Get Us Started, Lady Bea:It's a question for the ages, Dear Readers...who IS V.C. Andrews's most annoying heroine? I mean, there's so many...myriad snotty, incest-having, doormat-resembling, crazy bitches to choose from. Heaven, Cathy, Leigh, Ruby, Audrina, Carrie, Olivia, Christie, Annie...the list goes on and on. BUT. For my money? THE most irritating heroine is Dawn. The lead character of the Cutler series. HATE HER SO MUCH. I mean, it's fairly typical for Andrews's heroines to get all abused and face wacky obstacles, but Dawn is just so fucking whiny about it. Let's review, shall we? (Obviously, spoiler warnings abound.)
Dawn is the middle daughter of an itinerant, semi-trashy family with a sickly mom, an alcoholic dad, an angry brother, Jimmy and a baby sister, Fern. OR SO SHE THINKS. For reason that are rather murky, but further the plot so we'll let them go, her dad moves the family to Richmond, VA and sends his kids to a fancy private school. Naturally, Dawn and Jimmy are picked on by the rich kids and blah, blah, blah. Oh, and this boy Phillip Cutler, who's kind of a sexual predator, albeit a handsome one, sets his sights on our girl. So does his bitchy sister Clara Sue, but for other reasons. Namely, that she hates her and wants to destroy her. I kind of find myself rooting for Clara Sue, honestly. Oh yeah, and Dawn's all innocent and smart and perfect and has a beeeyooootiful singing voice. This will be semi-important later.
So, Dawn's mother dies and her dad get arrested for having kidnapped her from a rich family when she was a baby and guess what? She's Phillip and Clara Sue's sister! So, all those vehicular fumblings that she was engaged in after school with Phillip? Totally icky and pervy! And what does Dawn do? She cries and whines. And her new family mistreats her and makes her work as a chambermaid in their hotel. Heh. Jimmy runs away from his mean old foster family to visit her and he and Dawn MAKE OUT. Lovely. And after she MAKES OUT with her FAKE brother, her REAL brother rapes her. Clara Sue is awesomely mean to her some more. It turns out she's the result of an affair that her mother had with her FATHER-IN-LAW (Or maybe he raped Dawn's mother. Andrews changes her mind about that in a later book.) and her kidnapping was PLANNED. And when she confronts her evil grandmother, (MAN, does Andrews have some Grandmother Issues!) does she threaten to go public with the whole sordid tale, unless they treat her with some damn respect? NO. Does she tell them all to fuck off? NO. Whatever. The Grandmother agrees to ship Dawn off to some performing arts school in NY. (FAAAAAAAAAME! I wanna live FORE-EVER! Ahem. Sorry. It's not as fun as that. Trust me.)
When our not-so-intrepid heroine arrives at her dorm in NY, it turns out that the evil Grandmother has told the school that Dawn is a thieving, lying, stealing whore. I'm sorry; is that a problem? Oh, it is for Dawn, who bitches and moans constantly about it. Her roommate is cool and of COURSE, the other male student in the dorm FALLS IN LOVE WITH HER. Ugh. But no, Dawn is too busy ALMOST FUCKING her fake brother Jimmy when he comes to visit her from the Army. Um, Jimmy? Is making out with your underage fake sister really conduct becoming to a whatever in the military? I thought not! Oh, it gets better! Dawn then totally cheats on her almost-brother with her voice teacher and gets knocked up because apparently, it never occurred to her to use ANY kind of birth control. Seriously, it's NEVER mentioned. She's obnoxious and lies to everyone because she can't really admit that she's boning her teacher and makes up ridiculous stories about some guy named Alan. And enlists her cool roommate in "hiding" her pregnancy. Girl, please. Of course, the teacher totally ditches her, causing her to collapse dramatically in the streets of Manhattan. I'm pretty sure she gets hit by a taxi. Heh. Serves you right, you whiny bitch. Oh and then her uptight family ships her off to hide her shame. And guess what? She GOES and gets abused some more. Yawn. Oh, and then they sell off her baby. And she uncovers some crazy family secrets. Oh, and WHINES SOME FUCKING MORE.
Jimmy rescues her and forgives her for her cheating ways and HAVING SOME OTHER GUY'S KID. But since she's sort of his sister, I guess it's hard to get up on a high moral ground. So, Dawn gets her daughter Christie back and her grandmother dies and things are looking up. But DAWN HAS TO WHINE ABOUT HOW HARD HER LIFE HAS BEEN AND HOW COULD ANYTHING GOOD EVER HAPPEN TO HER?! Sigh. Clara Sue is hilariously evil and jealous and fucks up Dawn's shit whenever she gets the chance. She stuffs Christie in a laundry bin! She brings her trashy boyfriends to snooty family events! She literally kicks Dawn's ass! Which causes her to have a miscarriage, which isn't so awesome. But does Dawn have Clara Sue's crazy ass thrown in jail? NO. 'Cause she's a whiny bitch.
So, Dawn sucks. Lots. Sure, she's had a tough life, but she gets some good breaks too. True love, two (eventually) healthy kids, a nice career, friends that are WAY better than she deserves... Are they ever enough for her? NO. She whines and bitches and does a lot of speaking-through-tears. Luckily, she DIES. HA.
And now for Mame's rebuttal (heh..."butt"):I love the entire catalogue that is Flowers in the Attic. I can’t help it. I have read and reread every line so many times that I have had to buy a different book because the old one has become too worn. All this being said, I must confess that when asked which heroine of the infamous VC Andrews annoys me the most I am forced to say that it is none other than Cathy Dollanganger herself.
I’M SORRY! But let’s be honest, Cathy is annoying as hell. Do I really need to break it down? I’m going to (of course) but do I really need to?
Let’s begin with her first ‘marriage’ to the good doctor Paul Scott Sheffield. Here’s a guy who she is worried has aborted a freakish baby of hers (PS Cathy, a D&C pretty much is an abortion, but whatever). Or how about the fact that her younger sister considers him her father? Yeah, that’s normal marry the man that your sister calls Dad.
Yeah, let’s talk about her relationship with her sister, Carrie. Carrie is bullied so horribly in her high school that she’s home schooled, and could probably really use a sister who has been through the horrible life with her. Where is Cathy however? Ah, too busy trying to fuck her way to the top as a ballerina.
Now, as for her second marriage to Julian, who cares? Not me, it was scandalous enough. But I do think it’s amusing that she names her son after his father but calls him “Jory” after his dead uncle. Yeah, that’s not crazy.
Now we can move onto Bart Winslow. Look, I can appreciate wanting revenge on the mother and grandmother who locked you up and ruined your childhood, but when you’re dressed as a ballerina, holding a whip, dancing around the naked ass of a stroke victim something in you has to go, “You know what? This is enough.” But not our Cathy! No, she does not think that this is enough. No, she’s not satisfied until she’s dressed up as her mother, pregnant with her step-father’s baby, has broken into the house during a Christmas party and incidentally sets the whole house on fire.
Still not on my side that Cathy is a crazy bitch? OK, how about the fact that not she sleeps for the last years of her life on her aforementioned mother’s bed. Why didn’t she take her two kids (three if you count the “neighbor’s kid Cindy” she adopted) and get the hell as far away from that world as possible?
Cathy sort of redeems herself in the last novel Seeds of Yesterday, but she still stays around the scary house that eerily resembles the house she was locked in. Seriously? I refuse to hang around my childhood home for more than four days because I can’t stand the memories of a crazy mother and she never tried to poison me.
Well, all this being said, she makes for a good read; nay, an excellent read.
