Shannon of Shannon’s Sweet Valley High Blog made some of these for SV characters, so I had to do one too. There may be some more to come!

Oh and a SPOILER note: Carrie’s icon is based more off of Petals on the Wind, where she becomes an amazing cook and homemaker. For a while. More on that later.

Before I get started, man, is this a dense book. So. Much. Happens. in just a few paragraphs. These kids get more done in a page than Ruby gets done in whole chapters. Description upon description, it is imagery central up in here. So. Let’s get on with that then.

First up, we get a nice overview of the bedroom itself: 16×16, with lots and lots of dark furntiure that makes it seem smaller, cream wallpaper, gold satin bedspreads, it’s basically a room in an old hotel. With the walls covered in paintings of Hell.  Christopher declares these Goya’s work, which impresses Cathy, even though *I* think they sound more like Bosch to me.

Me too.

Thanks, friend. Carrie starts shouting that she doesn’t like it and we get a little bit into the twins’ characters. Carrie is the nosy one, the opinionated loudmouth (oh how things will change for our Carrie) and Cory is the quiet one. When I first read this book, I thought Carrie was just the worst brat. This is not to say that she isn’t a brat, because she can be, just that re-reading this with the knowledge of the next book (which SPOILER is Carrie’s last) behind me makes me laugh a little more at her interjections. She demands to know why they’re not leaving since she doesn’t like it and where is the sun and what the hey is happening, and Cathy is saved from answering by the entrance of Olivia. And now rules central begins and I will tell y’all right now that I am paraphrasing like hell. I just can’t type all of it out. I can’t. There is a speech of rules about cleanliness and food and modesty, then there’s a list of rules on paper that they’re supposed to memorize, and then more speeches about when and where they can be and make noise and I just can’t. Suffice it to say that the list on paper boils down to DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT COMMITTING INCEST YOU INCESTUALLY-MINDED KIDS. Oh and your grandfather and I will never, ever love you. Now settle into your bacon and eggs.

So they eat breakfast and Chris & Carrie try their best to project happiness so that the twins don’t pick up on the real wtf-ness of their situation, and then they decide to go up to the attic. And it’s amazing. It’s that attic that everyone dreams about having or finding, really. It’s huge and has windows and real floors (not just beams and pink stuff) and chests and wardrobes full of old clothes and books and pianos and a little schoolroom. Chris is trying to find the bright side, but the twins are getting restless and screechy and Cathy is screaming at bugs, so he clambers up to the rafters to hang a couple of swings for the twins and he and Cathy convince them to pretend that they’re outside. Ugh that’s so sad. Later they go down to the room for lunch and Chris talks to Cathy while she’s taking a bath (nope) and they discuss all of the wonderful things they’re going to do once they’re rich. Guys, this is exactly the wrong foot to start off on. I *just* said in the comments that Olivia fulfilled her own prophecy by locking y’all up and now you go and do this. More hours tick by and it’s clear that this is not going to go well. Everyone’s bored and restless and cranky and it’s all just building to a head when the door opens and Corrine and Olivia walk in. The older kids can tell immediately that something’s up with their Momma, but the twins start freaking out, begging to be let outside and calling Chris and Cathy mean. Olivia demands that Corrine shut Carrie up, so lil’ miss Carrie walks right up to her grandmother and lets out a killer scream. Now, I don’t want to overuse screencaps here, since I want to do a movie recap on its own, but look at this face. Carrie don’t give a fuck.

Bring it.

And then Olivia picks Carrie up by her hair and Cory rushes to his sister’s aid and bites Olivia’s leg, making her drop Carrie, who rushes over to scream in a corner while Olivia slaps Cory across the face. Corrine and Cathy and Chris are just sort of standing around stunned, and Cathy recollects that only Chris the Elder could ever stop these kids once they got started, but Olivia threatens to whip them and that gets them to be quiet since that’s a pretty terrible threat to give to five-year olds. Corrine gathers her kids up and Olivia tells her again that she’s worthless and her kids are evil and blah blah blah will you get OUT you creepy old lady. But before she’ll leave, Olivia makes Corrine take her shirt off, revealing that she has in fact been whipped. 48 times, to be exact–33 for the years of her life, and 15 for the years she spent with Chris the Elder “living in sin”. This is what really sets our Cathy off. If you’ve read the rest of the series, or at least Petals, then you know that Cathy is no stranger to the concept of revenge, and it all starts here. Olivia seems to realize this, as she threatens the children again, but directs her gaze at Cathy. I’d watch it, Liv, I know what’s coming to you.

Olivia leaves and Corrine gathers her children around her to tell them (and us) her backstory. There are certain..shall we say…variations that we get in the eventual prequel, but for now let’s stick to what we’ve got here:

Corrine was raised in this house with her two older brothers, Malcolm (Mal) and Joel. (She doesn’t name them, but I am because I am in charge here) The three of them had a pretty miserable childhood, with religion forced on them and the usual restrictions against swimming and dancing and playing cards and joy. This is, we shall learn, a really really really common VCA backstory. One day, a handsome young man showed up at the house, Chris the Elder. His mother, Alicia, was the second wife of Corrine’s grandfather Garland. After Garland’s death, Corinne’s father Malcolm had stolen Alicia and Chris’s inheritances and kicked them out; now Alicia had died and Chris was looking to connect to his family. So, Corrine explains, while Chris the Elder was technically her half-uncle, he was only three years older than her and they’d never met, so it was love at first sight. Corrine declines to spell everything out for her kids (much to Chris and Cathy’s relief) but suffice it to say that they had a secret romance and when Corrine was 18, they eloped. When they told Malcolm and Olivia they freaked out (and I’m sorry, rightly so, girl he is your UNCLE) and they were both disinherited and kicked out and changed their names and here we are. Cathy, I should mention, is utterly charmed by this story, seeing it as like a ballet, all romance and forbidden passions and whatnot. Cathy, you weirdo.

Corrine tells her oldest kids again that she’s going to do everything possible to win back her father’s love and get back into his will (noble) and then they’ll all have everything they ever wanted. She assures them that they’re amazing wonderful kids and that there’s no such thing as inherited sin or being born bad or anything else that Olivia might want them to believe. Corrine, still, you married your uncle. This is Heaven Casteel’s favorite book. They all reiterate how much they love each other and Chris & Cathy assure their mom in return that they love her and forgive her for never telling them the truth, and Corrine puts on her brave face and announces that she’s going into the big city the next day to start typing classes so that she can get a job. Chris is super happy and supportive, but Cathy just keeps remembering how Corrine had previously mentioned that she wasn’t the world’s biggest self-starter without Chris the Elder to support her. Ah, here we go. Cathy’s mind starts ticking in these chapters and does not stop. I know we all know that Cathy makes some poooooooooooooooooooor decisions in the future, but lord I love that she tries to do anything at all, RUBY.

Corrine leaves and the kids go to bed, where Chris and Cathy make some small talk about how at least now they know why they all look so much alike. Ew. Chris is still firmly on the side of “Everything Momma says is true and awesome” while Cathy is still hella suspicious about everything. Stick to that, baby. You’ll need it.

Coming up: More long boring days in the attic, Corrine starts wearing a lot of jewelry, Cathy starts practicing her dancing up in the attic and Chris starts to creep, and the twins start down the road to sickness. And that’s only barely halfway! THIS DENSE ASS BOOK.

PS: This is also my Book Club’s latest pick, so if we have our next meeting before my next recap I’ll be sure to write down any choice commentary by my fellow Book Clubbers. We like to think we’re pretty hilarious.

 

Oh golly-lolly day! Here we go.

Flowers in the Attic presents itself as a true story. The short prologue is Cathy noting that she’s masking her life story as fiction, but that she’s still hoping that the people who should be affected by her story (who are…who, at the point that she’s writing this? SPOILER: Everyone’s dead) will be affected and something something she wanted to call the book Open the Window and Stand in the Sunshine, which is amazing.

Our story proper begins “back in the Fifties” (fun fact: by the last Cathy-narrated book, it’s actually *the future* since it would have been taking place in the late ’80s/early ’90s) as Cathy describes her bland as hell blonde family. They live in Gladstone, PA, where their “all-American, wholesome, devastatingly good-looking” father works as a PR man for a computer-manufacturing firm. NOTE: that was the description that his boss gives of him. Harassment!  Chris the Elder is 6’2 and blond and hawt and everyone loves him, especially his gorgeous wife Corrine (who spends all day on Fridays getting made up for her husband’s homecoming, yet he thinks she doesn’t wear makeup because he is an idiot) and their two children, Christopher and Catherine. Remember them now, kittens, we will never tolerate Christopher again. One winter afternoon Chris and Cathy come home to find their mother knitting tiny clothes and eventually she tells them that she’s pregnant with twins. Chris can’t even handle feeling the babies kicking because he already has boundary issues and Cathy freaks the h out because she worries about being supplanted in her father’s heart. Chris the Elder comes home that night and gives Cathy a ballerina music box and a birthstone ring and assures her that he’ll always love her, no matter what. Awwww, that’s actually sweet. Now, in the movie they throw some Corrine drama into this scene:

Calm the hell down, Corrine.

but in the book she’s pretty happy with how much her family loves each other.

So eventually the babies are born and are twins Cory and Carrie and Cathy loves them and everyone is happy. EXCEPT for their neighbor/babysitter who thinks that Chris the Elder and Corrine look “more like brother and sister” than they do spouses (FORESHADOWING AND ALSO THE TRUTH), but everyone just laughs that away and life is good for a few years.

And then Chris the Elder dies. It’s a pretty sad scene, all told, they’re waiting with a surprise party for him and instead the police come to the door, but this is not why we’re here. We’re here because as soon as he dies, Cathy gets bitchy that they never had a pet, because if they’d had a dog or a hamster who died it would have prepared them for the death of their father. JFC Cathy. Then she decides that she’ll just pretend that her dad is on a business trip and that he’ll come home one day, but Corrine shuts that down right quick. So they start to lose all their stuff to the repo men because Chris bought his wife whatever she wanted on credit and eventually she gathers her children around to tell them something weird. See, they’d always thought that their parents were both orphans, but, turns out, that Corrine’s parents are alive and extremely wealthy. She was disinherited for reasons she doesn’t get into and oh by the way, their real last name is Foxworth, not Dollanganger. (Cathy is pissed that they changed their name to something so hard to spell, JFC Cathy). Long story and striding around in a negligee short, Corrine tells her older kids her brilliant plan: they’ll go live with her parents, as her father is dying, and she’ll use the time he has left to charm him into writing her back into the will. Cathy and Chris are swept away by her descriptions of wealth and agree that this is a good plan.

It is not a good plan.

Just in case you wondered.

So off they go one night, on a train to Virginia. Chris and Cathy are a little suspicious when the conductor calls Corrine by an assumed name, and when they get off the train in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, and when she leaves her luggage in the station, but they shrug it off and march down the road to their grandparents’ house. And what a house it is and what a creepy old lady lets them in and leads them up some back stairs and into a bedroom. And boom! yep, this old lady is their grandmother. She’s tall and severe and her bosom looks like twin hills of concrete (it says that!) and Cathy immediately dislikes her. It probably doesn’t help that like the second thing she does is ask Corrine if the kids are pretty but stupid. (yes) Chris and Cathy dress the twins in their PJs and put them into one of the double beds, where they immediately fall asleep. They then huddle together a bit under the grandmother’s gaze and she instantly points out to Corrine that they can’t sleep in the same bed. Corrine protests too much at this, but her mother points out that she used to believe that Corrine and her “half-uncle” were innocent too. Ooops. Chris and Cathy are just a little shocked to get this tidbit. It’s now that they find out that they’re all (sans Corrine) going to be sleeping in this one room, as it’s the only one where their grandfather and the servants won’t hear them.

It’s now that another part of this whole plan is revealed: see, while Corrine is busy trying to win back her father’s love, her kids have to hide upstairs and pretend not to exist until she brings them down. Oh. Also, the grandmother (okay, enough of that–OLIVIA) will bring the kids food and milk in the morning, but they have to make sure to hide all evidence that they’re there before the maids come in and clean once a month. They move the twins to different beds and get ready themselves, and Corrine assures her older kids that it won’t take her but so long to win back her dad (ew) and she and Olivia leave. Chris and Cathy muse over that “half-uncle” thing for a bit, but finally decide to wait until their mother explains it and go to sleep.

 

OKAY so here we are. Next time: Olivia’s rules, the attic, some Corrine backstory and that time the grandmother lifts Carrie by her hair. Fun times!

So there they are. The Dresden Dolls. (No, not those) The Dollanganger/Foxworth tribe, the Fearsome Foursome. This stepback is amazingly simple: The four children (from the left: Christopher, Cathy, Carrie, and Cory), looking haunted and pale and being tormented by the looming specter of Christopher Walken. I’ve always found it interesting that it’s not Olivia or Corrine, but their grandfather in this image, but I suppose it makes sense since it’s for his benefit that the kids are locked away, at least initially. Grampa needs to cool it on the blush.

I haven’t done this in a while, but I wanted to point out some other covers that this masterpiece has had over the years, just for funsies. So, this is the copy I have:

It’s the movie tie-in cover, so it’s fairly basic.

I guess this is the one that’s out now, with the first two books in one, with that “Black background, flower” cover thing that Twilight gifted to the world. Hey, at least it’s not a 50 Shades knock-off. Yet.

Ooooookay

And this was an earlier repri–

GAH!

YEAH NEVER MIND.

Let’s just get into this shall we.

Oh my god that last one.

Thanks to http://fuckyeahvcandrews.tumblr.com/ and Amazon, from whence I snitched these images.

Hey y’all!

Before I get to the cover (which is of course a classic), I want to talk about FitA itself a bit. It’s really THE VCA novel, isn’t it? It’s the one everyone’s heard of, if not the only one they’ve read; it’s basically a cultural shorthand for inappropriate sibling relationships/stories about same. People are often surprised to learn that there’s an entire Dollanganger series since FitA is such a thing in and of itself. “Wait, what are the other books about?” people have asked me when I mention there are four other books. “Ummm…more weirdness? And ballet!” I usually say. (People who don’t read at least Petals in the Wind are doing themselves a disservice, I think, it’s more of a conclusion to the initial arc, and all of the rest of that nonsense (Corinne moves in next door! Everyone moves back to the mansion! Bart Jr. and all that jazz!) is more or less tossable. I do like Garden of Shadows though.)

ANYWAY. The Dollanganger series doesn’t really fit into the template of the later series, though it does have a variant on the structure. Have I talked about the template? Am I too lazy to check? Maybe the answer to both questions is ‘yes’ but here’s a thing I came up with whilst curling my hair anyway.

So the formula followed by the Casteel, Cutler, Landry, and Logan series are as follows:

BOOK ONE: Main character (a young girl) is introduced. She will probably have a *fairly* unusual name (Heaven/Dawn/Ruby/Melody) (this may be unusual only for the area/time period). She may or may not have a happy childhood/home life, but at some point in this book she will be made to live with people other than those who raised her. These new caregivers may be relatives or not, but she ain’t staying home. She may or may not have siblings from whom she is separated (Heaven, Dawn)  but she will meet new siblings/relatives in her new home as well. There will be at least one female nemesis, possibly of her own age, (usually a sister), ie Dawn/Clara Sue, Ruby/Gisselle, or an adult mother/grandmother figure, ie Heaven/Kitty, Melody/Olivia. Sometimes there’s double trouble, ala Ruby vs Gisselle/Daphne or Dawn vs Clara Sue/Violet. Main character will probably meet a future love interest, whether or not she knows it and whether or not they are currently love interests (Heaven/Logan takes a hiatus at first, Dawn/Jimmy…is not worth getting into yet).

BOOK TWO: Main character goes away from whatever home she was in at the end of Book One, usually to a school of some kind (though I think Melody stays put), where hijinks ensue. New love interests may be introduced, but will usually turn out to be creeps (Dawn/Michael), will die (Heaven/Troy), or will just be complete disasters (Ruby/Louis). Main character leaves school, either through graduation (Heaven, Melody) or kicked out for pregnancy (Ruby, Dawn) and returns to one or more of their homes. There will be some confrontation with the villain and some kind of return to the MC’s past. Usually by the end of this book they have a baby, whether one they had as a teen or they’ve sped up a few years, gotten married, and had one. Melody, again, throws this off. Hey, screw you, Melody!

BOOK THREE: Main Character is an adult, or is 21 and we’re supposed to act like they’re ancient. They’ve usually developed a degree of independence from their villains and are married. Stuff happens, often involving their children. Many supporting characters, good and bad, die, (Clara Sue/Gisselle/Jillian/Belinda). The Main Character will often learn part of some secret from the past of the villain, enough to make them wonder what else could have happened to make them that way. Ends with the MC usually pretty happy.

BOOK FOUR: The daughter of the previous Main Character becomes our narrator, EXCEPT, AGAIN for the Logan series, which makes Melody’s dead cousin Laura the narrator, ostensibly through her diary, EVEN THOUGH IT ENDS WITH HER DEATH. HER DIARY-BASED NARRATION ENDS WITH HER DEATH. They are young and surrounded by the secrets that their mothers tried to hide in the previous three books. There are sometimes siblings running around, but they’re just plot devices really. A tragedy will befall the Main Character, generally death, whether of both her parents (Annie, Christie) or a sibling (Pearl) or whatever the heck happens to Laura. I don’t remember. LATER! This tragedy results in the MC having to make some life change (Christie has to move in with her creeper uncle and later runs away, Annie has to go live with her creeper grandfather, Pearl has to run through the SWAMPS, Laura is institutionalized) and usually face some villain from her mother’s past (Tony/Philip/Buster/Olivia). MC will eventually find love and the book ends happily OR WITH THEIR NARRATED DEATH.

BOOK FIVE: The prequel. Ohhhhhhhhhh the prequels. As I’ve said before, I tend to trust the prequels, if mainly because they’re not presented as, oh the deathbed confessions or something. Meaning, it’s not like Olivia Foxworth writes this to explain her actions in FitA or something, so I have confidence that what she tells us happened actually happened, she’s not making amends or lying. Does that make sense? Prequels bore me when, like a certain one we just finished, they provide absolutely no new information. I mean, in Garden of Shadows we learn that Corinne and Christopher are actually half-siblings instead of just half niece and uncle, and I don’t think we learned that before. And Alicia was kind of painted as a monster bitch but we learn she was actually sweet? And in OhGODIcan’tremembertheonewithLeigh we learn about how she was abused by Tony and all that when it was presented to Heaven as a seduction and all that sort of stuff. In Tarnished Gold we learned…stuff we already knew. So yay.

Um. That was quite a swerve. The Dollanganger series holds to the five book set up, but prety much does its own thing past that. BOOK ONE is our story, that classic tale of siblings locked in an attic and the wackiness that ensues, while BOOK TWO keeps the same narrator and continues her adventures, but then BOOK THREE is a random piece of weirdness about that narrator’s sons and then BOOK FOUR returns to the narrator’s story and ends with her death. BOOK FIVE is then a prequel, where we learn some interesting secrets but also people’s names are misspelled. So…

I HAVE RAMBLED ENOUGH. Let’s start this fire*.

 

*Wait that’s BOOK TWO

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH

So Gabrielle misses Paul, I guess because he’s her baby and stuff, but I can’t sympathize because I know his future; and she’s started following the Tates around town trying to catch a glimpse of him. Gladys doesn’t like to be bothered with him in public (seems like she went to a LOT of frakkin trouble for a baby she doesn’t want to hang out with) and the time that Gabrielle got a good look at Paul Gladys caught her and whisked him away. Catherine’s trying not to be all “I told ya so” but she sort of is and basically everyone is sad. Well, except for Jack. I mean, he IS sort of sad, but mostly because he already blew all the money that the Tates gave him. He’s tried to get more out of Octavious but he ain’t having it and he’s giving Gabrielle a hard time because she never wants to go out and meet any men like I WONDER WHY THAT IS.

Sigh.

THIS IS WHY I DON’T LIKE PREQUELS. We KNOW what’s going to happen! We KNOW that Gabrielle never gets Paul back and he grows up not knowing about her and that she has an affair with Pierre and gets pregnant and then gets convinced by Daphne to give up the baby and then she has surprise! twins and Catherine keeps one and then Gabrielle dies and then the leftover baby is Ruby and there we are back at the beginning. Some of the prequels at least have surprises, everything here has already been laid out for us.

SO ANYWAY LET’S POWER THROUGH THIS AND THEN WE CAN ALL HANG OUT WITH THE DOLLANGANGERS.

So Jack starts a business leading hunters/fishermen through the SWAMPS and among his first customers are a group of rich Creole men from New Orleans including, SURPRISE Pierre Dumas and his father. Pierre chats up Gabrielle and fakes a headache to get out of hunting with his dad. They go for a walk and a ride in her canoe and he tells her about Jean and his accident (though not everything about it) and she gets so distracted by his beauty or whatever that she bumps the pirogue into a rock and they fall in. They get up on some rocks and make out for a while and then Pierre confesses that he’s married, though not happily. Uh huh. Pierre manages to convince Gabrielle that what they’ve felt so far this day means something, so he gets her to promise that he can keep visiting her in the swamps and then they totally do it. Oh Gabrielle. They go back to her house and eat gumbo and he tells her about New Orleans and WE’VE HEARD THIS BEFORE and then he leaves and Catherine warns Gabrielle to watch herself, since she knows that Pierre is married.

Some time goes by before Pierre comes back to the BAYOU and takes Gabrielle to an old shack that he’s bought and fixed up to be their love nest. Oh and I guess they didn’t hook up before, because it’s described in copious detail right here. Moving along, Gabrielle naturally has some concerns about this whole enterprise but Pierre assures her that they’ll be fine and that no one suspects anything. Except that he comes back on a hunting trip with his dad a few weeks later and afterwards with Gabrielle tells her that he thinks that his dad suspects something. Damn it Pierre. Gabrielle’s no better at secrets (I accidentally wrote ‘sexrets’ but that’s basically true) because when she gets home Catherine calls her out and warns her again. This time it seems to stick and Gabrielle writes Pierre a goodbye letter and leaves it at the shack. That lasts about a minute because Pierre comes back and they start the whole thing again.

One evening Gabrielle comes back from love nest central to find her father sitting on the porch with Monsieur Paxton, father of Nicholas who I think got mentioned a million years ago? anyway their family is rich and owns a store. Jack tries to get Gabrielle to agree to marry Nicholas but she’s not having that and Catherine agrees and Gabrielle and Pierre’s affair continues and everything is great until Gabrielle goes to the shack one day and finds Pierre there getting drunk. Daphne knows about them. She apparently hired a PI (would Daphne do anything less) and confronted Pierre with the information. Well, this certainly is inconvenient because Gabrielle has just realized that she’s pregnant. Pierre is immediately overjoyed and assures her that she and the baby will have every they could want, that he’ll build her a house, hire nannies, she’ll be his mistress for LIFE (thanks!) and that Daphne won’t do anything about it because it’d embarrass her too much. Wow, you are a peach.

Gabrielle goes home and tells her mother about the affair (which Catherine knew, natch) and that she’s pregnant. Catherine is highly skeptical of Pierre’s promises, but tells her daughter that she doesn’t love her any less. Unfortunately, their conversation has been overheard by Jack, who immediately swears vengeance on Pierre. Oh come on, this is the shit your dreams are made of, Jack. Gabrielle faints and wakes up to find that Jack’s set the love shack on fire and she doesn’t know where Pierre is (he was supposed to be waiting for her at the shack). She later learns from Jack that Pierre ran away when Jack confronted him. Hahahahaha a PEACH.

So some time goes by and Pierre is nowhere to be seen and he doesn’t contact Gabrielle. Catherine starts to worry about Gabby’s health in this pregnancy (FORESHADOWING) and then one day Jack strolls in with a lot of money and a story about having just been to New Orleans. Uh oh. So Father Dumas saw him and Jack told him everything (Pierre was a n0-show, of course) and Jack tried to blackmail him, but Father Dumas told him that Pierre had already confessed everything and that Daphne knew too, so there was no point in any blackmail BUT he’d surely buy the baby from Jack. Oh hell. Catherine and Gabrielle freak out and Jack hits Catherine, at which point she throws him out. More time goes by with no sign of Pierre and Gabrielle’s health gets worse. One night when Catherine is out seeing a patient, a limo pulls up in front of the house and the chauffeur announces Daphne. Uh oh. Gabrielle is understandably nervous but agrees and is immediately overwhelmed with how beautiful Daphne is. Daphne is there to try and get Gabrielle to give them the baby. She wants to make the decision immediately so that she can start faking her pregnancy and while she’s not happy about it, she does want to have a baby and it would mean a lot to her father-in-law and, besides, whatever Gabrielle’s decision, Pierre is out of her life. She also tells Gabrielle that this isn’t the first affair Pierre’s had, which…not surprised, really. Daphne tells Gabrielle about how miserable and resentful her life will be if she keeps the baby (especially since now they won’t get any Dumas money) and it seems to get to Gabrielle because she agrees to do it. Not because of the money, but to make sure that the child has a good life. Daphne leaves. Catherine comes home and Gabrielle tells her that she’s changed her mind, but omits Daphne’s visit until a few days later when Jack (having heard the news) comes around to make sure that he gets his share of the money.

More time passes and Gabrielle doesn’t get much better physically though she feels somewhat emotionally better having made a decision. One day she wanders by the dock and sees Pierre’s silk cravat handing on the end of it (their signal from the love shack days) and she immediately takes a canoe out to the love nest’s remains where, sure enough, is Mr. Peach himself. Pierre runs himself down a bit (good) admitting that he’s selfish and a coward and was happy to let Daphne take charge of everything. Oh and then he confesses about Jean’s accident. Gabrielle must be pretty conflicted with all this, but we’ll never know since we DON’T GET THE MAIN CHARACTER’S REACTIONS TO THESE THINGS. Argh. They say goodbye forever (after Pierre warns her that he’ll never be able to come to see her or bring their baby because it wouldn’t be fair to Daphne) and Gabrielle goes home.

EPILOGUE. Gabrielle goes through the rest of her pregnancy in a daze. Days go by that she doesn’t remember, she stares at bees for hours (no really, it says that) and she’s obviously having a high-risk pregnancy. Finally one night she wakes up in pain and Catherine tells her that not only are the babies coming, but that there will be two. She’d been sure for a while, but didn’t want to say anything for risk of Jack finding out and selling them both. Catherine asks if Gabrielle wants to keep one and answers affirmatively when Gabrielle asks if she wants a grandchild, but both of them understand that Gabby’s not going to make it so this baby will be all that Catherine has. Jack has already sent for the Dumas, so as soon as Gisselle is born hours later she’s taken out to them while Ruby (who was born immediately afterwards) remains by Gabrielle. When Catherine comes back Gabrielle says she wants to name her daughter Ruby, because she has red hair, and then Catherine has to take the baby because Gabrielle’s bleeding won’t stop. Gabrielle starts to have a vision of being in a canoe, floating through the swamps, and though she hears her mother calling her, she keeps going until she finds Pierre and then they go off together forever. Aww.

RIP Gabrielle Landry. We knew it was going to happen, but it was still pretty sad.

 

AND THAT’S ALL THEY WROTE (about the Landrys) FOLKS!!

THAT TOOK FOREVER.

Shut it, you.

 

Okay y’all, Happy Belated New Year and I will see you here soon with a brand new series and a hopefully it’ll all be a golly-lolly day!

Yeah, that’s right.

Let’s do this thing.

 

You guuuuuuuuys this book is so booooooooooring. I read and read and read and nothing haaaaaaappens and then I come here to write and it’s like…nothing’s haaaaaapppened.

I guess we’re just experiencing what Gabrielle is, it’s like an RPG! That’s the way to look at it, right?

Nope.

Don’t you sass me.

Soooo…okay. Gabrielle’s still in the attic, but unlike certain others, she’s alone and doesn’t even have a barre or a big paper snail to hang out with. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand she sits. And she reads. And she does embroidery. And she sits some more. Gladys is still being, well, Gladys; coming up and getting annoyed when she catches Gabby crying, telling her not to use the lamp because she (Gladys) likes sitting in the dark (!), and one night after Gabrielle tells her that she can’t help her mood swings, she catches Gladys making herself laugh and then abruptly cry. Woooo boy. Gladys wants to know every detail of Gabby’s pregnancy so that she can maintain her cover, even her dreams and what smells and whatnot bother her. Oh and Gabrielle’s befriended a heron or something that’s nested on the roof, so she talks to him a lot. Okay.

Once Gabby starts to show, Gladys won’t let her walk outside on Thursdays anymore, but when Catherine hears about it and flips out, Gladys allows Gabrielle to walk around the house on those nights instead. During one walk, Gabrielle peeks through an open bedroom door and realizes that she’s looking at Octavious’ room, meaning that he and Gladys don’t share. She accidentally asks Gladys about it, who gets immediately defensive and accuses Gabrielle of nosing around. She tells her that it’s for the best since men are raging lust-machines whom any decent woman can’t bear to be around. That’s what her father told her, anyway. Uh oh. Gabrielle is surprised that Gladys’ father was the one who told her about sex, and Gladys laughs that her mother was a prude who even covered up the piano legs. So…her mom was a Victorian caricature from Wondermark? Gladys gets all wistful and nostalgic for the good old days twenty years ago when people were more proper and…hold on. Gladys is supposed to be, what, like 25? And she’s getting all misty-eyed remembering the prim and proper 1920s? Hush Gladys. Just hush. She further explains that Octavious has never forgiven her for getting her period on their honeymoon and ruining everything because he is a baby. Gabrielle’s like “Whoa Nelly that is more than I asked to hear” so she excuses herself for her walk, but can’t leave until she demonstrates a pregnancy waddle for Gladys. Oh and even after that, Gladys comes along on her walk. It actually starts out kind of nice because Gladys gives her a tour and talks about the history of various paintings and vases and whatnot, but it turns darker when Gabrielle realizes that while Gladys seems happy when discussing things her mother bought, she gets bitter when discussing her father’s gifts. Run Gabby, run! Gladys leaves her and Gabrielle goes back to her room.

ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I’M AWAKE

I swear.

Ugh so like a week later Octavious tries to make some moves on Gabrielle because he is disgusting and he tells Gabrielle that Gladys was molested by her father and that’s why he and she have such a terrible sex life. THEREFORE he had to rape Gabrielle AND they should totally have sex. OCTAVIOUS DIE PLEASE. Oh and Gladys faked being on her period (she brought pig’s blood along) in order to postpone consummating their marriage. Yeah, we still don’t feel sorry for you, Octavious. And isn’t this Paul and Julia’s backstory from Petals on the Wind? ANYWAY Gabrielle tells him to go away and then she talks to that heron some more and then she feels the baby kicking and feels all conflicted about giving the baby away and then Catherine reminds her about that FORESHADOWING bird from earlier and oh my god it never stops. Later Gabrielle befriends the son of one of the Tate servants, who is deaf, and learns to communicate with him. This comes in handy when she goes into labor one evening while the Tates are having a fancy party and no one can hear her to help. The boy goes to get Catherine and Gladys eventually hears Gabrielle and is all “What? We’re bleeding??? We’re in labor?” and Gabby’s all “No crazy, I’M bleeding. I’M in labor. My mom is coming. Stop being weird.” So Gladys runs off to pretend to her guests like she’s in labor (yelling “Bleeding!! Contractions!!” because that’s what pregnant ladies do) and Gabrielle prays that the baby will be all right.

Catherine comes and they go down to Gladys’ room, where she’s had a second bed put in so that she can lay on it and pee on herself so that she can pretend that her water broke. I am not kidding. She also makes Octavious fire the little boy’s family. So yeah, it’s long and arduous and finally Gabrielle brings Paul into the world. Gladys is like “Okay gimme my baby and GTFO” but Catherine convinces Octavious to let them move Gladys and Paul to another room so that Gabrielle can at least rest a little. A few hours later Gabrielle feels well enough to leave, but Octavious lets her see the baby briefly before they do.

ARGH and then they go home and Jack is an ass and he’s lost all the money and Gabrielle is sad and she writes a letter that Paul can never have and that is the END of the section OMG.

Coming up: Pierre is coming. Prepare yourselves.

GUYS WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S ALMOST NOVEMBER.

Ai yi yi.

I will have the next recap up this weekend. I will make it long. Let’s get the hell out of Louisiana.

So it’s now summertime, and Gabrielle is helping her mother at their roadside stand. Business isn’t great–an oppressively hot summer (who ever heard of such a thing?) has brought tourism to a standstill, so much so that even Jack has to find work elsewhere and he leaves for a job in Baton Rouge. Catherine can tell that something is wrong with her daughter, but Gabrielle passes it off as the heat. One day while Jack is gone, a couple of hired goons come by looking for him and cut up the screen door as a threat. Not long afterwards, Jack himself comes home early, having had a “disagreement” with the foreman. Thank for coming Jack, you add a lot to this narrative. Well, time goes on and Gabrielle starts being sick to her stomach. Catherine gives her some medicine that seems to help, but Gabrielle then starts feeling tired all of the time. They blame the heat until one day Catherine notices that Gabrielle has been to the outhouse about a million times and realizes that she’s pregnant. Uh oh. Gabrielle starts to cry, which brings Jack into the room, so he’s there when she tells her parents about what Octavious Tate did to her. Jack goes bananas and demands that Gabrielle get dressed immediately and come with him. Catherine tries to protest, but Gabby agrees to go.

They head first to the cannery, where they bust into Octavious’ office and Jack confronts him, but Tate (I’m so tired of typing Octavious) denies everything and threatens to call the police. Jack is just like “Fine then, we’ll do this the hard way” and takes Gabrielle straight to see Gladys. The butler is none too thrilled to tell Gladys that they’re there, but he does, and she agrees to see them, though she’s obviously not pleased about it. Gabrielle is astonished at how beautiful the Tate mansion is, and is afraid to touch anything. They sit down and Jack tells Gladys that her husband raped Gabrielle and got her pregnant. Gladys doesn’t immediately protest (she obviously knows on some level that her husband is scum), but she’s obviously a little skeptical, especially when she recognizes Gabrielle and Jack from the scene at the graduation.

WILL YOU ALL GET OVER THE SCENE AT THE DAMNED GRADUATION
Gladys asks Jack to leave her and Gabrielle alone, and questions her a little more closely about what happened. Gladys doesn’t react until Gabrielle tells her what Octavious had said about his sexless marriage. That seems to really piss her off. Gladys sends for some drinks and goes off (to call her husband, seemingly). Shortly, Octavious shows up and once again threatens to call the cops, only to be stopped by Gladys, who tells him to look Gabrielle in the face and deny what she’s saying. He can’t. Octavious wants to know how much Jack wants, but Gladys interrupts and says that’s not the issue–the issue is what SHE wants. And what she wants, as we well know, is to raise the baby as her own. Everyone’s stunned, to say the least, but she points out to her husband that all of their lives will be ruined otherwise–the Landrys will be shunned due to Gabrielle’s pregnancy, and there’s no way that they can ever pay Jack  enough to keep his mouth shut. She points out as well that if they don’t do this, people will still blame Gabrielle for what happened. Jack is unsure but Gabrielle starts to think that Gladys is right. Octavious takes Jack to discuss the money aspect of it and leaves Gladys and Gabrielle to talk. It’s soon clear that there is a whole lot of stuff going on inside of Ms. Gladys Tate. First she doesn’t believe that Gabrielle was a virgin, then she gets sad and blames herself, then she snaps out of that and accuses Gabrielle of setting a trap for Octavious, then she insists that she’s doing all of this to help the Landrys, not herself. She tells Gabrielle that there will be strict rules to follow, and that she will kick Gabby and her baby out into the SWAMPS if Gabrielle breaks them. Gladys agrees to pretend that she’s having Catherine come to help with her pregnancy so that Gabrielle can still see her mother, but that she will have absolutely no other contact with the outside world. She wants Gabrielle to move in that very night, at midnight, once the servants are asleep. Gabrielle agrees.

Jack and Octavious come back and the Landrys leave. They tell Catherine, who isn’t too thrilled, naturally, and who is rightfully disgusted by her husband’s actions. Plus he’s only getting $5000, which…come on, guy. This is your grandbaby you’re selling here. Think big. Gabrielle assures her mother that she wants to do this and they come up with a cover story for Gabrielle being away and pack her bag. That night, Jack drops Gabrielle off at the Tate mansion and Gladys sneaks her up to a small attic room full of dust and old toys. She explains that it used to be her playroom when she was little and she goes off about how she expects Gabrielle to take care of it. Gabrielle is less than sure how much care she’s supposed to take of some dusty dolls, but she agrees. Oh and there’s a chamber pot that Gabrielle can use and empty once a day, at night once everyone’s sleeping, which is also when she can take a shower. And she can’t open the window. These are prime pregnancy conditions, I’m sure.

And now the rules. No leaving the room ever without Gladys’ permission. No shoes, since someone might hear her walking around, and no singing or music and when Gabrielle talks to herself (which Gladys is sure she’ll do) only whispers. There’s a gallon jug of water that Gabrielle can drink from all day and refill at night, and Gladys will try to get up twice a day with food and water, but she can’t promise anything. This is all from What to Expect When You’re Expecting, right? And there’s no electricity, just a kerosene lantern that Gabrielle can use when the sun goes down, but only then and only away from the window. There are some books and games in the closet that Gabrielle can entertain herself with, and Gladys will bring her some weaving and embroidery supplies. Finally, every Thursday the maids have the night off (oh and the house is called The Shadows, which is amazing) and on that night Gladys will come get Gabrielle and she can eat downstairs and stretch her legs. She can also walk around outside in the back, but only until she’s showing. Gabrielle agrees to the rules, though she doesn’t hide that she finds most of them ridiculous. Gladys says that she is really the victim in all of this and they agree that once the baby is born they’ll both be glad to see the end of each other. She leaves and Gabrielle unpacks and fall asleep.

The next morning Gabrielle is woken up by the smells of breakfast coming from the kitchen, but when Gladys doesn’t show up with any food, she decides to look around the room and try to entertain herself. She finds a dollhouse made as an exact replica of The Shadows, except for the room she’s currently in. The books Gladys had mentioned are all picture books and Gabrielle is annoyed that Gladys thought they’d be enough for her. She pokes through some old paint sets and an old toy doctors kit, which, like the dollhouse, seems to have been barely used. In the pile, Gabrielle finds an old sketchbook of Gladys’, and begins to go through it. This is, of course, when things get weird. One of the drawings that catches her eye is a self-portrait of a young Gladys, with the face of a bearded man hovering behind her, his hand over her shoulder. Uh oh. Gabrielle finds two cards in the book, each with a picture of a bird on the front. One says “To my Little Princess. Love, Daddy” and the other reads “Never be afraid. Love, Daddy”. Uh oh. There’s another drawing, this one of a man without a shirt, with a screaming face drawn in the middle of his torso, then some innocuous drawings of trees and horses, and then a drawing of a naked man from the waist down. Uh oh. Gabrielle has had enough of that and she tosses the book back into the closet and starts dusting things to pass the time. This eventually leads her to the dolls. Noooo Gabby just leave the dolls alone, oh god don’t mess with the dolls. When she puts one down on the table she sees something weird about its dress and lifts it, discovering that black paint has been put between its legs. Similar things have been done to all of the dolls, especially the two male ones, who have been completely smashed from the waist down. Because what this series needed was another poor child sexually abused by a parent. Gabrielle puts the dolls back and is trying not to think about what this all means when Gladys comes in with the food. I cannot imagine how awkward the tension is in that room right now.

Gabrielle starts to eat the breakfast Gladys brought and tells her how lovely the dollhouse is. Turns out that Gladys’ father made it for her and she doesn’t take kindly to Gabrielle’s suggestion that it should be on display downstairs. Well come ON Gabrielle, put some of what you just found together. Gabrielle asks for some more challenging reading material and Gladys agrees to see what she can do. She tells Gabrielle that she has to be sure to keep the shade lowered during the day, since it’s never been up and someone will notice. Gabrielle wonders aloud why Gladys wouldn’t want to keep her old playroom nicer. GABRIELLE LANDRY WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. Gladys snaps at her to mind her own and goes to get Gabrielle some water so that she can keep cleaning. When she returns with the water, she begins grilling Gabrielle about her pregnancy symptoms, so that she can better lie to others. Gabrielle starts to notice little bits of weirdness, like when she mentions an herb that Catherine gave her that stopped her morning sickness and Gladys decides to have Catherine bring her some too, and then slightly larger bits of weirdness, like when Gladys has Gabrielle take all of her clothes off so that Gladys can measure her stomach. Gladys leaves after that, promising to bring Catherine and a book soon.

Gladys and Catherine come up that night, and Catherine is immediately angry at the room that Gabrielle is being kept in. Gladys is unmoved and points out that it’s the only secluded place in the house and that Gabrielle is still eating well, but she’s annoyed when Catherine asks to speak to her daughter alone. Gladys leaves and the Landry ladies discuss her weirdness. Catherine makes sure that Octavious hasn’t been around bothering Gabrielle, gives her some more herbs and some snacks, and leaves. Gabrielle reads for a while until Gladys comes back up to tell her that she can come use the bathroom now. Gabrielle is again overwhelmed by how fancy the house is, but how unhappy everyone in it seems to be. She takes a bath and returns her clean chamber pot to her room, then goes back down to get some water. As she’s going back upstairs, she hears something in the next room. She peeks in and sees Gladys in another bathroom, throwing up. Gabrielle pulls back so that Gladys can’t see her and immediately suspects that Gladys is making herself throw up because Gabrielle had said she had thrown up. She dismisses that idea as too crazy even for Gladys (oh just wait) and hastens back to her room. The next few days go by uneventfully, until the first Thursday when she can go downstairs. Gladys comes to get her and they eat a fancy dinner in the dining room and Gladys asks her about her appetite and cravings, getting angry when Gabrielle tells her something (she wants Gabrielle to tell her these things as they happen, not after the fact). As they drink coffee, Gladys opens up a little about how Octavious still doesn’t think that he did anything wrong and that he’s not home because he’s out with another woman, but she soon snaps back into her old self and sends Gabrielle outside to take her walk. Gabrielle thanks her for dinner, thinks again about how sad the house really is, and goes out for some air.

So yeah. That all happened. I think I’d purposely forgotten most of that stuff about Gladys and her father. Yikes. Okay, coming up: Gabrielle is lonely and pregnant some more, Octavious is a creep, and our world is blessed with the appearance of Paul Tate. Hurrah? See you then!

So, here we are at last. At long, long, oh my god so long, last. The final book in the Landry series. The exercise in continuity futility that is Tarnished Gold. Does it lay any massive secrets at our feet? No, not really. Does it give us any great character insights that explain the motivations of people whom we have met later in their lives? Not a whole lot. Does it consistently use a different variation on the main character’s name than any time she’s been previously mentioned AND change her appearance? Yes! Yes it does.

So, first obvious things first. For the duration of these recaps, it’s Gabrielle. I’m not playing this Gabriel nonsense. And I will just say now before anyone gets their hopes up: we never actually see the Tom Sawyer moment where Gabrielle gets lovestruck boys to whitewash fences for her. It just doesn’t happen. It doesn’t even fit in consistently with the way her character is presented in this book. So there’s that. BOO. But okay, enough disclaimers, let’s do this.

Our story starts when little Gabrielle comes running though the SWAMPS to her shack, clutching a dead baby bird. She wants her mother to bring it back to life. Catherine, though nice about it, tells her daughter that she can’t do that. Gabrielle is disappointed in her mother’s magic and in her mother’s belief that the mother bird likely pushed the baby out of the nest since it was the runt (Gabrielle thinks that it tried to fly and fell). Gabrielle doesn’t believe that a mother would do that to her baby, but Catherine tells her that a mother has to do what’s best for her children, and sometimes that means giving one up so that the others can thrive. Gabrielle insists that she’d never give one of her babies away.

FORE–hey. Hey? Swamp Thing? Hey?

What.

Well, um, it’s blatant foreshadowing, dude, that’s your thing.

Whatever.

Um…okay. Is something wrong?

You said it yourself. This is the last Landry book.

Yeah? And? …oh. Right. No swamps after this. Well…I mean, we both knew this was going to happen, right? It’s sort of inevitable. But look, I mean, we still have a whole book to go! And the Dollangangers, I mean…they’re in Virginia, right? Virginia has swamps.

It does?

Sure does. You don’t know that? Weren’t you like, a swamp scientist or something? Anyway. We’ll work it out, buddy. So, you wanna take your line?

FORESHADOWING

Well done. Okay, anyway, so Gabrielle and Catherine are interrupted by Jack, who we learn (via Gabrielle) is drinking beer at like 8:30 in the morning and is very buff. Now…like I said on Facebook, I understand the need to describe one’s characters. I mean, when we met Jack he was an old decrepit guy living in a SWAMP, so we need to see him as he was in the past. And I also understand that it must be hard to have a seven-year old as your narrator just in general, much less when they’re describing someone. BE THAT AS IT MAY, I do not need to read a seven-year old describing her dad’s chest hair. Please and thank you no. Jack scolds Gabrielle for going out walking in the fields, telling her that there are snakes and alligators that could hurt her. Gabrielle sunnily tells her father that she did, in fact, step on a snake just that morning, but that she apologized to “Mr. Snake” and he just went back to sleep. Jack gets her to describe the snake and doesn’t believe her when she does, since she just described a cottonmouth. Guess that ability didn’t pass down to her grandkids, huh? Catherine calls Gabrielle a child of nature for a bit, then nags Jack to get a job, and tells Gabrielle that they can have a funeral for the baby bird. They do so, and Gabrielle swears once again that she would never throw one of her babies away.

TEN YEARS LATER

Gabrielle is walking home from school with her only two friends, Evelyn and Yvette, who are the daughters of her mother’s friends. Gabrielle is about as popular as her granddaughter Pearl will prove to be. Her classmates think she’s weird because she’s not afraid of the animals in the SWAMPS and because her mother is a healer. Now look. Everything we’ve been told about Catherine and her traiteur abilities is that they’re special and amazing and revered in the BAYOU. So now suddenly people think Gabrielle is weird because of it? And, maybe I’m wrong, but doesn’t EVERYONE IN THIS TOWN LIVE IN A SWAMP?? I can get being a little weirded out if the girl’s constantly stepping on snakes and apologizing for it or riding around on the backs of alligators or something, but we’re told that the other girls look down on Gabrielle because she doesn’t scream when she sees a snake or a spider. How do they SURVIVE?? GAH. The boys spread rumors about Gabrielle and the animals (ew) because she never goes out with any of the guys in her class. It probably doesn’t help that when she turns them down, she says things like “I don’t think I would enjoy myself, thank you”. That’s a bit cold, Gabby. Evelyn and Yvette are both planning to get married soon after graduation (it’s mentioned that it’s 1944, so single men of their age group are scarce), and they can’t understand why Gabrielle isn’t thinking more about her future. Gabrielle deflects some conversation about a local guy who is into her and leaves Evelyn and Yvette to head home.

As she walks, she thinks about love and romance in general, and we learn that part of her reticence is due to the hot mess that is her parents’ marriage. Okay, that’s pretty understandable, actually. Jack thinks that Catherine’s put too many ideas in Gabrielle’s head about romance and that she needs to use her looks to catch a rich man. Her father mocks her for not wanting to do that (nice) and it’s apparently been the basis of more than one of her parents’ fights. Gabrielle remembers asking her mother why in the world she married Jack Landry and what we get from this bordering-on-weird conversation is that Jack was hot and Catherine was hot FOR him and that Gabrielle has never been hot for anyone. Well okay then. Gabs gets home to find her parents in the midst of another fight. Turns out that Jack spent all of Gabrielle’s dowry money on some snake oil concoction he bought off of a guy down at the bar. He gets a couple bucks out of Gabrielle, telling her that he’ll double it at cards, and leaves in his pirogue. Gabrielle goes inside and comforts her mother, helping her with dinner before leaving to go for a swim in her pond. (The pond is, I’m pretty sure, the same hidden place where Paul will later drown himself)

So, here we are then. We’re only 20 pages in and it’s already the Octavious scene. Let’s skim this one, okay? Gabrielle goes skinny-dipping and is sunning herself on a rock when she’s interrupted by Octavious, who dives into the water himself and ties Gabrielle’s canoe to his so that she can’t leave. He rambles for a while about his poor loveless marriage, and then he assaults Gabrielle. So see, prequels are generally the truth. He immediately apologizes and tries to act like nothing happened, and then flees. Gabrielle goes home, too scared of what might happen to tell her mother. She’s afraid of the fights that her father would get into and the shame it would bring to her family, and she’s sure that the local gossip would put all of the blame on her, so she decides to pretend that it never happened. She and her mother eat dinner and afterwards Catherine leaves to help a sick neighbor.

Shortly after that is the rehearsal for Gabrielle’s graduation. Much like her granddaughter Pearl after her, Gabby spends most of the time getting harassed by her so-called friends. Evelyn and Yvette give her a hard time about waiting around the BAYOU for a man, and when Gabrielle flushes, they assume that she’s got a secret boyfriend that she’s kept hidden from them. Gabrielle obviously can’t tell them the truth, so she tells them that she had sex with a ghost.

No, really. That’s what she tells them. She tells them that she was swimming in her pond when a handsome young man appeared, hypnotized her, they had sex, and when she woke up he’d vanished, leaving her a red rose. When she got home, her mother told her about a young man who had vanished into the SWAMPS years before and therefore Gabrielle had sex with a ghost. Not surprisingly Evelyn and Yvette are completely wigged out and Gabrielle makes them swear not to tell anyone. That night Catherine and Gabrielle have a nice conversation about love and sex, but Gabrielle is still too afraid to tell her mother what happened to her. The following morning is the graduation ceremony. Jack still hasn’t been home, but Gabrielle assures her mother that he wouldn’t miss her graduation. During the ceremony, Gabrielle is first saddened to see that her father isn’t there, and then has to deal with the fact that the Tates are sitting right in the front row and Octavious is staring at her. GOD THIS MAN. He is just a worthless piece of crap. There’s just nothing else to say. God I hate him. Why doesn’t he get eaten by alligators?

Gabrielle’s name is finally called, and as she gets up, she sees that Jack has arrived. Just as Gabrielle gets her diploma, Jack jumps up and yells “That there’s my daughter, the first Landry to graduate school!” and the crowd starts laughing. Between that and Octavious’ staring, Gabrielle starts to cry and runs off of the stage and into the school, hiding in a bathroom. A teacher, and then later her classmates and the principal all come in and tear into her, calling her irresponsible and telling her that she ruined everything. Get the fuck over it, it’s high school graduation. When someone yells that Gabrielle should have graduated with the animals instead of with them, she leaves and goes to find her parents. Jack can’t understand why Catherine is mad at him and just wants to get home to the party that they’ve planned. Fewer people attend than they expected, due to what Gabrielle did (once again: get over it, folks) but it’s still a good time. Jack gets ridiculous drunk of course, and passes out in a hammock at the end of the night. Catherine and Gabrielle talk after the guests leave, and Gabrielle once again almost tells her mother what happened, but once again she hesitates. Catherine goes to bed and Gabrielle sits alone on the porch, wishing that she could believe that things will get better. But she doesn’t.
Well that was cheerful, huh? Yikes. Coming up: Gabrielle discovers that she’s bringing a Paul into this world, Jack sells said Paul to the Tates, and Gabrielle moves into a tiny room in the Tates’ mansion. That’s…actually all that really happens in the next chapters, but I’ll try to make it interesting. See you then!