her that, obviously The Grandmother is out of her mind and there's no way they'd actually have to take all of that seriously. He then makes the list into a paper airplane.

The chapter ends with Cathy still despairing over everything, but hoping that Chris is right and the grandfather might eventually have some affection to give his grandchildren.

Tune in next time where we see just how wrong she is~~~