I read my first V.C. Andrews novel in middle school & it never messed w/me emotionally or on a social level.

Yes I knew that Cathy + Christopher were siblings who were committing incest (sorry for the spoiler!) but the story was a fictitious story and I knew that how they interacted was not normal.

But V.C. Andrew’s books always had a very creepy air about them and that is what made them so mysterious and good reading.

I remember being a bit baffled by Judy Blume.

Anonymous wrote:I haven't thought about VC Andrews in years. I remember Flowers in the Attic from my childhood but nothing about it.

Worth re-reading? I'm sort of curious to after all this discussion.

I’m a PP and will admit to rereading them when I saw that Lifetime was making all the books into miniseries. /ashamed voice

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was in elementary school when the tv adaptation of The Thorn Birds aired. I wasn’t allowed to stay up and watch it, so I checked the book out of the public library. I learned the word “flaccid.” 😊

I started reading the Thorn Birds in 7th grade. I had only read the first few chapters about a young girl on a farm in Australia, so it was interesting. I was so proud of reading an 'adult book' that I brought it to my catholic school and sat it on my desk. The book was confiscated, and I was assigned detention shortly after.

I’m sorry you got detention but this made me laugh!

Anonymous wrote:I read all of the Jackie Collins books when I was in MS. Not sure how I got them, but knew they were "bad" because I recall slouching down in my seat on the school bus and reading the book inside of a large history or science book. Probably why I became so promiscuous as a teen

I also read ALL of Jackie Collins (and Judith Krantz) books in middle school. My mom was strict about movies- no PG13 until we were 13 and no R-rated movies until 16. However, she let us buy and read anything. I was never promiscuous, although I was well educated in sexuality!

Lady Chatterly's Lover
The Amityville Horror- 4th grade
The VC Andrews books

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven't thought about VC Andrews in years. I remember Flowers in the Attic from my childhood but nothing about it.

Worth re-reading? I'm sort of curious to after all this discussion.

I recently heard it described as YA. That can't be right? But we all read it at like 12, apparently?

It has adult themes, for sure. But can you imagine a 40 year old reading it?

DP here, but I reread it recently. It really hit differently than it did when I was 11 or 12. Back then, the focus was on the relationship between Cathy/Chris and between Corrine/Christopher: the book made them seem both disturbing and...somehow romantic, in a way that disturbed me because I knew I wasn't supposed to feel that way, and just the reading-about-sex aspect. But as an adult and a mother, what made it most disturbing was the stunted, childlike language of the narrator, which drove home just how much damage the years in the attic had on her, even as an adult, as if her mind was affected somehow. Also, I don't remember feeling the claustrophobic element as a child reading the book, again because 11 year old me was focused on the shock/novelty of reading about sex/incest/forbidden relationships, but the idea of the children being locked in one bedroom and one hot Virginia attic in the summer disturbed me now, as well as the understanding of the ages/stages of development of the children and what this imprisonment was doing to them mentally and physically.

Try it again as a 40 year old mom. It's still horrifying, but in a different way.

Anonymous wrote:All the VC Andrews books were wildly inappropriate. I also read every Jackie Collin’s book in middle and high school. That was much more of a sex education than I needed at that age.

I didn't find Jackie COllins books until I was an adult, and boy were they great! My mom was more of a Danielle Steel type, so those were the books she gave me. I found out about VC Andrews from a girl on the bus in middle school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thread about the daughter downloading a potentially inappropriate book got me thinking about a very inappropriate book I read when I was young.

I was an avid reader and my mom worked from home, so summers we had no camps but were relatively unsupervised.

At 11, I grabbed Updike's Witches of Eastwick, thinking it was some sort of fairly tale. Holy cow I learned a lot about sex reading that book. I'm not sure my mom had any clue.

Anyone else recall reading something and getting more than you bargained for?

You are kidding right?
Troll?

We do not censor books period.
Anyone who does is a dam fool. Big whoop sex omg you do know babies are made that way??
Maybe if people in the state of Texas actually read books 100 12 year olds would not need abortions.

What’s the troll part? You don’t believe some parents censor books?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven't thought about VC Andrews in years. I remember Flowers in the Attic from my childhood but nothing about it.

Worth re-reading? I'm sort of curious to after all this discussion.

I recently heard it described as YA. That can't be right? But we all read it at like 12, apparently?

It has adult themes, for sure. But can you imagine a 40 year old reading it?

Anonymous wrote:The thread about the daughter downloading a potentially inappropriate book got me thinking about a very inappropriate book I read when I was young.

I was an avid reader and my mom worked from home, so summers we had no camps but were relatively unsupervised.

At 11, I grabbed Updike's Witches of Eastwick, thinking it was some sort of fairly tale. Holy cow I learned a lot about sex reading that book. I'm not sure my mom had any clue.

Anyone else recall reading something and getting more than you bargained for?

You are kidding right?
Troll?

We do not censor books period.
Anyone who does is a dam fool. Big whoop sex omg you do know babies are made that way??
Maybe if people in the state of Texas actually read books 100 12 year olds would not need abortions.

All the VC Andrews books were wildly inappropriate. I also read every Jackie Collin’s book in middle and high school. That was much more of a sex education than I needed at that age.

John Irving left the biggest impression on me - the World According to Garp and Cider House Rules are the ones I remember. Probably early high school when I read them.

Rosemary's Baby when I was about 11.

Anonymous wrote:I read all of Christopher Pike's books when I was in the 6th grade. Lots of teen make outs, sex, crimes and murders/deaths. I loved them.

I've considered re-reading at least one but I think I'd rather remember them as the perfect little trashy mystery books they were to me back then.

Thank you PP would never remembered the name of that author, I used to read his books too! Down memory lane!