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I remember reading Flowers in the Attic in my young adult years. In a nutshell, it’s the horrific story of children abused and locked away.
[zilla_alert style=”white”] “Told from the perspective of the teenage daughter Cathy, the story is about the four beautiful blond-haired Dollanganger kids, who are forced to live in the attic while their cruel and conniving mother earns back her father’s affection and ultimately his fortune.
The promised days-long confinement stretches into weeks and then years — yes, years! All the while, the kids are starved and tormented by the religiously overzealous grandmother who beats them with her bamboo whip and tars poor Cathy’s hair while she’s drugged in her sleep.” – HEIDI W. DURROW, NPR [/zilla_alert]
The book is a collection of horror, terror, vile abuse, imprisonment, incest, rape, torture and …romance? Yes, if you believe the most recent cover created by Pocket Books for the re-release.
The debacle with Anne of Green Gables being turned into a sultry, blonde siren for her re-release should have warned us of more to come. It’s obvious that publishers are grabbing up rights-released books and attempting to capitalize on them with reintroduction to the new, younger demographic of readers. But, what began as simply misrepresentation, has become warped and twisted. Sarah Wendell, blogger at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, could barely contain her shock at how Flowers in the Attic is now being portrayed. The cover gives the feel of happiness, self discovery, coming of age and romance. Romance? That’s not the book I remember.
After years of sexual humiliation and being locked away from the world, Cathy’s older brother Christopher (seen being all warm and fuzzy with her on the new cover) succumbs to his physical urges and turns a wrestling match into much more. There is some debate as to whether it’s actually done by force or if she is willing. While the book describes her struggle to resist physically, she thinks “I wanted what he wanted–if he wanted it THAT much”. I won’t paste the text here because it’s graphic. But you can read the full scene here and draw your own conclusions. To me it’s obvious that her war with the flesh is brought on by confusion caused by not only the massive abuse they’ve suffered, but also the fact that they are exposed to no one but each other as they crash through puberty. There’s also the matter of some very…odd…affection earlier in life from her father, but I won’t go into all of that. No matter the motivation, it’s still her brother who forces the coupling to take place.
But, for argument sake, lets say it was completely consensual. We’re still talking about incest. Then add in beatings and cruelty and starvation. There is nothing in this book that indicates sunshine and heart warming family bonds. The cover looks like a feel-good, young adult romance instead of the twisted, depraved story it actually is.
What do you think? Are publishers trying to disguise books to lure in younger readers? Share your thoughts in the comments.
