The Vine: May 25, 2012
I’m hoping the Tomato Nation will be able to help me find a book that I read in high school. It was for an English class during my junior or senior year, 1991-1993. We had to pick a book off the shelf and write a paper on it.
The book I picked was about a young girl/woman named Constance whose relationships with the people around her (mother, possible future stepbrothers) were pretty messed up. It was adult fiction with a lot of inappropriate behavior all around. She walked in on or spied on her mother having sex with…someone, and then mimicked part of what she saw with one of two brothers who were vying for her affections. She also involved a small snake in one instance. (How was I allowed to read this in high school?) One of the brothers’ name was Nicholas or Nicky.
I want to say there was a flower in the title, dark orchid or lily? Her mother might have been a grifter or a gold-digger. Mind you, this wasn’t a book from the school library, but from a shelf of books the teacher had in her classroom.
It’s driving me nuts that I can’t remember the title, but the book itself sticks out in my mind because I remember my young self being just scandalized about what I was reading. Searches online have come up with nothing. Thanks!
MP
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult
Could it be Dark Angel by Sally Beauman?
I think I read this book around that time as well. Although I can’t for the life of me remember the title either. I seem to recall that Constance’s father had a pet name for her, or simply refered to her as his albatross. Maybe that will help twig someone elses memory! I’m curious about this as well, good luck!
If it’s *not* Dark Angel, per Savannah’s post, it’s uncannily like it.
I too read this book – or I think it must be this same book – at a worryingly young age, and have been occasionally haunted by it.
As I recollect it, it depicts paedophilia and child abuse rather graphically, which the Amazon description glosses over impressively.
I always remember it affectionately, however, when I am being picky about wanting bedlinen to be 100% cotton, not a poly-cotton mix. Because it ends rather sweetly with a character commenting that another – now deceased, I think – character would be horrified at the bedlinen in the hotel that the manor house it’s set in has been turned into, because you can’t have cotton instead of linen on beds!!
Sounds like something from V.C. Andrews.
I’m seconding JJBryan’s guess. This is definitely some V.C. Andrews book. Maybe If There Be Thorns or something else from the Dollanganger series. They all had plant-type things in the title and were weird and creepy as all hell. I read them all in middle school (!) and remember amputee sex, incest, etc. being major parts of the books.
It’s not quite Flowers in the Attic, but it’s sort of like it. The incest and all sure sound like the V.C. Andrews we know and love, but Flowers was between brother and sister, not step-siblings, and the names are Cathy and Chris. But the mother stuff is dead on, and you said flower in the title. I think you might be mixing Flowers in the Attic in with pieces of another book.
It’s definitely “Dark Angel”, but I think you are confusing some aspects of V.C. Andrews.
I read all of this stuff in middle school. That could explain a lot.
If VC Andrews didn’t write this one, she must be spinning in her grave at opportunities lost…
There is also Dark Angel by V.C. Andrews, at least, Amazon lists it.
Definitely not a V.C. Andrews book.
Dark Angel sounds like it might be right. If so, I can’t believe I didn’t remember so many other aspects of the book! I could’ve sworn one of the brothers was named was Nicholas, but I guess not.
@Susan – Yes! I remember Constance being called “my little albatross”.
The cover for the book on Amazon didn’t look familiar, but I found an older cover that has a lily on it (which is probably why I thought there was a type of flower in the title) and it was published in 1991, so this must be it.
Now I’m a little scared to read it again, since it seems like even more of a hot mess than I remember. Ha!
Thanks Savannah and everyone else for your help & input!
Sorry for the extra “was” in my 3rd sentence. Grrr, typos!
@Kona: No, the amputee sex isn’t from the Dollanganger series, that’s My Sweet Audrina (TN read-along some time ago.) The same author, mind you.
I thought the book in question sounded like V. C. Andrews too, seems I must check this one out ;-)
Funny story: I found it by googling “V C Andrews Constance,” because it sounded so much like her to me, and apparently even though it’s not by V C Andrews, enough people agreed that this was the top hit on Google.
No clue here; but it did bring back memories of the genius (sarcasm abounds) who had us read “The Handmaiden’s Tale” in junior high. If I had showed that to my parents there would have been an explosion.
@cat_slave Thanks for the clarification. I can’t believe I missed the read-along for that creepy-ass book!