Now I need to read it because I'm usually "that" person. The one the "guy with no legs" looks at from the end of the "someone is always worse off than you" line. Maybe it'll make me feel better.

So…back to the other person’s question. Poop is as serious to you as rape? I get that people can have really random and weird triggers so idk, maybe it is to you, but people nowadays do like to label literally ANYTHING as a “trigger” when actually what they mean is “this thing makes me ever so slightly uncomfortable.” Those are two different things.

You're telling me you had a set of the first edition Andrews paperbacks and you sold them in a garage sale.

It is, and again, it can and does need a trigger warning sometimes

Lilja Sigurðardóttir: Betrayal; Reykjavík Noir Trilogy

Ragnar Jónasson: Hidden Iceland series

Eva Björg Ægisdóttir: Forbidden Iceland series

Yrsa Sigurðardóttir: Why Did You Lie?; I Remember You

"Do I disagree with my friends? Or am I just smarter than them? A God among men, if you will. Head and shoulders above the crowd. Just wondering."

I think there’s 2 or 3 sequels & 1 prequel to "Flowers." If you don't want to read them, don't. You're not really missing anything.

V.C. Andrews books are seriously messed up, trying to pretend they're normal.

Every family has "skeletons in their closets," but few of them bring it out & ask it to dance for entertainment or profit. (Even The Royal Family has a few "rumours" floating around them)

Elsewhere, here on Reddit, there's often questions, "What is your family secret, & when did you find it out?" NONE of them are as messed up as any V.C. Andrews story.

Fair enough.

You literally said poop is one of your triggers though

You’re not overstepping btw, I think I was unclear

What? I don’t need trigger warnings. But feces play definitely requires a trigger warning (think Ninth House for example)

I’m looking for trigger warnings for other people

So poop is as serious for you as rape? It triggers phobic level anxiety to see the word "poop?"

(You typed it up there so I hope I'm not overstepping)

Carrie never really gets healthy after they leave the attic. She’s described as pale and her growth is all stunted so she’s always small and frail until she dies…and with obvious psychological issues, like all characters in all VC Andrew’s books smh.

My grandma gave me her like 100 VC Andrews books when I was in 6th grade. They might’ve f*cked me up for all I know. They all run together now because the stories are so similar, a lot of incest and assault and what not. The Jewels series set in New Orleans even has the class soap operatic twin switching bs. The other early ones, My Sweet Audrina was sick af too smh. The real Andrew’s didn’t write all the later ones, just a ghost under their name but the writing gets so repetitive then even down to the phrases. Even as a middle schooler I would recognize the same phrases and occurrences across multiples books and smh at the laziness.

Anyways, I sold them all at a garage sale and I kinda regret it? I liked all the covers with the peepholes. But they would just be taking up space. My grandma will still mention them sometimes like “Well, I left all my VC Andrew’s books to Cmeeber!” and I feel so guilty lol

They are

Reading comprehension isn’t really tested as a thing once you’re out of full time education, unless you have a learning disability. We test it explicitly for children up to 16, looking for it to match their chronological age, then to measure learning disabilities.

Sometimes instructions are tested for readability/ reading age. The US Navy did a lot of this work, originally. It needed “uneducated” enlisted men to be able to read the handbooks!

As an English graduate, and English teacher, I can reassure you, the difference is taste. I read Joyce’s Ulysses as a teen and didn’t notice any difficulties. I cannot get past Ch 3 of Tom Jones. It’s not difficulty; it’s taste.

Plan a presentation for your book club. See if you can show them the charm of Gravity’s Rainbow

Wait I thought trigger warnings were for serious shit like rape, not for things that are kind of gross?

Everybody dies, basically. It’s been a while since I read them.

From what I read on the wiki Cathy ends up with Chris and Carrie kills herself when she sees her mom out and about and calls out to her calling her mama and her mom says she has no children. Cathy has two kids, one from moms new husband Bart, and another one from Paul who ends up dying which is why she ends up with Chris (no incest babies.) The story is crazy, whenever I have the time I'm reading them for sure..

i've been slowwwwwly making my way through Independent People by Halldór Laxness since august. currently a 3rd of the way through.

i know i can love this novel if im at the right place when i pick it up but i hardly ever find myself at that place. some of it has been absolutely incredible, most of it has been a struggle.

Well, yeah, if you're gonna make a post bragging about something, trying to tell people "oh no, this isn't a brag" at the beginning isn't really gonna do much.

Cool! Who is the author?

People can still enjoy having their ego stroked anonymously haha

It's just more of a mess, lol, though I'm pretty sure Cathy ends up..."victorious" in the end. Like, she finally puts it all behind her, gets all the money, survives the rest of them. The youngest girl is okay - she goes off to do her thing and isn't really an important character that I can remember.

Hmm, Cathy and Christ act like a married couple for a while? But he's a drunk or something and they break up or she leaves him or he dies. Their mom dies and Cathy ends up married to her mom's ex-husband, B-something (Bart?)? And he's a jerk? And Grandma finally dies and there's some issue with the inheritance? Maybe B-dude wants the money so that's why he hooks up with Cathy? I think they have a kid? Damn, it's been like 30+ years since I last read these, lol.

Oh, and it turns out (there is a prequel book) that Cathy's mom didn't marry her cousin/half-uncle/...sort of close relative (which is what we thought Grandma thought was so bad about the parents' relationship being incestuous or whatever and why Cathy's mom was disinherited originally). Cathy's dad was actually her mom's half-brother because Gramps had a thing for that other lady before he had to marry Grandma in an arranged marriage because money/power. Something messed up like that.

Agreed. I really don’t understand why so many people get accused of humble brags when this is anonymous.

I really enjoy his writing, but I feel in each book I've read that there are subtle cultural and political themes or undercurrents that are lost to those of us who are not Icelandic. I just feel like I miss some things that probably lend understanding or depth to the story because of not being familiar with the political climates at the time of the writing. Also he had a political arc himself, and I've read others express how this manifests in his writing. But again, an Iceland-centric arc, a context that many don't have access to.

That being said I think his writing is still worth reading even when it's weird (parts of The Atom Station) for example. The Fish Can Sing is actually my favorite, the breadths of characters and all of their personalities are impressive. I spend a lot of time in Iceland and so in some ways the characters feel familiar to me, composites of people I've met and even Icelandic friends and their families. So this makes this book more understandable.