About the Book
Chapter 10
Drinking Game Tally: 32 drinks, 6 chugs, 3 shots
Creep Award: Bart
Chapter 11
Drinking Game Tally: 41 drinks, 9 chugs, 5 shots
Creep Award: Corrine
Chapter 12
Drinking Game Tally: 19 drinks, 4 chugs, 1 shot
Creep Award: Chris
Hey, hey, FYA, how many banned books you going to read today?
(This is why I was never a cheerleader. Or a Vietnam war protester.)
We hope you enjoyed our Banned Books Week celebration (mockery? mockebration? . . . celery?) last week, and had a good laugh at some of the ridiculous behavior of America’s overly concerned parents and politicians. But it’s time to recall that heady fun of last week with our ongoing review of The Most Banned Book of All Time, Flowers in the Attic.
Oh, what’s that you say? Flowers in the Attic isn’t the most banned book of all time? In fact, it’s not even on any of the top 100 banned lists for the last 20 years? That the few times it has been banned by school districts/libraries, overwhelming public outcry has led them to reinstate the book? That amazing works of literature which have the power to change students’ lives are constantly ripped from them, but a book with absolutely no redeemable qualities whatsoever is lauded by the public and protected?
Sigh. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m opposed to the death penalty. Not so much the “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord” or “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind” tropes, because I don’t care so much about being a good person, but because, well, it’s a racist and inherently unjust practice, which is often dependant upon either faulty reasoning, faulty lab work or impassioned jurors. And, I mean, if even one person on Death Row has been exonerated at the last minute, then isn’t that too much of a risk to take with the other 300 people?
So, yeah, that’s my opinion about the death penalty, but there’s always these crimes I read about, when people are just completely disregarding their humanity and horribly murdering someone and I think, “I don’t agree with the death penalty, but if there’s anyone who deserves it . . .”
Folks, I don’t believe in banning books, but if there’s any book that deserves it . . .
Where we last left off, it was CHRISTMAS! Yay! Christmas is the most magical time of the year! Did you guys know that Mariah Carey is releasing another Christmas album this year?? It’s called Merry Christmas II You and it’s basically the greatest gift delivered unto man. Except for Jesus, I guess.
Anyway. Christmas! There’s a party! Corrine is going to let them watch! For the first time in history, a description about the plot of Flowers in the Attic is actually more salacious than the plot itself!
By the by, for this review, I’ll be operating on both the standard drinking game rules and the Banned Books Week drinking game rules, just for kicks. You guys, I’m so freaking drunk right now. I can barely find the keys to type.
Chapter 10: The Christmas Party
“May your days be merry and bright” – I. Berlin
Number of Drinks Taken: 32
Number of Drinks Chugged: 6
Number of Shots Taken: 3
Chapter Summary
Well, golly! Momma let Chris and I watch the Christmas party from a tiny hiding space on the second floor! It all looked so glamorous, like maybe we could just hock all that silver down there and then move the hell out of this place!
That party sure was fancy! Momma wore a dress that showed off her cleavage, cause that’s appropriate at a family gathering! And there was some sort of man with a mustache who kept talking to Momma! He even touched her boobs! Cause that’s appropriate at a family gathering!
Then we got our first glimpse of our grandfather! He’s in a wheelchair, but he looks just like daddy! Hey, maybe momma can marry him next!
After a while, we really needed to pee, so we left the party and went back to our room, instead of grabbing the twins and getting the heck out of the house while everyone else is busy. Only Chris wants to hang around and explore the house! I’m sure that won’t be a problem!
The Creepy Award Goes To
Bart Winslow! Gee, I’m sorry, Mr. Mustache, but is it REALLY appropriate to be pawing at your date’s breasts in front of her family? Look, I like second base as much as the next girl with commitment issues and vague nymphomaniac tendencies, but I don’t like getting there in front of my FAMILY. AT CHRISTMAS. Christmas is a time for giving! Not groping!
Notes from the Margin
Her scent reminded me of a musky, perfumed garden on a moonlit night somewhere in the Orient. No wonder Chris stared at her as if dazzled.
Okay, A) ew, and B) who the hell is writing this copy, Pete Campbell?
. . . they set them on long tables where a giant crystal fountain sprayed pale amber fluid into a silver receiving bowl . . .
Okay, Truth Time. I first read this book when I was 11. And now I’m thirty. That means that, for NINETEEN YEARS, I have wanted a champagne fountain. You guys, I WANT ONE SO BAD. I wouldn’t even use it at parties! I would just, like, put it on the kitchen counter, and turn that shit on as soon as I got home!! CHAMPAGNE FOUNTAIN FOR THE HOME!! Why the fuck hasn’t SkyMall come out with one of these yet? Do any of our readers know where I can get a champagne fountain??? Um, for cheap?
Poor Momma. How could we blame her for falling in love with a half-uncle when he was as young , and as handsome and charming as our father had been?
HERE IS A LIST OF CHARMING, YOUNG, HANDSOME MEN WITH WHOM I HAVE NOT FALLEN IN LOVE:
- 99% of my male friends.
- At least three coworkers.
- This one Nigerian guy who I worked with at Old Navy when I was 18 and who told me I could come visit his family, and also that I inherited a large sum of money from a dead prince.
- At least one serial killer. I mean, probably. Law of averages demands it!
- Derek Jeter, because he is a YANKEE, and therefore unworthy of my notice.
- SEVERAL RELATIVES.
I’M JUST SAYIN’.
Didn’t we, her children, know our mother better than anyone else?
I like to think that I speak for all mothers of the world when I say: NO. And, also, I like to think I speak for all children of the world when I say: EW WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my mom to bits, but I don’t want to know, like, who she has a crush on and whether she ever reads slash fic. THESE ARE BOUNDARIES I AM UNCOMFORTABLE IN CROSSING.
Deep down I thought life was sure to always put me between Scylla and Charibdis, and give to me always Hobson’s Choice.
Oh, can it, Bullfinch.
He seemed impressed and dazzled, just as he had been when he’d gazed so long at Momma’s swelling bosom above the green velvet bodice.
Ew ew ew ew EW EW EW!! You know who’s allowed to gaze adoringly at their mother’s swelling bosom? Infants who are nursing. Everyone else is a creeper! STOP STARING AT YOUR MOTHER’S TITS, CHRISTOPHER!
Chapter 11: Christopher’s Exploration and its Repercussions
“They make me take a walk in the middle of the night, and slice people, dice people on my midnight flight.” – Yeti
Number of Drinks Taken: 41
Number of Drinks Chugged: 9
Number of Shots Taken: 5
Chapter Summary
Uh oh!! Momma came into the room while Christopher was out exploring! And she sure is mad! I don’t know why she’s acting this way! Just cause she locked me and my siblings up in an attic and won’t tell anyone exist just so she can inherit some money she didn’t even earn doesn’t mean she should yell at us!
But after she slaps him, she immediately makes up with him by touching him inappropriately! So it’s business as usual! Phew!
After Momma leaves, Christopher tells me all about the house! There’s a room with dead animals on the walls! And he went to Momma’s bedroom! Momma sleeps on a bed that came from a real life prostitute’s bedroom! Grandfather gave it to her! That’s certainly not a statement of any kind!
Anyway, I think finally Christopher is starting to see that Momma’s a psycho cuntrag, which just means that soon he can start idolizing and sexually worshipping me instead!
The Creepy Award Goes To
Corrine, obvs. I mean, COME ON, CORRINE (toora loora toora loor-ay-aye), QUIT MAKING YOUR CHILDREN TOUCH YOUR TITS.
Notes from the Margin
Kiss, kiss, kiss, finger his hair, stroke his cheek, draw his head against her soft, swelling breasts, and let him drown in the sensuality of being cuddled close to that creamy flesh that must excite even a youth of his tender years.
Folks, I want to add a rule to the drinking game. Anytime you read any excerpts from this book, and you actually feel vomit rising up in your throat, I want you to close your eyes, take a deep breath, plug your nose, and down your drink in one swallow. Oh, sure, it’ll hurt for a few seconds. But then you’ll feel no more pain, and you’ll forget that the words “creamy flesh” ever existed.
How can you be afraid of me? I didn’t mean it about the whippings. I love you.
“Ike sorry, Tina! Ike didn’t mean it! Ike love you!”
And it came to me then, I had never felt my cheek against the softness of her breast.
Well, of course not, Cathy! Incest is a beautiful thing shared by a man and a woman! Don’t try to come in here and sully that with your perverse homosexual agenda!
“Chris!” I called out, disappointed. “Don’t tell it to me that way! Make me feel I was there beside you! Start over, and tell me how it went from the second you were out of my sight.”
Yes, Chris, tell us! There’s absolutely no plot to this book and we have another 200 pages to fill! Be as detailed as possible! That’s not annoying at all.
Chapter 12: The Long Winter, and Spring, and Summer
“Memories made in the coldest winter; goodbye, my friend, will I ever love again?” – K. West
Number of Drinks Taken: 19
Number of Drinks Chugged: 4
Number of Shots Taken: 1
Chapter Summary
Snooze. Let me bore you with a story about how we’re in an attic – still – and so we watch tv a lot. And how the twins are sickly, cause of how they’ve been trapped in an attic for a year. And how Momma doesn’t come by anymore, cause of how she’s bored with us. Just like everyone else, because this chapter is th emost boring chapter of the whole damn book. MOAR INCEST PLZ.
In other news, I started my period! This is a curse because God hates women for being immoral!
The Creepy Award Goes To:
Ew, Chris. He starts noticing Cathy’s boobs, and then recruits his mother to give her The Talk. This dude is waaay too invested in his sister’s menstruation. Way too invested. Have a happy period, Christopher.
Notes from the Margin
The twins adored the tv and never wanted to turn it off . . . Even the scramble of dots after the late-late shows was better to them than nothing at all.
Not for me! And not, I’d wager, to any other fan of the UK show Life on Mars. After the dots, the scary little girl with her clown doll come to terrify you!! AAH!
Really, we took commercials literally, believing in their value as a book of rules to see us safely through the dangers life held.
What’s wrong with that?! Now excuse me while I get my teeth sparkling white in order to snag a man.
“Your monthly periods? There may be a little crampy pain . . .”
Lies! LIES! ALL LIIIIEESSSSSS!!!
” . . . if it takes you a few days a month to make you a woman like our mother, then I am all for it.”
Ladies, Gentlemen. Pick up those drinks!
That’s all for this round, folks! Good news! We’ve reached the halfway mark! We’re only 202 incest-filled ages away from escaping the attic! Buckle up tight and make sure to pour your drink into a spill-proof cup; we’ll get there together!
