Tally, my main character is a dancer. So in addition to watching Center Stage, Save the Last Dance, Flashdance and every other dance movie I could, I decided to re-read one of my childhood favorite novels, Flowers in the Attic.Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews is a tale of four children, one a ballet dancer, who get locked away in a bedroom in a behemoth mansion with only an attic to play in, while their mother waits for her father to die so she can inherit millions.
Great hook. And as a kid, I loved this book. As an adult, rereading it, well, the writing isn't so fabulous.
What childhood favorite book have you reread as an adult that left you less than dazzled?
xoxo,
Suzanne
I am a big fan of "Flowers in the Attic" - I can't name five books that I re-read as an adult. However, I did re-read "1984" and "Catcher in the Rye" in 1999 - although my HS english teacher would disagree that I read them the first time. Second time around "1984" dazzled while "catcher" fizzled. Holden Caufield is a pussy (can I say that?)
ReplyDeletep.s. I first typed: the bible
This isn't much of an answer but if I could find Ramona, a novel set in southern California during the Spanish American War about the ill-fated love affair between a Spanish-Mexican woman and a native Indian being displaced from his homeland(the first novel that made me cry), I would read it again and see if it is as tragic and sad as I found it to be at the age of twelve.
ReplyDeleteI think what makes me sadder is some of the books I loved (I spent many pre-teen nights staying up late with a flashlight completely enchanted by Ray Bradbury's classic 50's short stories - if only sci-fi today was half as mythical!) I've read so many times that I know them all. I wish I could do like Holly in Red Dwarf and erase my memory of the books I loved so I could read them all over again.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I read Pinkwater's "Alan Mendelsohn the Boy from Mars" a few years ago with my son, and it's still as absolutely as hysterical as it was when I was in 4th grade!
Definitely the Sweet valley High books! SOOOO badly written.
ReplyDeleteI think there's something to learn from this--a good story, not necessarily good writing, will get read and passed around. Kids aren't sophisticated and mostly want to be swept away by the tale. Books that become true classics are probably the ones that tell a terrific tale and are well-written, too. As mentioned above, Ray Bradbury did both. And Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are is amazing. But I know I've been in the bookstore and opened something I loved as a kid only to be stunned by how bad the writing is.
ReplyDeleteI reread Ramona within the last year, and thought it was still very good. It's a tragedy, and it's as sad now as it was then. I found it on a shelf in our local library (small town, Alberta).
ReplyDeleteI've reread lots of favorite books in the last few years. One that I'm looking forward to: Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles. And how about Watership Down?
I was a huge Jackie Collins fan in high school. I tried reading her work again as an adult, and, well, not so much.
ReplyDeleteThe Babysitters Club. What was I thinking?
ReplyDeleteDr. Seuss, on the other hand, never fails to impress.
Grammilou,
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad to hear someone else say the same about Ramona. I was beginning to think I'd imagined that book!! Watership Down was great. I could reread it today and not be disappointed.