AIBU to assume that Cathy Glass books are fiction?

Tiddleztheelephant yes how funny. I forgot the sandwich lunch. Her kids all seem to be doing homework all the time and dont need to be told to do it.

Cathy Glass books are about as real as Jacqueline Wilson novels. Case closed.

And I've always wondered about the timeline of these books. Can't remember what it was but something didn't add up with the ages of her kids and how long she'd been fostering.

I think they are based on a few different cases and then joins them together as though she's writing about one child, so all very loosely based on real life events. She must have made a lot of money from those books and from her fiction under the name Lisa Stone, but that's never mentioned in her books, or the time she must spend writing them. I once counted how many times she uses the phrase " at present" and it was loads.

Sorry for the confusion. I meant i agree with CrouchEndTiger12 that Cathy Class always refers to baths and bedtime in books and I added she always talks about cooking casseroles.

Hate those books and the genre. Misery porn basically

I've read a few Cathy Glass books, and they seem like utter fiction. I've often thought she couldn't possibly have any consent to write anything about the children she's fostered, let alone the various agencies involved.

As to her children, has anyone ever seen such perfect children! Her daughter Paula seems to have the most remarkable vocabulary for a 2/3 year old, and Cathy is clearly the best foster carer ever.

Another one whose children are absolutely perfect is Casey Watson.

Never read any of these but from her website she seems like a raging narcissist!

@DeathByWalkies Lisa Stone is just another pen name, was my understanding, like Cathy Glass.

Well, Cathy Glass isn’t her real name, for a start, so none of the other names are real as well, I’m sure. I don’t even know if her picture is real, or if Harper Collins has just gotten someone in to pose (it’s happened with other authors). So who knows if any of it is real, besides the very basic facts… like that foster care exists.

I’ve been a ghostwriter and you can’t BELIEVE the shite that’s ghostwritten anyway. At this point, I have trouble believing almost any top ten author writes their own books without “help,” except maybe Stephen King. Perhaps “Nora Roberts” as well, because she’s apparently a complete workaholic. I did a lot of blogs for people and they’d tell me just to make up their whole lives once they gave me very basic outlines (their profession and number of children and ages and things like that). I’d just make sure they read posts before being published in case they were asked about them (if it wasn’t anonymous).

I didn't realise her real identity (Lisa Stone) was in the public domain. That only serves to make the children in her books even more identifiable

I’m ashamed to say that I quite enjoy a ‘Saint Cathy’ audiobook despite them being utter shite 😂

I don't know but either way they're exploitative rubbish.

She always seems a bit too smug to me - her children were written as being absolutely perfect, Adrian especially - which just wouldn’t be the case in reality; absolute nonsense . That and the dialogue from small children ... I also suspect Damaged might be based in reality but the rest, I think is largely BS peppered with some experience . She writes crime novels under the name Lisa Stone funnily enough.

I got the impression that her first book (Damaged) was probably based on a real story and had enough detail to flesh out a whole book.

The trouble was, it did so well that the publishers wanted more and more books when she didn't have enough real life material to make into a whole new book. Hence padding it out with bath times and casseroles.

She's got a few fiction books now, which suggests to me that everyone knows she's run out of new material. She should quit while she's ahead.

It did always surprise me that she was allowed to publish such details. If you read the updates section of her website it's clear that she hasn't had any contact with many of the subjects of the books since they left her care, sometimes many years previously, so I don't see how she can possibly have gained consent.

@Belledan1
What do you mean "Crouchend"?

I'm not Belledan, but Crouchend is another person posting on this thread.

I can't see how it could be unrecognisable. One was a story about a boy who reunited with his African dad and went back to Nigeria with him. Ok it could have been a different African country but it's still an African country and someone would recognise that unusual story.

I also don't recognise the way she dresses them in charity shop clothes and non branded trainers. Most FC would be torn to shreds by a SW for not providing new clothes and toys and marking fc as different. She does it in a way of - oh my values aren't branded trainers, they have to save for those or have them as a present - fuck right off with that. Buy the kid a normal pair of trainers, they've already gone through so much and feel so different then their classmates the least you can do with the money provided to you to clothe them is actually clothe them appropriately!

Also the casseroles. Most neglected dc don't say yummy a casserole for tea! They may have lived on freezer food and ready meals, even if their parents cooked, everyone's home cooking is different. Most FC start with freezer food with extra veg on the side, maybe a spag bol but you should buy them what they're used to and gradually introduce new food.

I also hate the smugness of her! Argh! Can you tell I was in foster care and now work in social care! It really does get my goat the way she talks!

I expect they are composite characters, based on several real people, to give a "poetic" truth rather than a face-value one.

I'm the same as the others I always assumed it was loosely based on truth but enough details altered to make it unrecognisable

I think that crouchend,always,talks about baths and bedtime and always seemed to cook casseroles.

It leaves a really bad taste in my mouth whether its true or not. If it is true enough and she's made money from their stories, because they aren't hers to tell, she's obviously not a good Foster parent.

It's misery porn. Real people who work with our most abused and neglected children shouldn't want to exploit them.

I did contrary to my own beliefs enjoy the Torey Hayden ones many years ago. Now I work in that field I have no desire to read anything that slightly resembles my case load outside of it!

I have read all her books (to my shame really) and I agree. Really identifiable details, so there must be some real fiction going on there.

All of them have such perfectly unrealistic happy endings, for a start.
Read the updates on her website- most of the foster kids are leading really successful lives now, which just is not realistic or statistically likely.

Theres a new one on the scene, though who doesn't write under a pen name- her name is Louise Allen, and she has a website and everything. Surely, surely there can be no element of truth there- the children would be so easily identified by her family and neighbours, for a start!

I found her holier than thou attitude and her mistrust of other foster parents very annoying. She sees herself as the greatest foster mother to have ever existed.

Much of her work is white noise. How many times does a school run and bath time and bedtime routine need to be described in the same book.