Pickles and Flowers in the Attic
When I was in 7th grade, I became obsessed with Flowers in the Attic, a horrible but very popular and compelling series that had recently become a movie. I can't remember what happened first, but I somehow read the book and watched the movie and definitely found the movie lacking. Until recently, I didn't realize how much of Cathy, the main character, influenced my ideas about sex and sexuality. In the first book of the series, Cathy and her older brother Chris and their younger twin siblings are a happy family with a strange last name. Their mother had married her half brother/uncle and gotten disowned so the children were raised far away from their mother's wealthy parents. Eventually though, the father/uncle/half brother dies and the mother is unable to handle her life so she, with the assistance of "the grandmother," locks Cathy et al away for 3 years until"the grandfather" dies and she can let them out. Only that never happens so the 4 kids grow up...
