I picked this up at the Little Free Library on Russell in Alexandria. Not sure if V.C. Andrews is Horror or Mystery/Thriller. Will find out!

This could be a Jeffrey Epstein confessional. It was the rapiest book I've ever read and the worst part was that it was all from the rapist's perspective, full of justifications and entitlement. The most enjoyable parts of the book were wondering when this was supposed to be set, it was published in 2003 but the "psychiatry" seems solidly in the 1940s. Also... intriguing? entertaining? to read the victim's "encouragement" and "love letters" as a victim placating her massively more powerful abuser, it fits perfectly. God, this was ugly.

I'd wanted to read some V.C. Andrews because they've always been around, but I never picked one up. Reading up on her in Wikipedia, she wrote less than a dozen books in her life and the rest (quite a large number) have been ghost written by the author hired to finish her manuscripts. I feel like the V.C. Andrews brand experience I was curious about could definitely be fulfilled by one of the ghost written books (like this one) but this one is a little unusual in that the narrator is the older male explaining her convoluted adoption to the protagonist of different books in letter form after his death. (Oh look, he's cowardly and selfish, yep, fits the whole "abuse power to rape people who can't really say no and don't actively fight me off while insulting everyone around me who isn't a Manic Pixie Dream Girl or Magical N... (or Magical Maternal Latina).

So yeah, vomit vomit vomit, retch. I am passing this one on because people love this author, and I'm how our changing norms around consent might affect readers' responses.

Going to check out Soho Tea and Coffee with some books to release.

I had already asked a bunch of questions, so when I didn't see an obvious place to leave books at the coffee shop I just packed them in to release at the LFL by my house.