“… sadomasochistic suffering and independent reading”

“… I haven’t yet watched Lifetime’s new adaptation of the V. C. Andrews novel Flowers in the Attic, that gothic literary sensation of my youth, with its notorious, scary cut-out paperback cover and brother-sister incest plot. But I did re-read the book recently, because a friend of mine was throwing a Flowers in the Attic-themed fundraising event. (I have strange friends.) I was stunned to discover one theme I had forgotten: this isn’t really a book about incest after all, or even bad moms. It’s the written analogue of an after-school special about the dangers of reading…

     Once the kids are trapped up there, all they do is read. Viewed from one perspective, it’s a tragic story of a years-long experiment with homeschooling gone horribly awry.”
— Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker
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