AIBU to assume that Cathy Glass books are fiction?

[Weetabixelly]

They purport to be true, but how can they be? Surely no Foster Carer would be allowed to get away with publishing the stories of children they have fostered as it would be such a massive breach of confidentiality.

Even, if the children in her books agreed (as adults) to her publishing their life stories , it still seems so exploitative?

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).

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

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

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.

Hate those books and the genre. Misery porn basically

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.

@Belledan1

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.

and having a sandwich lunch.

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.

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.

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

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.

Oh she is so fucking irritating. I read one where perfect Paula, then aged 3, said 'of course mummy' and skipped off to another room while Compassionate Cathy dealt with a dreadful trauma (alone of course because as she rreminds us IN EVERY BOOK,ex husband John left her for a younger woman
Good move John)

@cookiecreampie

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.

Am flicking through one just now (vaguely remembered it mentioned something my therapist brought up earlier) - she says ‘presently’ seven times . Paula is meant to be two but speaking in full grammatically advanced sentences that even older kids would struggle with ...

I think I read one,and it was obviously heartbreaking, but I couldn't read anymore. I have such massive respect for foster carers. Our family have tried to foster, but as we have a child with special needs we couldn't be approved.
I think she may base her story's on her foster children, she has so many books. I do think even if she's changed names, country's etc, it's sort of exploitive but maybe they could be a comfort to some that have been in foster care? Honestly have no idea what the plot or gripping twists. I have respect for anyone that can write and publish a novel, but not really with titles like 'daddy's little secret ' or 'the child with no home'.
I've read a few Lucinda Berry books and she was a child psychologist/ psychiatrist, maybe she still is,?.I enjoyed a couple of her books but Saving Noah I just couldn't read again. But I do believe her books are from various cases she's studied.

‘Presently’
‘My heart went out to her’

Was going to come on to mention the sandwich lunch reference which comes up all the time in her books! But I see it has already been mentioned

She makes me sick with her self appointed sainthood.

she has said that the stories are composites of several of the hundreds of children she has fostered

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.

you are joking!( Like Mners who think their perfectly mundane tale will be 'outing'.) There are 100,000 children in care each year in UK and she has been forstering 20+ years.That is 20 million cases and each one will have key details changed

No @a8mint - she does a massive charade about learning to do afro hair, how he seems so well brought up and then bam a rich dad recues him and takes him back to his home country. Thats very outing if it happened in a small middle class town that she gives the impression she lives in. Have you ever done any information governance/data protection training in children who are looked after? The hoops i had to go through when I did my dissertation around care leavers from the council was ridiculous, I couldn't have included that sort of story. That wasn't from the uni, that was from the LA information governance dept.

Anyway, from being in care and now working with looked after young people I call bullshit on the stories. There's no way that information could be put into the public. Data protection rules are so tight for children's info.

@starrynight468 But what she writes is changed. The afro hair and the rich dad are probably different kids. The 'Afrcan dad' could be a white American grandmother ""

I still got 3 of her books on my kindle to read. All 99p. I be noticing loads of things now !

Yes to the casseroles thing, and the constant mentioning about her ex leaving her for a younger woman!

I have to admit I do love her books!
I read them really quickly
Don't ruin it by saying it's not true!

But what people have put her do make me laugh
It is true that there's a lot of every day routines included
And I have certainly thought before many a time that her children seem very suspiciously perfect!! (That, to me, is the wierdest thing about them all to be honest!)
And yes sometimes she does come across a bit superior (and judgemental in some cases)
I know one book I thought she's judging this child's mother for not being able to control this child's behaviour (and bearing in mind she's supposed to have lots of experience of children and parents like this) and then it turns out Cathy couldn't either I thought mmmm. No word of her admitting this though
And yes it is mentioned a lot that she's doing it by herself etc
But I really like the books!
There was at least one ages ago that didn't have a happy ending - maybe that was Damaged?
I think there was another one too?

@DeathByWalkies

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

Yeah, that's also a pen name

@Firebird83

Yes to the casseroles thing, and the constant mentioning about her ex leaving her for a younger woman!

And it's always phrased something like

"My ex husband John left me for a younger woman when my children were little. Painful then, but history now"

😅