A lot has been said about the “sex” scene, which is really a rape scene, between Carrie and her brother, Chris. And, yeah, it’s pretty bad. Incest aside, a big criticism I’ve seen of the book was how it handles the topic of rape.

Carrie blamed herself for the rape, and she continued in her relationship with him. On its own, that’s not a bad story to tell. It’s sadly a pretty common experience, and I certainly have no problem with it being discussed in novels. However, the book does a poor job with the gravity of what that means. That’s a problem. 

The discussion they have after the fact basically comes down to “sorry I raped ya, sis,” and “no problem, bro! I wanted it anyway.” It’s implied that she’s not entirely certain that she’s being honest, but the whole exchange is really awkwardly written, and it makes it feel like Andrews isn’t taking the topic as seriously as she should have.

Before fans get angry with me, I’m aware this is further addressed in later books. My problem isn’t that she never addresses the issue. My problem is that in the book where it happens, it’s handled poorly.

So, it’s a gothic novel about incest and child abuse that neither handles the incest, nor the child abuse, very well. I feel like this should be an easy book for me to write off as just bad and rather offensive. And yet, while I logically feel like that should be my response to the book, I can’t really say that I didn’t enjoy it.

VC Andrews wasn’t a very good storyteller, and she certainly wasn’t a child psychologist, but I don’t think she was a bad overall writer. Her writing style and dialogue have been mocked for being unrealistic, which it is, but I don’t personally see that as a bad thing. Flowers in the Attic was supposed to capture the feel of a Victorian gothic novel, and she does that. Everything from the setting, to the villains, to her basic word choices fit the genre very well.

When I first read this book, I believed wholeheartedly that I was reading a book written by someone who enjoyed old gothic novels as much as I do. And it’s really difficult not to have some affection for a novel written by someone who was trying, and succeeded to a degree, to capture a genre that I love.

But her plots were… less than impressive.

For all the shock value of the incest, the subject matter gets surprisingly tedious pretty quickly, and you’re left with the feeling that you’re reading a collection of bad soap opera plots. “We’re hiding in the attic, so that The Grandfather won’t know we exist so Mother can get rich!” “The Grandmother is evil!” “We call our grandparents ‘The Grandfather’ and ‘The Grandmother’!” “My father straight up admitting that he plays favorites is a sweet and loving family moment!” “Mother’s dating someone and didn’t tell us!” “Mother was the real villain all along!” “Mother and Father’s relationship wasn’t that weird!”

Yes, Cathy, it was. Just because your grandparents are biblical hypocrites doesn’t mean your parents’ relationship wasn’t weird. Also, stop looking at your brother.