Which books did you read before you were really old enough to understand them?

[PineappleSeahorse]

I was a voracious and precocious reader as a child and I became obsessed with my library’s copy of Animal Farm when I was 7. I loved it but of course I had no idea what it was really about.

I suppose that I could have made more inappropriate choices of reading material but I’m curious to know which books you read as a child that you probably shouldn’t have.

That was in our middle school library!

Another one for Virginia Andews.

I still think it can be read by an advanced young reader, without having any fucking idea about what was happening.

I think I was on the 3rd or 4th book (maybe 14 or 15 years old) before I realised something 'weird' was happening, and even then I didn't relate it back to the earlier books.

(I was 14/15 in the early 70s)

Jude the Obscure. "Done because we are too menny". Utterly traumatic as a young teen!

I think her being religious was a bit of a cover for her life. Making herself seem "better" than her neighbours type thing.

Yes same, flowers in the attic - I recently purchased the box set for some reason, read the first page, and it was a definite nope!

Yep ‘Fear of Flying’ - I just remember thinking these grown ups have all that freedom to stay up late and eat sweets and yet they’re never happy…

The Duncton Wood books. I just thought they'd be nice books about moles!

Well I've read all of the Jean Auel series. They're great, apart from the first one: Clan of the Cave Bear. Too much child sexual abuse, thanks. It's the one book I threw out, although I didn't read it until I was an adult.

I missed out on the thrill (or horror) of reading things I was too young for. When I was a child my parents didn't have any books and I only had one (Heidi) given to me my my Godmother. I read it so many times I almost knew it by heart! I was a voracious reader but could never get my hands on enough material. Magazines would be passed on to Mum and I read all of those despite not being remotely interested in how to bake a Dundee cake or knit matinee jackets.

We had books in school of course but in primary school we weren't allowed to bring any of them home. Then I went to a girls Grammar School which had a library - nothing unsuitable (or very interesting) there! I was about 15 when we read Animal Farm in school for O Level so definitely not too young for it then.

I also read Wattershipdown about age 9 or 10 because I liked the rabbit on the cover (my older siblings had it kicking about the house) and the music from the film might have been in the charts at the time and I think I was entirely misled as it seemed to be a cartoon... Oh boy, I wept.

Wuthering Heights I read about age 13, practically in a day - I loved it, thought it so so romantic. Read it in my 30's and had no time or patience for Cathy at all. Read it again late 40's - think it finally dawned on me the issues it was actually grappling with.... Brilliantly written.

Me too! And every time someone uses “horrorshow”, I think - no, that word doesn’t mean what you think it means.

A dreadful book about Fred and rose west. It was on a relatives bookshelf and I was staying for a week over a half term or something.
Honestly I was such a curious reader! I think the full horrors passed me by at about 11 or 12 but I still remember some awful chapters.
I really enjoy true crime as a genre still now but if I buy them they are donated immediately after reading so my kids (now 20, 19 and 14!) don’t get their hands on them such is my paranoia 😂

I also read Go ask Alice when I was in my teens. Pretty sure it was based on a true story similar to A boy called It). It was a very bleak picture of a young American teens life.

I read them all too!
Cave bear was like nothing else. To be fair, I still remember being hooked by the beginning- the description of the earthquake and her being mauled by the lion. And we're looking at 30+ years ago now.
The cover of the one I read was red and gold.

Marquis de Sade - 120 Days of Sodom when I was 14 🤦🏻‍♀️

Go Ask Alice was originally claimed to be real which is why it was so controversial but actually turned out that it was "fake" and just a load of fiction 😱
(and A Boy Called It is rumoured to be not as true as it was made out....)

Flowers in the attic by Judy Blume. Our reading teacher told us all it was totally inappropriate when someone did a book review so of course we all read it!!! 😝😝

Plato's Republic at 14

You're getting your books/authors mixed up. Judy Blume would likely be furious to be compared to Virginia Andrews 😉

Same!!!!

I read Virginia Andrews books at age 13 and noted her obsession with incest, but was too young to understand the broader abuse dynamics. (I even remember being on a holiday in France whilst reading the series. )
I also read Lace by Shirley Conran at a similar age and was very perplexed about the goldfish scene....😬

I remember my mum suggesting Flowers in the Attic by VA when I was still at primary school, I think I read all of them.

Ok I was an avid reader and had probably run out of books on the bookcase but I mean, you know, nothing to see here!

On the flip side, one book I read when I was too "old" for it was On the Road (Jack Kerouac), I couldn't get into the exciting transient lifestyle because I was too busy thinking "his poor mother, how must she be feeling!"

Ive always said I read On the Road when I was too old too! I was early 20’s!

I was too old for catcher in the rye. I'd done my teenage angst phase and just found him really fucking annoying.

Oh, so many! And have re-read them all so many times through adulthood, each time uncovering a different ‘layer’ of the book as i mature as a woman. The one that sticks out the most would probably be The Robber Bride by Margaret Attwood, identifying with each of the characters in turn and on deeper levels with each re-read.