I was discussing this book with MideOfTheShadows the other day, and we both agreed on one thing: this book is disturbing in every sense of the word.

It's very difficult to explain this book.

The book's basic plot summarised is this: four siblings live with their adoring parents in a comfortable house in 1950's America, but then their father dies in a car accident. Their mother moves them back to live with her parents, except she was disowned by the family and her father doesn't know she has children so her and her mother keep the kids locked in the attic for years, as you do.

You may have heard of it, as it's a bit of a classic, but it is also kind of controversial, due to the fact that it contains incest.

The most disturbing bit for me largely came from Corinne's horrific treatment of her own children. The incest didn't *totally* bother me, because I kind of understood how it happened. Cathy and Chris were the only mature members of the opposite sex each other were in contact with for years, I can understand how they became sexually attracted to each other as they grew, even though they were brother and sister. It's just that I got Cassandra Clare vibes from the whole thing, i.e I had a slight feeling the author was in support of this.

I mean, writing the incest is fine, I was just made uncomfortable because it sort of felt like the author was trying to get us to ship Cathy and Chris. As though she was using that old cliche of a forbidden love......idk. It just unsettled me.

I had a pretty big problem with the scene where they "have sex" (Chris basically rapes Cathy, except the author seems kind of unaware of this). Especially when he apologises and she's just like "lol it's ok bc I'm attracted to you too."

......I......don't......?

I overall liked the book, that was just something that unsettled me. It is a very disturbing read, and I have to say that Corinne Foxworth is absolutely just one of the worst characters I've ever read about, for sure. The fact that she could raise her children til the eldest is fourteen and supposedly love them, and then proceed to lock them in an attic, continuously lie to them, starve them, try to kill them, succeed in killing one, and then completely abandon them, is just........the woman reaches absolute new levels of selfishness.

I'm not sure selfishness is even the right word. She literally goes on honeymoon with her new husband all around Europe, then comes back to her four children who have been trapped in an attic for three years and calls them ungrateful because they ask to go outside. She buys them expensive presents and somehow expects this to be a fair exchange for fresh air and freedom. She gets in a tantrum at one point because she doesn't want to listen to Cathy telling her how the twins are malnourished.

She lives in luxury with maids and all the jewellery, clothes, parties and rich food she wants while her children have to live in a dusty attic and eat literal crumbs. At one point she leaves them for weeks as a punishment and they starve so much they consider eating dead mice. She keeps telling them that her father is dying and they can come out when he finally pops his clogs, but when they escape at the end of the book, the kids find out that the old man has been dead for more than a year at that point.

I can't even explain this woman. I hate her so much. I hate her possibly more than I've ever hated any character. It was HEARTBREAKING to see how much her children trusted her and how callously she could just abandon them, how selfish and greedy and blind she is, how awful she could be so as to poison her own little boy.....MY HEART. Then she just straight up ABANDONS THEM rather than face up to what she's done, leaving her mother to take care of them, or perhaps hoping they'll starve to death.

Look, guys, I'm a total pacifist but if Corinne Foxworth showed up at my house, I'd beat her to death with her own diamonds.