Summer Book Club: Flowers in the Attic with Carmen Maria Machado

The way I CLAPPED MY HANDS when Carmen mentioned liking ONLY THE FIRST BOOK of the boxcar children. Too much of my brain space was taken up by that waterfall icebox. FOLLOWED BY MIXED UP FILES. I still want to live in the museum....

You win Sarah, after listening to every episode of you're wrong about that exists I had to come to patreon solely because you hid this episode in it. By age 9 I had already devoured every v.c. Andrews book published, and by chance this was the one I chose to share with another third grade child who was out of books to read. For this kindness I was no longer allowed to bring books to school or keep books in my desk, and only many years later did I understand why. Good times. Thanks for keeping me company every day for two years while I drive an 80000 lb torpedo across the Midwest.

Keep the incest train chugging! Hotel New Hampshire pls book or film

I mostly know about VC Andrews from a couple librarian pals and from the Teen Creeps podcast (YA pulp fiction), and I love reading it vicariously through you all <3

I love YWA and this is a great episode, but PLEASE work on your sound leveling. I am hard of hearing, and the episodes since Michael Hobbes left are noticeable less accessible to me. I suspect Carmen’s sound equipment was lackluster here and I know there’s not much you can do about that, but please, please do something. Both people’s volume needs to match, at the very least. Please don’t make me max out my sound to hear the guest and then get an instant migraine when Sarah’s voice comes back. I’m sorry to be critical but there have been several episodes now that I’ve really, really struggled with, and I’ve just skipped most of the ones with Carolyn because it was so bad.

Paul Bernardo/Karla Holmoka were active in St Catharines when my cousins (same profile as his victims/Karla) were teenagers and they went looking for the girls. My aunts and uncles are still truly so affected from it. It's also layered with that he was committing up to 100s of rapes in a then suburb of Toronto (Scarborough). When he escalated I think that's when he got caught. He also is our lowest count for more than likely racist reasons. Like Toronto exploded with anger over Bruce McArther (only was caught because he murdered a white man), and Robert Picton ruined pigs for everyone.

Please make the “Reading is Just Shame Leaving the Body” t-shirt. I would wear that until it hung off my back in rags.

Beautiful episode about a book i never read but saw the cover of in every secondhand bookstore of my childhood, Sarah's conclusion was very apt and made me well up with tears.

Could you imagine being the other twin? Your twin brother dies and your two older siblings are fucking? I literally can’t imagine a worse situation

So a bit on Chris I'm one of his few semi defenders. Not defending the sexual assault part but his character outside of that act. In terms of him being unable to see their mother in the same way Cathy does, it's very clear that Chris even more so than you can argue with Cathy and her father, has been groomed by his mother. The mother is with them all the time as children and even before his death the father is absent due to his work and when he's away she very much uses Chris as a surrogate of his father and that only intensifies when their father dies. He trusts their mother. And if we role reversed it and say it was their father who was doing what the mother did I think Cathy would not be as determined that what is happening to them is wrong and would act much like Chris did. Also a large point of the twins death is that Christopher is this intelligent character who knows best, thats how is painted and is always right about things throughout the book, like how to get out of the room and steal but not too much as to not raise too much suspision. But the death of Cory is supposed to be where Chris's inability to see their mother's cruelty fully and run away is supposed to be this tragedy of the one time he is seriously wrong and Cathy was fully right and had he listened could have saved Cory's life. And it's basically a failure of Chris's intelligence which is more book smarts based. And that's something Cathy throws in Chris's face in an argument in a later book. Also the reason why the grandmother put tar in Cathy's hair rather than cut it herself is cause wanting Cathy's hair gone was only part of it. She wanted Chris specifically to cut it as a wound to both of them.

I never read the book but my sister and I did watch the movie several times. I’d be curious to hear what Sarah and Carmen think of the movie.

I'm voting dollhouse murders. I'm also needing a follow up on the free feed with Chelsey about the Nixon Thurmond seances!!! What?!!

@sarah I bought Carmen’s devastating, beautiful memoir yesterday and have just finished it. She is incredible! Sending much love & appreciation to the both of you. Keep laughing! 🥰

Carmen’s laugh is so delightful. Carmen please continue to visit the pod!!

Summer of Fear / Killing Mr Griffin by Lois Duncan Witch’s Sister by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Wrinkle in Time etc by Madeline L’Engle Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles By Julie Andrews

Enjoyed this so much! Reading this was such a formative experience when I was in middle school. My best friend and I each read it, devoured the sequels, then plenty of Andrews' other books. We were obsessed with these crazy stories!

The only VC Andrews I read in my teens was my sweet Audrina. I wasn't allowed to watch many movies or much TV so it's likely this was the first time I encountered rape in a fiction story. I didn't remember anything about the book but when I saw you were doing a VC Andrews I knew it was going to be wild. Thanks for the great discussion!

My parents never read, except for the readers digests that stayed on the back of the toilet. So imagine my surprise when I found 2 books shoved in the back of a rarely used bureau. One was this book & the other was Helter Skelter. Sheltered little 6th grade me was in for quite the shock.

This series is reminding me of the little paperback that haunted me as a young teen, I never promised you a rose garden by Hannah Green. It was marketed as semi autobiographical which was the best of both worlds for mixing up reality with horror.

I was really hoping for a summer book club like go ask Alice where you take a few episodes and really get into it :( good episode I guess I just had my expectations set wrong

Really enjoyed this episode, will be reading the book as mentioned as well as investigating what your guest speaker has written 🙏🏻🩷

I’ve never hit play on an episode so fast!! I distinctly remember my mom recommending this book to me because it was HER FAVORITE AS A CHILD. I was 8 years old 😳 I’ve read it a handful of times, but only once as an adult. Never again.

I was NOT allowed to read this book, so my best friend in the 6th grade checked it out of the library for me and I kept it hidden in my backpack when I was at home. I'm pretty sure my mom figured it out. For ladies from the US of a certain age this book was a right of passage read, I remember being in a conversation where everyone who had been in middle school in the 80's all knew it and everyone younger was wondering what we were talking about.

Thanks for the swimming reminder, Caroline!

Just last week, I was explaining to my partner the glory that is a VC Andrew Prequel! He thought you should read a prequel before the rest of the series (ie, read the books chronologically). And I was taking the stance of publication order and the fact that the whole purpose of a prequel is to give context and make you reconsider what you’ve already read. I honestly said, “It’s like you’ve never read a VC Andrews series!!” At which point I had to explain the whole series to him, and what you find out in Garden of Shadows. 😱

Speaking directly to me with references to Joanna Russ and also talking about how the first Boxcar Children book is INCREDIBLE and the rest don't matter. (Also, the "past isn't dead" quote is Faulkner. Southern gothic ftw, as we used to say.)

I read this book along with The Shining circa 1996, when I was 17 years old and flying to Europe for the first time ever (from California - it's such a long flight!) for a month of being a French exchange student. Needless to say, I didn't sleep a wink on the flight, then accidentally fell asleep in the hotel during my first day there, causing horrible jet lag. And I still can't say which book was more disturbing - Flowers in the Attic or the Shining.

dream guest doing dream book review ahhhh!!! So stoked!

Literally read this book last week in preparation for this episode 🫡 Unfortunately now I am curious about the rest of the series and want to keep reading. Like it’s not good. But it is. And I’m a real messy bitch who lives for the drama.

Whoa boy, I was not prepared for the opening convo about Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. As a Gen X 🇨🇦 woman, this story has been seared into my brain and not in a good way - I can still see her dead-eyed stare on the cover of MacLean’s magazine. I’ve been wondering if Sarah was familiar with them - it would make an interesting (yet extremely triggering) episode.

I love the reach of this book. It was passed around by every pubescent girl when I was young in California. I mentioned the title to my partner (from the UK) and - although he never read it - he was immediately able to describe the cover in detail. I also had totally mis-framed the sex scene in my memory. Yikes.

VC Andrews was my holiday reading in highschool. I’m so excited to hear this!

Would love to hear you do My Sweet Audrina. I think it's one of her best.

I had to pause We Have Always Lived in the Castle because it was feeling a little too close to home (hah) for me in this moment and I fled here for a breather, LIKE A FOOL. Gothic horror, gothic horror (to the tune of Black and Yellow, please).

Loves this! Would love to hear you two go into the whole Dollenganger saga, or other VC Andrews books, or even the Lifetime movie adaptations (incredible imo).

Having never heard of this book (not from the US), I would have loved to hear more of actual text from the book, since judging by the car crash scene the prose is awesomely bonkers! Could have listened much longer!

Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic. "Lori Vallow is the real life mom from Flowers in the attic." Discuss.

This was so good! I’d love a deep dive into more of the VC Andrews canon!

I don’t know this book at all so you’re saying “Flowers in the Attic” and I’m thinking “Flowers for Algernon” and it took a minute to figure out my brain’s mistake 😂

The car crash scene is very much like the "All I need is...and this lamp!" sequence in The Jerk with Steve Martin.

Delighted to have the summer book club back!

That car crash scene taking me right to Jason Statham's dramatic action sequence description in Spy, esp the "on fire" part. XD

This is SO good more books with Carmen eps!

I’m 14 again in Freshman HS Latin Class in 1979 with the back row talking about Flowers in the Attic, incest and certain Roman Emperors we learned about the year before from watching I Claudius. (We could watch it because it was PBS!)

Also as a teen always said I'd name my son Troy after the Heaven series, till I meet a Troy and he was an absolute cakehole. So son was named after a different Heaven character not Cal!

I remember this being the first book over 100 pages I read at 12. Sitting in the hallway before class at high-school, and took 3 days to read the mattress part. I was hooked!

I have been waiting (not so) patiently all summer for the book club and when it was announced CMM was being the guest I was super excited! Her laugh is everything! Love you both and the Book Club. (Still searching garage sales for my copy of Michelle Remembers, by the way.🤣)

have literally never been more excited to listen to anything ever. ohohohohoho

R.I.P. VC Andrews you would have loved AO3

I read my first VC Andrews when I was 14. It was Haven and I bought it at a flea market. I had trouble learning to read and it was the first long book that I read. I think it only took a week. After that you couldn’t stop my love for reading. I loved the conversation. Thank you. I’m thinking.”Yeah, this explains a lot. I need some therapy.”

I'm thrilled for this episode! I read these books FAR too young and have carried them with me ever since. Thank you!!

This is one of three books my mother forbade me from reading while growing up. The other two were IT and Clan of the Cave Bear. Having read IT on the sly, and now heard about Cave Bear & Flowers in the Attic (but not having read either of them), I can confidently say my mother's judgment was sound.

AHHHH! Every girl in my sixth and seventh grade class was reading this, but it freaked me out too much. Heard so many bits and excerpts at that time that I feel like I actually read it

I haven't read this book since the eighties but at the same time it's one of my formative experiences. So I'm looking forward to finding out why I'm like this. Can you please also do Lace? I feel that was one of my earliest exposures to feminism. Of a kind. The kind with bitches.

Omg just finished this book last night, it was horrifying I could not put it down

I read this series in the back of my public library when I was supposed to be doing research because I was absolutely NOT allowed to read this. I often think back and marvel that this book was even available.

This is really great! But could we get a better mic on Carmen? It was difficult to hear her in parts.

just started listening and already yelling about the pin mention which i could truly talk about for HOURS.

Not sure I’ve ever recovered from that book series. Why, WHY did anyone think it was appropriate reading for tweens and teens? Oh right, it was the 80’s and no one cared.

I read this book for the first time when i was 9 years old, picked up from my mother's bookshelf. Rereading it in college, years after cutting contact, I noticed that it was dedicated to her mother and thought it was incredible the same way I find it shocking that my mother had no issue with me reading it at such a young age.

I feel as if I have been waiting for this episode my whole entire life ✨️💖✨️

Yes yes yes I'm ALIVE with excitement rn

Ooo this is gonna be bonkers

Momma! Goddamn you!

Hellyeah