fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2351 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2350 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 113 secrets from Secret Submission Post #336.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What books did you read in your childhood that hit you a different way when you reread them later?

I read Ella Enchanted a dozen times in my early teens, but when I reread it last year, I discovered that a. Ella's curse is so so so much more disturbing than I originally thought about, b. Olive scares the crap out of me and I don't know why (before she was just funny), c. THOSE MUSHROOMS OH GOD THE IMPLICATIONS THE ICKY ICKY IMPLICATIONS.

And yet, I still enjoyed the book.

I can't recall the name, but there was this story that was a take on Robin Hood and focused on Maid Marian. When I originally read it I just thought it was a really cool story about a girl going to live in the woods and have adventures and then fall in love. When I re-read it as an adult I was shocked at all of the kind of serious topics that I just glossed over - miscarriages, death, torture, rape, evil monarchy/political stuff. Just wow. I still like the book but man did I just not see all that as a kid.

Was it The Forest Wife?? Because if so: SO MANY MEMORIES I LOVED THAT BOOK and yes it was my introduction to some borderline disturbing shit.

Yes! That was it exactly! So much disturbing hidden in that fun story.

That thing that clamped around that woman's tongue-! Scold's bridle or some such? Shudder. That stuck with me for years.....

Oh god yes. Dear Enemy, by Jean Webster. I remember it fondly from my childhood -- my mother recommended it to me when I was obsessed with orphans for some reason. I don't know if anyone else has read it -- it's the sequel to Daddy Long-Legs...? Well, anyway, it was written in 1915 and is set in an "orphan asylum," from the point of view of a socialite who's been landed with the position of superintendant. Very humorous illustrations, fun tone, and so on.

Fast-forward fifteen years. Reread book.

Well. All that scientific-sounding stuff the kindly doctor was teaching the socialite about hereditary feeblemindedness and alcoholism and so on? Yeah, that was eugenics. They were in fact coming out and calling it eugenics, because eugenics was trendy in the U.S. in 1915. It went over my head as a kid. Reading it after several semesters of 20th-century European history... yeah.

Jean Webster's books can be pretty bad. In "Dear Patty" or its sequel (can't recall which), a teacher comments that girls who get bullied bring it on themselves.

Why were the girls being bullied? Because Patty and her friends had been put in separate bedrooms, so they made their roommates' lives living hell until they got partnered with their friends again.

Also, Patty spent the majority of the book lying to people and wriggling her way out of trouble. Oh, but it was okay - in the end she decided to be a truthful, honest person. Yeah, good luck changing those habits, Patty.

The Ramona books. I had always loved Ramona--and still do--but as I got older, I couldn't help but completely sympathize with Beezus over Ramona. I felt like a traitor. :/

I still like them too but I always sympathized with Beezus since I'm the oldest and had (from my POV then, anyway) obnoxious younger siblings who got all the attention, dammit. I think a lot of books like that depend not just on your age but on your family dynamic.

Ella Enchanted is soooooo much creepier when read with an adult mind. (I love that book to fucking pieces, though.)

Another Cinderella-inspired book, Just Ella (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Ella), really shocked me when I reread it after a few years. When I was younger I just didn't notice the creeping horror of the whole story. :(

Bridge to Terabithia. Not in a terrifying way, but I definitely missed the fact that Jess' parents were worried he was gay and the significance of the movie downplaying Leslie's butchness.

Weetzie Bat. I remember it being one of the first YAs I read with gay characters, but WOW there's some weird shit in this book. Weetzie really wants a baby, so she just goes and has one, even though her boyfriend really doesn't want one- so the baby might be his, might be her gay best friend's, or maybe his boyfriend's... The writing is incredibly affected, too. WTF, Francesca Lia Block?!

When I was about ten, I reread a book called The House of Thirty Cats over and over. It's about a lonely little girl who befriends the neighborhood cat lady and tries to help her find homes for them when the town health officer decrees that the cats must go. Years later, I found a copy in a secondhand bookstore. Wow, Miss Tabitha was an animal hoarder!

[ SECRET POST #2351 ]

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