Why do people read the "childhood abuse" books? I never look at them and think "oh I'd like to read that"

[MamaG]

so why do people read them?

Same reason people slow down to gawp at accidents on the motorway I suppose.

i looked in wh smith for 'modern classics' - two fucking shelves at the bottom of an end bit

"by dad sold me for a packet of bensons " type books was a whole fucking section

like why

exactly, TPL and custardo.

I don't undersatnd the appeal

Message withdrawn

don't know but is it the same people who read 'celeb' biographies i.e. geri halliwell etc cos that baffles me too.

Now I like a good biography

not so sure about geri halliwell etc though

The whole "please daddy no" section utterly mystifies me.

As a person with a fairly dysfunctional childhood, I can only imagine that it's voyeurism from people who had happy childhoods.

Those books make me feels sick, they really do.

They are all the same,

white background, balck and white picture of some sad child, or a childs broken shoe or something with a big swirly font title 'Please mummy... don't' or some bollocks.

Its horrible.

IT is horrible horrible nasty voyeuristic shite of the worst kind. God knows why anyone reads them they are vile.

phew!

can't understand it either. Why would anyone pick one up?

I read one about Munchhausens by Proxy and I felt faintly dirty but it was actually very interesting

Oh god they are awful. I noticed them in the Tesco book section a while ago, and could not fathom why there were so many.

They obviously sell well, and that unfortunately speaks volumes about society's voyeuristic tendencies.

Quite agree. I read Angela's Ashes and that was quite enough for me - some of these books sound horrible.

joan crawford started all this with her wire coat hanger obsession.

I was just thinking that. I was in Borders about an hour ago and there was a special bookcase of them. They all looked similar. Black and white photo of child. And some tag like "The most shocking abuse story you'll ever read" or "betrayed by the man she trusted." And so on.

I couldn't imagine buying one.

I wish someone would start a thread swapping them. I really would like to understand their appeal.

ntf i have a copy of 'mommy made me eat gravel' i would love to swap for 'i only love you on tuesdays'

MIL reads them obsessively. Worse still she tries to lend them to me when she's done. And then when I say 'not my kinda thing, thanks, I'll stick with the Georgette Heyer & P G Wodehouse' she says 'Oh but its the most wonderful book. You see her dad shut her in a coal scuttle and all her fingers fell off and then...' while I repeatedly go 'no, not my thing. thanks though' etc. Nightmare. She does the same thing with soaps - insists on telling me the whole friggin plotline of every soap on air when I have no idea what she's talking about because I don't watch them.

But on the upside, she looks after DS whenever I ask, is very kind to him, and came to look after me when I had measles last year even when I told her not to come, then called the ambulance when she arrived (it had turned into meningitis & septicaemia). So if it weren't for her being such an interfering busybody kind lady I'd be dead and DS would be sad.

So I guess I have to listen to more dreadful stories with good grace.

Did you know publishers call them 'misery memoirs' - they've actually got their own genre... Yuk.

My mum loves these type of books, I have a large box full in the garage that she has given me. Telling me I simply must read them as they are great.
I don't see the attraction hence they are still in the box. I couldnt even get rid of them on freecyle!!!!!

They're not real titles are they?

I must go into bookshops with blinkers... I've not seen these books. From what nkf describes it sounds miserable, voyeuristic reading.

no, but maybe i should write them and make my fortune.

They are know in the trade as "Misery Lit" - we sell a depressingly large amount in our bookshop, usually to rather ghoulish women, lol! There is a funny pisstake one out now I read called My Godawful Life, which has the genre nailed and is a good book to keep in the loo!

I think duchesse might have a point as well - MIL (who loves them) had quite a happy childhood, parents as normal as parents can ever be. My parents both had abusive childhoods and wouldn't touch this sort of book with 10 foot pole.

so artgirl do you think 'i only love you on a tuesday' would sell?