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goodreadsTitle: Flowers in the Attic
Author: Virginia Andrews
Genre: suspense
Rating:
# pages: 385
Date read: October, 2007
Summary: The four Dollanganger children had such perfect lives -- a beautiful mother, a doting father, a lovely home. Then Daddy was killed in a car accident, and Momma could no longer support the family. So she began writing letters to her parents, her millionaire parents, whom the children had never heard of before.
Momma tells the children all about their rich grandparents, and how Chris and Cathy and the twins will live like princes and princesses in their grandparents' fancy mansion. The children are only too delighted by the prospect. But there are a few things that Momma hasn't told them.
She hasn't told them that their grandmother considers them "devil's spawn" who should never have been born. She hasn't told them that she has to hide them from their grandfather if she wants to inherit his fortune. She hasn't told them that they are to be locked away in an abandoned wing of the house with only the dark, airless attic to play in. But, Momma promises, it's only for a few days....
Then the days stretch into months, and the months into years. Desperately isolated, terrified of their grandmother, and increasingly convinced that their mother no longer cares about them, Chris and Cathy become all things to the twins and to each other. They cling to their love as their only hope, their only strength -- a love that is almost stronger than death.
Review: You'll notice the rating has been left empty. This is not an error, but because I honestly have no idea what I thought of the book. For ability to keep me captivated, it deserves a 10 - I could hardly tear myself away from it to go to work. For the way it made me feel, it deserves a 2 or a 3 - it made me physically sick to read, and several times I had to put it away, because I wanted to beat up the 'mother' and 'grandmother' (a mockery to the titles to call them that). For the plot itself, I guess it'd deserve around a 7, for being interesting, but not terribly original and very soap-opera'ish.
I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I want to read the other books in the series. Part of me would like to know what happens next, but from my experience with Virginia Andrews' books, they're likely to be 300+ pages of misery followed by 2-3 pages of happiness. Not really worth it, especially since interlibrary loan only has the first one (which is where I got it from), so I'd have to spend money on them.
Book List
Author: Virginia Andrews
Genre: suspense
Rating:
# pages: 385
Date read: October, 2007
Summary: The four Dollanganger children had such perfect lives -- a beautiful mother, a doting father, a lovely home. Then Daddy was killed in a car accident, and Momma could no longer support the family. So she began writing letters to her parents, her millionaire parents, whom the children had never heard of before.
Momma tells the children all about their rich grandparents, and how Chris and Cathy and the twins will live like princes and princesses in their grandparents' fancy mansion. The children are only too delighted by the prospect. But there are a few things that Momma hasn't told them.
She hasn't told them that their grandmother considers them "devil's spawn" who should never have been born. She hasn't told them that she has to hide them from their grandfather if she wants to inherit his fortune. She hasn't told them that they are to be locked away in an abandoned wing of the house with only the dark, airless attic to play in. But, Momma promises, it's only for a few days....
Then the days stretch into months, and the months into years. Desperately isolated, terrified of their grandmother, and increasingly convinced that their mother no longer cares about them, Chris and Cathy become all things to the twins and to each other. They cling to their love as their only hope, their only strength -- a love that is almost stronger than death.
Review: You'll notice the rating has been left empty. This is not an error, but because I honestly have no idea what I thought of the book. For ability to keep me captivated, it deserves a 10 - I could hardly tear myself away from it to go to work. For the way it made me feel, it deserves a 2 or a 3 - it made me physically sick to read, and several times I had to put it away, because I wanted to beat up the 'mother' and 'grandmother' (a mockery to the titles to call them that). For the plot itself, I guess it'd deserve around a 7, for being interesting, but not terribly original and very soap-opera'ish.
I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I want to read the other books in the series. Part of me would like to know what happens next, but from my experience with Virginia Andrews' books, they're likely to be 300+ pages of misery followed by 2-3 pages of happiness. Not really worth it, especially since interlibrary loan only has the first one (which is where I got it from), so I'd have to spend money on them.
Book List
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 14:34 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 22:30 (UTC)I have to agree with your review of the book. Multiple times I felt disgusted and disturbed by what I was reading, yet I just could not put the book down. At first I hated the Grandmother, and then the Mother but at the end, the one character I felt hatred towards was Chris. After everything they had gone through, he still trusted his Mother.
The plot was intriguing to begin with but placed with the other books, I can honestly say the it is one hell of a web of intrigue. It's depressing, wonderful, exciting and thrilling all rolled in to one.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-03 00:22 (UTC)