Eekind’s Reviews > Flowers in the Attic > Status Update

The paragraph about what Cathy thinks happens when you die probably would have hit more if I didn’t know about reincarnation outside this book…

So there’s a paragraph here that’s basically “We wouldn’t return to Gladstone, where the winters lasted until May. We would to travel to Sarasota, which was famous for its circus people. They were know for their kindness to those with strange families of origin”…this seems like a wild reason to move to Florida, but anything to get the momentum going again

While I love the symbolism of fundamentalists hiding porn in a bedside book with a “How to Create Your Own Sewing Patterns” slip cover…I was kind of confused what the full color photos description was supposed to mean…like it’s not the Kama Sutra because those would be illustrations this is more like Madonna’s Sex (1992) but with orgy photos???

So they have a key to escape their attic room and they’re using this opportunity to steal small bills and change out of the couch cushions of their mother’s bedroom??? Under the guise that they need money to start over in a new town??? I have to keep reminding myself this is a thought experiment about loss of agency and child abuse more than it is a literal story arc…

Chris finally asking all the right questions because why is Corrine wasting all this money on expensive red leather bound encyclopedias instead of an apartment for her kids. Instead they’re running around nursing three legged mice and gets thrashed by their disdainful fundamentalist hypocrite Grandmother

Not to be pedantic about the fifteen and thirteen year olds reasoning skills but why would you assume your grandmother is trying to feed you shitty soup out of thermos’ and powdered donuts when her first gripe when she locked you away in the attic rooms is no sweets so you don’t get cavalries. I understand you’re all starving but this seems like a red flag we are completely disregarding to our detriment

TW: Self Harm

I don’t 100% understand why they were drinking Christopher’s blood before they had committed to trying to trap and eat one of the dozens of mice we have been told are infesting the attic. I get that eating a mouse is gross (salt or no salt) but I would think the bloodletting would be a last resort after being starved for two weeks by your evil Grandma and absent mom

Corrine spent all that money of Christmas presents instead of putting it towards leasing an apartment two towns over for these little devils spawn to stew in…Cathy is literally doing advanced oldest child latch key labor they couldn’t be more unsupervised if they wanted to…You know Corrine is already test baking those Rat Poison Powdered Donuts for her unwanted attic children so she can get that ring

“The twins love raisins…and so do I” These five year olds could have gone rabid for Nerds gummy clusters I can tell you that much…and then later we have to hear Cathy complain about how obsessed they are with Bananas…truly unhinged storytelling

Greatest Generation White Women that have huge show business aspirations L O V E to cosplay Scarlet O’Hara and it only gets more deranged as a trope in these books as time passes by