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!

I just don't get why everyone loved this stuff! Inaccurate at best and horrifically inappropriate at worst.

Just why?!

Some of us who had chaotic childhoods actually found them comforting.

Because for those of us who had shit/chaotic/ not great childhoods they made us feel slightly less alone.

The rich girl's mum was emotionally abusive to her daughter too.

Omg I still think about that feet description too!

Both of the girls in Secrets have dysfunctional families. India (the rich posh one) Dad was having an affair with the young nanny and gets her pregnant if I remember correctly. All of the adults in that book are pretty shocking tbf.

Love the photo of all the JW books PP has posted. I forgot about ‘the worry website’ that was quite a nice tame one I think? Also the mum minder!

Yes and her mum is obsessed with being thin and has an eating disorder, she calls India greedy all the time when she's eating.

this thread prompted me to go to my parents home and look through some of my old stuff. I found another I used to love but had forgotten about

The Lottie Project!

Bloody Hell! That's awful. I'm sorry to hear that.

I remember feeling really upset when younger and reading Hetty Feather. There's a bit where they say people that commit suicide go to Hell.

I know it's probably an accurate viewpoint given the era that story is set in but it was hard to read as a youngster who had lost someone due to suicide.

I like Jacqueline Wilson as a person from what I have seen but can never quite trust her books to be appropriate. I'm glad my dc aren't into her books to be honest.

The Suitcase Kid - my parents divorced some years later after I had read it and felt the same, spending one week with one parent then the next with my other parent and so on for a few years. I had rooms at both their houses but still had to lug about college stuff and things with me from one place to the next.

I really identified with a lot of the themes/feelings that she covered in that book (although my exact situation was a bit different regarding step relatives), it's not an easy thing for a young child to go through at all.

I actually met JW in my early twenties, I took my little sister who was off school with a long term illness and at time and she was absolutely lovely to her

@ShermansSherberts Thank you for posting this description of ‘The Other Side’! For years I’ve been trying to remember a book I read when I was a teenager, where the main character imagines herself flying when she dreams, makes friends with a boy at her school who likes ‘Romance’ books like Frankenstein, and wants Caran D’Ache felt tips. I ordered The Other Side when I saw your description, and it is the book I was thinking of 😊