Thursday, January 24, 2013

S.O.S.

I am in Big Trouble.


Big with a capital B.
Trouble with a capital T.



Actually, this is almost bad enough to warrant a large and bold print  capital B and a large and bold print capital T...with a period in between for extra emphasis.



Like this:

Big. Trouble.

It all started a couple of days ago when The Girl filled me in on some really excellent news. She had somehow discovered a website that offers free ebooks.

Please say it with me...

Free. E. Books.

*gasp*sigh*

This is mind-blowing news for a total book nerd like me...and especially mind-blowing for a cash-strapped book nerd like me.

When I arrived at this newly discovered site (aka Priceless Gift from The Universe), the first thing that caught my eye was the name VC Andrews...and if you were a pre-teen/teen girl back in the early 80s, as I just happened to be, that name will probably be wonderfully familiar!!

VC Andrews wrote the creepy bizarro series 

  • “Flowers in the Attic” 
  • “Petals on the Wind” 
  • “If There Be Thorns”
  • “Seeds of Yesterday”

She also wrote the creepy bizarro “My Sweet Audrina”.

She also wrote a whole bunch of other (no doubt equally creepy and bizarro) series but I never got around to reading any of them....I was probably still recovering from my time spent with "My Sweet Audrina" and the Flowers in the Attic books

For those of you not familiar with these masterpieces, the books recount the story of 4 beautiful children who are locked in the attic of a crazy big mansion by their recently widowed beautiful mother and their religious zealot of a grandmother. The  recently widowed beautiful mother is trying to get back in her fabulously wealthy religious zealot of a father’s good books  (aka will) after being disowned 15 years prior because she ran off and married her fabulously wealthy religious zealot of a father's much younger beautiful half-brother (aka her half-uncle). Her beautiful husband was killed in an accident leaving her unable to pay off their huge debt so she can think of no other way to survive but to sweet talk her way back into her fabulously wealthy family. But... in order to do so, she has to hide her 4 beautiful children until her fabulously wealthy religious zealot of a father forgives her because he would not abide with these “devil’s spawn”. Many horrible things happen to the children over the course of their 3+ year stint in the attic ....and the two older kids Cathy and Chris turn to one another for comfort....if you know what I mean...nudgenudgewinkwink...

yep...they do.

Anyway, ultimately, they do escape and the rest of the books deal with the rest of the story and the story is full of much incestuous love and lots and lots of “no, I don't want to have sex with you...yes I do....no I don't...you can't make me...oh...right ...I guess you can” sex. It is chock full of overwrought emotions and tragedy and revenge and crap writing.

These were the very first sexy books I ever read ...yikes...(before I moved on to Judy Blume’s “Forever” and “Wifey”.... RARRR)... 

And I gobbled them up and LOVED them...

As a kid...

A young sweet innocent impressionable kid...which may explain a few things.

Did my parents not screen what books I read?? 

HA!!

Silly me...

Of course they didn't...it was the early 80s for christ's sake. Helicopter Parenting hadn't been invented yet.

But  then...

As a grown up adult, I happened upon these books on my new favourite website and I thought...

“What the hell?! It's free.”

And downloaded “Flowers in the Attic” just for kicks.

And now...

I am hooked.

I have just started the third book and it's even more terrible than the second book and way terribler than the  first book but I can't help myself. 

I can't stop. I am compelled by some dark horrible force to keep reading these twisted, crap books.

Somebody!!!????

Please!!!

HELP MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

...and now I must go. The evil kid-locking-in-the-attic mother has just been released from the asylum and has moved into the house next to her adult son and daughter who are living together as man and wife and raising the son the daughter had with her first husband AND the son the daughter had with her mother's second husband...

Shit’s about to get crazy...

...er.

help. 

me.







p.s. For my fellow book nerds, here is a link to what I like to call “The Best Website in The Universe”:

http://tuebl.ca/


p.p.s. Holy Crap!! I was doing a little "research" and I just found out that there is actually a prequel to the Flowers in the Attic ...of course there is...called "Garden of Shadows" ....YIKES!!


7 comments:

Laura said...

OMG.. as you well know, we are the same age and OF COURSE I was reading this crap at probably the exact same time as you were. Cause, pffft.. my parents weren't monitoring me either. (well.. until my Mother hit menopause. Then she was all up in my grill 24/7).

Needless to say, I will be downloading this crap as well. Thanks to the girl for the tip! (and you of course.)

((Hugs))
Laura

Karen Graham said...

Hey S-E-G and The Girl
Thank you thank you thank you for the Precious Gift from the Universe free e-book website.
Great that I will now be able to pay down my mortgage in record time with the savings I will accrue, but I worry that the i-tunes store might go bankrupt.
Sigh.
Another ethical dilemma. What would Santa Do?

Still Singing said...

I am ashamed to admit JUST how many of the V.C. Andrews books I read. If you check out my Goodreads list, I listed them... uh, it's... holy crap, I just counted 26!!!

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Imagine that... I read the post title S.O.S., and I'm totally expecting some serious ABBA, and I find something about sexy horror paperbacks. Well, I never!

Pouts... flounces off... turns around, says:

SHAN'T... BE... BACK!!!

*Sulks in corner, sadly singing ABBA song to self*

danps said...

Found you via skippy's BAD. OK, I've got the series queued up for my trashy vacation reading. Thanks for the tip - and the link to tuebl!

Melissa Smart said...

OMG! Totally remember these and how awful they were (and twisted, and scary, and and and).

This is a fab blog and soooo funny.

Thanks for bringing (incestual) sexy back.

squirrel_e_girl said...

danps- Thanks for stopping by!!
Good luck with surviving time spent with The Dollanganger family...you can't say I didn't warn you ;) I hope you're able to enjoy what's left of your vacation after you are sucked into the Attic with all its dirty little secrets!!

Mel - Thanks, dude. There's just not enough incest in YA fiction anymore. The kids today will just have to do it up old school the Flowers in the Attic way.