Most traumatic Jacqueline Wilson book?

[Msblueskies]

Lighthearted… those who grew up on JW books in the 90s and 2000s which book was the most traumatic for you?

In my early 30s now and I absolutely adored all my JW books. But looking back a lot of the content was pretty dark 😅 I think for me Dustin Baby wins the prize for darkest and most traumatic at all. I read it at age 10!

@BeeHumbert

'Girls Under Pressure' triggered my bulimia - I've never recovered sadly

Why was your post hidden by mn?

This thread has made me want to go back and re-read lots of JW books! And some of them that I never read.

I agree that they show trauma, but a lot of children experience trauma and I think it’s good to have this reflected in literature, first so that those children know they’re not alone and second so that other children who are more sheltered are aware that not all children are so lucky. I wouldn’t say that glamourise it, although the TV show Tracey beaker definitely did!!

I lost a friend when I was 11 (she was 12) and Vicky angel really helped me to feel less alone at that time.

Kiss - not traumatic as such but since we're just listing the problematic elements of the books!
The girl has a crush on her best friend who is gay. Towards the end of the book he tells everyone he thinks he's gay. The happy ending is 1. a lot of people tell him it might be a phase and he's very pleased to discover that it might just be a phase and 2. the two of them kiss in order to ward off the homophobic bullies. The boy character gets to convince everyone he's straight after all and the girl gets a kiss from her crush. Happy ending for all.

@fortheloveofjamdoughnuts i read it when I was already suffering with ED and it made me feel less alone or less abnormal for my illness. I guess it can go both ways unfortunately.

@Dandelionchaser ive not read this one but it’s surprising given than JW is openly lesbian. Maybe it’s something she experienced growing up or has seen for other LGBTQ+ friends?

@BeeHumbert @JanS17 @fortheloveofjamdoughnuts I think it can go either way with ED. For me I found that book validating because as well as anorexia and bulimia it also deals with the other common ED that is rarely ever talked about- that of Binge Eating. The book mentions Ellie's childhood and how after her mum died Ellie felt a constant emptiness inside that she filled by excessive eating of snacks. This describes how BED is for many people including myself, that void, that low level sadness and emptiness that never goes away, a hole needing filling. I was too old for the book when I read it aged 18 when it first came out (but loved JW, as I had grown up with the Tracey Beaker thing and was delighted to discover the old 70s/80s JWs in my school library (The Other Side, Amber, Waiting For The Sky to Fall etc) and suddenly I realised other people knew about this void and the constant need to eat and eat and eat. I'm now in recovery after many subsequent years of denial. Mine was caused by a chaotic abusive childhood, not bereavement like Ellie but the feeling of a void there just resonated.

I think that was The Diamond Girls. I remember being quite disturbed by the little girls treatment by her horrible mother, the bit about force feeding and having head held back and nose pinched and food shovelled in. Thing is my childhood was abusive in many ways and I hated when I was force fed but I didn't automatically consider it abuse because I was born in the early 80s and this practice was actually considered normal parenting then! It happened at school as well as home , I think many of us Xennials/Gen X can relate. Compared to the other abuses I went through that one just seemed so "normal" when I look back. in hindsight I realise that child rearing in 80s UK was pretty appalling in some ways!

Sorry just realised I'm probably breaching the right hearted rule a bit here!

Mine? I honestly have no idea!

Yes literally as soon as you posted it, it said post hidden by mn. I only know cos I could see the time.

Then not long after I could see it.

It was strange because it happened so fast it couldn't have been from someone reporting it?

I was just confused

I like her more recent historical novels the best out of her recent stuff. Opal, Queenie, Wave Me Goodbye.

Many of her books had an abusive dad or stepdad figure in them, I think that was Jacqueline writing on a topic she knew well, considering she mentions in her interviews that she had a scary dad. Off th e top of my head I can think of several with abusive dads ,stepdads, neglectful mums or other caregivers who were abusive

Cookie (domestic abuse)

Lola rose (ditto)

Secrets (also an emotionally invalidating and neglectful mother for the rich girl)

Clean Break

The Bed and Breakfast Star (Macks treatment of elsa would be considered abuse now, I say probably normal for early 90s but still could have had an effect. I couldn't see an adult Elsa wanting much to do with Mack unless things changed in the interim.)

Waiting for the Sky to Fall (father overbearing but also quite scary, bad temper, lashes out at mother for being fat, and also Katherine sister Nicola. Katherine is put under lots of pressure for being gifted and even considers suicide over fear of exam failure )

Deep Blue (emotionally abusive dad, another gifted child put under extreme pressure )

Nobody's Perfect (sandras boyfriend Michael has a bullying dad. Sandra herself mentions a brief stay in care where she was smacked for refusing her milk and wetting her bed)

The Story of Tracy Beake r mentions an abusive stepfather figure leading up to her being taken into care

Amber (Amber mother Jay raised by abusive nuns)

The Illustrated Mum (Marigold raised by abusive nuns)

The Other Side (mother not abusive as such but severely depressed, father and stepmother not cruel as such but don't understand Alison. But I think typical of 80s parenting back then. Mental health in kids just wasn't recognised except in cases where the child acted out very badly it seems, quiet kids were left to get on with it)

Falling Apart (more emotional neglect invalidation of a bereaved child)

Love Lessons (sexual grooming, blamed for it)

The Power of The Shade (inappropriate teacher and pupil relationship )

Wave Me Goodbye (teenager humiliated for wetting bed)

Ellie's father in the Girls series is a bit of a See You Next Tuesday calling Ellie's art "twee"

Haha that scene! The stepmum is very into healthy eating so she doesn't want the girl having jelly cubes full of sugar. I remember the mum coming to collect the daughter and being outraged at the home made jelly and she called the stepmum a slut!

Ah yes Bad Girls! Mandy is being bullied and she makes friends with Tanya the older girl in foster care, and Tanya stands up to the bullies. I think she ends up being a bad influence on Mandy though as she shoplifts and they get caught?

I remember being so disturbed by the chapter in Dustbin Baby where the little girl doesn't know why her adoptive mum won't come out of her bedroom, unaware that she's killed herself.

I’ve only read the 70s/80s ones but I remember being unable to put them down as a young teen. They left me with an uncomfortable feeling though, and affected me more than most books did. Was it Falling Apart where the main character dreams about her dead nan? I’m not even sure I want to read that one as a adult!

The ones that come to mind are Vicky Angel and Dustbin Baby. Candyfloss wasn’t as sad but I remember that being my favourite

I remember reading The Other Side several times in the school library when I was 11/12. It really upset me every time (especially the bit where the mother has a breakdown and wets herself) but for some reason I kept reading it even though it was genuinely traumatising!

@Chickenfeed67 the one with the dead nan dreams is The Other Side. alison, staying with her dad and stepmum after her mother is hospitalised with a severe.depression is struggling with her new home and school and starts having dreams where she floats out of her window and flies to her dead granny's house where in her dreams her gran is still alive and making her cakes and dancing to ballroom records.

Falling Apart is about a 15 year old girl named Tina who lost her twin brother in a terrible accident aged 5. Tina blames herself for it and her parents are so wrapped up in their own grief they refuse to see how it is affecting her. She meets a boy named Simon, has a fierce teenage romance with him then he tells her he went out with her for a bet. Tina feels so alone again she rushes home and takes an overdose. She survives but the hospital staff are unsympathetic and fail to see it is a trauma response not just attention seeking. It is sadly realistic regarding how mental health in young people was seen at the time and I until maybe very recently .

Oh god yes, it was the Other Side. I’d blanked out the part about the mum wetting herself but I remember now. I probably read it around age 13 and I think I was too young for that.

Waiting for the Sky to Fall, that was the one with the Dad who made them cheap gristly sausages wasn’t it? I felt queasy just thinking about those.

Vicky Angel, My sister Jodie and Cookie! Loved the books, I think I've blacked most of them out tho 🤔 🤣

The Illustrated Mum I found quite upsetting. There were so many pretty awful themes in there. The others I just took to be quite nice stories at the time but I knew that must have been a pretty messed up upbringing.

I think my favourite was The Suitcase Kid, did she want to name the new baby Enid or something equally hideous? Or maybe The Lottie Project which I read in year 6 when we all had to do a big project in a new exercise book and I thought it was cool we were doing the same as in the book.

@Chickenfeed67 yes I recall the sausages! They were very poor, their dad was either a newsagents or a grocer, I think. The protagonist had won a scholarship to a girl's school where the others were a bit posh.

@Wrongsideofpennines I think it was Ethel. After her great aunt "who was old and smelled of wee wee"

My daughter and I have just read this one - one that I didn't read as a kid (I thought I'd read a lot of them but not this one!) it's so sad but also a very good read.

We've also read bad girls and double act too which she enjoyed x