![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My "Flowers in the Attic" story
Jan. 18th, 2014 09:46 pmI was somewhere in my teens when I read the book. I had no idea what it was about, having never said the movie, but I knew that they were relatively famous (how? idk, osmosis, maybe? I can't imagine any of the girls I was friends with had read them, since they were very, very, very good girls. If they had read them, they never would have discussed them with me.)
Anyway. I devoured the first book and loved every second of it. Same with Petals in the Wind. But--and here's the scary (and, somehow, not surprising to me now)--I thought they were romantic. Like, I thought the horror classification came just from the child abuse and crap. The incest thing? Absolutely didn't phase me. I didn't even know what incest was. The only time I had ever come across the word before was in a book What Kids Wish they Could Tell You: Letters to Judy Bloom. The book was divided into sections. There was one on molestation, which I knew about, having been traumatized by puppets in lacy underwear being stroked by bad puppets. Then I came across a section on "incest". There was no explanation as to what incest was. The book was written for grown-ups (I think), so they didn't explain the difference between molestation and incest, so I wasn't sure.
Anyway, it must have been somewhere in the second book when a friend of my mom's that there was incest in the book. I tried to explain that it was okay, because they loved each other and wanted to be together (somehow ignoring the first time). My mom's reaction was basically, "Uh, no, that's not how incest works."
Even after she explained it to me, I remained unable to get too concerned over the supposed sinning and ickiness of fictional characters.
She did, however, threaten to not let me read the books anymore when I turned into a raging bitch as a reaction to "If There Be Thorns." I have no fond memories of reading that book.
Anyway. ( The Lifetime )
Anyway. I devoured the first book and loved every second of it. Same with Petals in the Wind. But--and here's the scary (and, somehow, not surprising to me now)--I thought they were romantic. Like, I thought the horror classification came just from the child abuse and crap. The incest thing? Absolutely didn't phase me. I didn't even know what incest was. The only time I had ever come across the word before was in a book What Kids Wish they Could Tell You: Letters to Judy Bloom. The book was divided into sections. There was one on molestation, which I knew about, having been traumatized by puppets in lacy underwear being stroked by bad puppets. Then I came across a section on "incest". There was no explanation as to what incest was. The book was written for grown-ups (I think), so they didn't explain the difference between molestation and incest, so I wasn't sure.
Anyway, it must have been somewhere in the second book when a friend of my mom's that there was incest in the book. I tried to explain that it was okay, because they loved each other and wanted to be together (somehow ignoring the first time). My mom's reaction was basically, "Uh, no, that's not how incest works."
Even after she explained it to me, I remained unable to get too concerned over the supposed sinning and ickiness of fictional characters.
She did, however, threaten to not let me read the books anymore when I turned into a raging bitch as a reaction to "If There Be Thorns." I have no fond memories of reading that book.
Anyway. ( The Lifetime )
