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My Sweet Audrina

3.84 of 5 stars 3.84 · rating details · 11,227 ratings · 436 reviews

Audrina wanted to be as good as her sister. Her sister was so special, so perfect -- and dead. Now she will come face to face with the dangerous, terrifying secret that everyone knows. Everyone except... Sweet Audrina.

Mass Market Paperback, 403 pages

Published April 1st 1983 by Pocket (first published 1982)

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Sep 08, 2012 Kristin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: i-own-it, read-in-2011, favorites, best-of-2011, troubled-women

Now this is a fucking story! And sooooo elegantly written. V.C. Andrews (and this is the real V.C. Andrews, not some second rate ghost-writer, ~~writing?~~ riding her coattails) had enormous talent. Holy crap can she weave a tangled web! This is the story of Audrina Adare a young girl with memories like "swiss cheese." A young girl haunted by the ever-present spectre of her deceased older sister, also named Audrina. This is pure soap opera melodrama and this is Andrews' niche, her expertise. She exc...more Now this is a fucking story! And sooooo elegantly written. V.C. Andrews (and this is the real V.C. Andrews, not some second rate ghost-writer, ~~writing?~~ riding her coattails) had enormous talent. Holy crap can she weave a tangled web! This is the story of Audrina Adare a young girl with memories like "swiss cheese." A young girl haunted by the ever-present spectre of her deceased older sister, also named Audrina. This is pure soap opera melodrama and this is Andrews' niche, her expertise. She excels and enchants, and this story has everything you could want. A legless woman? You got it! A creepy house with locked doors and musty rooms full of forgotten secrets? Done! A spinster aunt with a broken heart and a hidden past? Here too! Electro-Shock Therapy? You betcha. Forbidden love? Gang rape? Suicide? A woman in a coma? A sexy, trashy cousin with brittle bones and a chip on her shoulder? Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes! That would be Vera.

Oh Vera, dear dear Vera. You are the embodiment of the girl we love to hate. A girl so prevalent in literature and movies and television and you dear, dear Vera are the archetype. I wish Vera had her own novel!! She is soooo much more interesting than boring, vanilla, milquetoast Audrina. Sure she has her weird memory thing. And those disturbing recurring rape nightmares of hers are peculiar. And ya, every night her father rocks her, against her will, in her dead sister's old rocking chair, but VERA?! Vera drove a man to suicide, Vera can be any age. 12? 20? She can pull it off. She is a master manipulator. She dresses provocatively and says whatever comes to mind. She's fearless and brutal and yet so so vulnerable. You see, she has this brittle bone disease, she's so delicate and fragile that if you bump her or shove her, she will fall and break her leg or her rib, or an arm. She breaks her leg, like 4 times in this book! She's so nasty and desperate and dirty and shameful and AMAZING! Vera ran away to the big city and became a nurse. Vera plotted and planned her revenge on the Adare's from day one. Vera is a force of nature! Vera saved this book. Vera, I love you.(less)

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Aug 03, 2008 Luthien rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

LOL! I can hardly hold my head up from the shame of giving this one 4 stars, but everyone is entitled to a guilty pleasure, and when I was in high school, V.C. Andrews was mine. I love this one because it's so different from her other works, and I'm fairly certain it was one of the last novels she actually wrote herself (the latest series are written by a posthumous ghost writer). It's a great "lying on the beach," trashy summer read.

14 likes · like · see review

Jan 30, 2011 Amber rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: high-school-fun, creepster, young-lady-fiction

Oh my god. Have you ever read anything by VC Andrews? If you haven't you need to start. These books are like romance novels for teenagers, but filthier. I mean, having never read a real romance novel, I guess I wouldn't know, but do they have a lot of incest and puberty talk? I am pretty sure they don't. I read this forever ago, after reading the Flowers In the Attic series and I just remember thinking like, "This is the most intense book I have ever read. Or probably will ever read." And I thin...more

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May 17, 2008 Neva rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Adele

Recommended to Neva by: girls in my 5th grade class

The only V.C. Andrews book that doesn't follow the five book series rule (Poor beautiful girl book, poor beautiful girl is rich book, rich beautiful lady book, beautiful offspring book, and evil dead grandmother prequel) is My Sweet Audrina. Which is probably a good idea she didn't follow that rule, as I'm not sure how any book could be more insane than this one. It's the tale of a hauntingly beautiful girl (really, is there any other kind?) who has a dead sister who had her name and died on her...more

27 likes · like · see review

Jul 18, 2007 Millie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: shameful

The only Virginia Andrews book that didn't spawn a bloated series of sequels. I read this one when I was nine, shortly after her first book - Flowers In The Attic. I'm not sure why she never wrote a followup to this - it's not like the themes were any different to those in any of her other books - incest, secrets, false identity, tragic accidents and dead babies. I think My Sweet Audrina is the best of Andrews' vast (although of course these days none of it is written by her. I believe the first...more

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Aug 21, 2007 Loren rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Named after her dead sister, the First and Best Audrina, the Second and Worst Audrina doesn't remember anything about her first eight years. She has a twatty stepsister and a father who's a little too attentive and makes her rock in her dead sister's chair in hopes that this will trigger her lost memory. She falls in love with the boy next door and feels all the usual VC Andrews quickening of pulses and fires down below and like all VC Andrews heroines, succumbs to the sinful pleasures of premar...more

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Mar 28, 2013 Weird Kid rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ya, favorite-books, sad-books, books-my-friends-have-read, i-own-a-copy

Reading this book was WEIRD experience!

I didn't have high expectations for this book. I found this book in a rubbish bin outside my high school. (Don't ask me what I was doing in a rubbish bin.) I had heard of Flowers in the Attic and most people just laughed and shook their heads whenever I mentioned it (Wtf?), but honestly I really enjoyed this book!

It was thought-provoking and at times difficult to put down. In full honesty, I would have given this book five stars if it wasn't for the shitty...more

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Aug 23, 2011 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, modern-gothic, dreams, reviewed, zz-2011, gloom-and-doom

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. There's not much to say about this one. Yeah, okay, it's V.C. Andrews (the original "first & best," as Audrina would say), so it's measured on an entirely different scale.

It definitely had moments of inspired WTFery. Angry!Love sex on your sister's grave in a thunderstorm? Yeah, baby -- that's what I needed to quirk those eyebrows on a dull Monday eve. :P But the overall story wasn't as good as Flowers. Despite an intriguing backstory & nice gothicky set-up, this one lacked the absurd-y...more

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Oct 15, 2008 Beth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: silly

I thought I had read EVERY VC Andrews book. Thank god I was wrong. My Sweet Audrina was the perfect 12 hour, cleanse *or dirty* your mind book. V.C knew what she was doing, and it doesn't get any better then this. The perfect balance overbearing Papa, lovely spineless socialite Momma, mean ass step sister/cousin, disabled beast child sibling, and the young boy who causes Audrina's swelling little chest to heave and tingle.
This book contains as many plot twists as possible, Poor Audrina is 403 pa...more

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Jul 07, 2007 Maria M. Elmvang rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: chick-lit, owned, 2005, 2-stars

I first read this 7 years ago, and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it is not one of those books that gets better with time. A lot of things in it annoys me. It starts out fascinating by describing a girl who has no sense of time and whose family is full of secrets, but then unfortunately falls flat. I dislike books where the main characters just aren't allowed to be happy for longer periods of time. It seems pointless to me. I'm not sure that five lines of "happily ever after" are worth the pr...more

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Jan 02, 2008 Brianne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: twisted folks like me

This was my favorite VC Andrews book when I was younger but I read it as an adult and found it to be, well, just as dirty as it ever was. That sort of thing was interesting to me when I was younger because I wasn't warped back then. Of course, now I am all worldly and this sort of soap opera has lost all its luster. But I do have some sentimental fondness for it since it was the one book my friends and I would sneak and pass back and forth to each other. Oh, and read the dirty parts to each othe...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Erin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own-book-form, gothic

Re-reading novels of childhood is a mixed bag. It's wondrous to revisit old books, similar to finding long-lost friends again, rekindling love once felt...but there's always the small chance you've changed enough not to feel the emotion you did before. Sadly that happened to me in this case, which in a small way makes me regret reading it, although if I got to rewind time I'd do the same thing.

I found myself drooling over the second half with as much relish as I likely did when I was a kid, but...more Re-reading novels of childhood is a mixed bag. It's wondrous to revisit old books, similar to finding long-lost friends again, rekindling love once felt...but there's always the small chance you've changed enough not to feel the emotion you did before. Sadly that happened to me in this case, which in a small way makes me regret reading it, although if I got to rewind time I'd do the same thing.

I found myself drooling over the second half with as much relish as I likely did when I was a kid, but the first section? An absolute chore. The writing style is overly dramatic, as it usual with gothic and Andrews, but it can become cloying quickly. Not much happens the first half of the book, other than the main character Audrina walking around aimlessly confused, not able to make sense of anything.

This repetitive action does cause the direness of the situation to ram itself further in the readers head, but it's hard to keep patience. After awhile I was saying, I get it already, move on! I didn't need nine chapters showing the same confusion and little change. I began to get depressed, shuddering to think I'd end up giving the book I once loved a negative review if it continued the same trail. Thankfully it did start changing a bit, and the end was good enough to redeem itself a star.

Flaws aside, Andrews always was a whiz with characters. When flaws were present in her paper-people, they were usually notched up to such a dramatic degree they became shocking. My Sweet Audrina is the same, with each character deceptive in their own way. The father in Audrina's life, Damian, is one of the more intriguing of the bunch. He sort of reminds me of 'The Women of Eden.' He wishes to control and never be left, but takes a cruel, sadistic pleasure once the woman is too vulnerable to leave his side. The women he attracts - from Audrina's mother, aunt, sisters, etc., blossom mainly under him only.

You see their personalities only in how they react to how he treats them. With Audrina's mother, you hear her regret of not pursuing a career in music and how she relates to the father, with the aunt you hear about her relationship with the father, and it's the same with everyone else. It makes me wonder why V.C. Andrews did that in a way. Seeing a woman as herself with personal problems not involving one man would have been refreshing too, but she could have done this to show the extreme degree the women were dependent on Damian. Either way, it ended up being one of the more fascinating areas of the book. The last few pages were chilling, and without giving anything away I'll just say I'm happy with the ultimate decision. Strangely, I shouldn't be happy, I should be the opposite. It's strange that somehow, to a degree, Andrews words had the power to put me under the same spell Damian wove over the other women.

It's a given the book wouldn't be as exciting since I remember the end, but I ignored that fact. I'm not sure how many first-time readers will guess the big finale, but I imagine the book will turn out a lot better for those who remain clueless. It's a whopper if you don't know what's coming, sort of comparing the viewers who watched The Sixth Sense. I debated on Audrina's reaction with Arden. Was she too harsh, or not harsh enough?

As a summary, if My Sweet Audrina had been more tightly edited, it would have proven a better experience. Too much psychological whining and not enough action grew boring, and the writing style at times was too dramatic. On the other hand the characters - especially Vera and Damien - were engrossing enough to where you could never stop reading. The family, house, and style of writing were so odd and haunting that it's power can't be forgotten. The ending gave me a strange chill, as most of her books do. Despite the dramatic flair and occasional flaws, it's no wonder V.C. Andrews became such a legend in the first place, and blissfully remains one to this day.(less)

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May 24, 2012 Kim rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: just-reread

Inspired by the hilarious book report on My Sweet Audrina that I stumbled across on foreveryoungadult.com, I just reread this book. I read this for the first time when I was about thirteen, along with Flowers in the Attic and its three sequels. (Thankfully, those five were the only V.C. Andrews novels that I read. There is only so much incest and quasi-sexual corporal punishment that an adolescent girl can take in without being scarred for life.) I remember I liked My Sweet Audrina a lot more th...more

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Jul 14, 2011 Mitch rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ok, so some people may see my 5 star review for "My Sweet Audrina" by V.C. Andrews and think: "really???? 5 stars???" And well, this isn't a masterpiece classic that will go down in the ages, but I do think it is a page-turner and is full of plain ole' good entertainment. This is why it earned 5 stars.

The following may or may not contain spoilers:

Audrina is a young girl who lives in a big, dark mansion in the middle of the woods with her handsome yet overbearing father Damian, her beautiful but...more

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Sep 19, 2009 Alissa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gothic, mystery

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Perhaps the author's only book that actually has some amount (however small) of literary merit. Of course there are still some very Andrew-ish plot elements that will cause some eye rolls (hence only 4 stars instead of 5), but at the heart of the story exists a damn good psychological thriller.

All her life, Audrina, the now only child of a well-off southern couple, is plauged with tales of the First Audrina, an older sister who died before she was born from the result of a mysterious and horrifi...more Perhaps the author's only book that actually has some amount (however small) of literary merit. Of course there are still some very Andrew-ish plot elements that will cause some eye rolls (hence only 4 stars instead of 5), but at the heart of the story exists a damn good psychological thriller.

All her life, Audrina, the now only child of a well-off southern couple, is plauged with tales of the First Audrina, an older sister who died before she was born from the result of a mysterious and horrific accident. The First Audrina was so beautiful, so smart, so talented, and so absolutely perfect in every way (or so her still grief-stricken parents tell her)... Is it any wonder Audrina (the current one) can't help but feel second rate and unworthy. This, in addition to an unexplained fear of the woods behind the family home, is the legacy Audrina's dead older sister left to her.

What's more... The current Audrina suffers from memory lapses that go far beyond plain ordinary flakiness and/or absent-mindedness. Days, weeks, and sometimes even months escape registering on Audrina's memory. Almost worse, she us unable to remember even the smallest glimmer of her childhood. Why, why, WHY can't she remember things she should be able to easily recall? Why does her cousin taunt her so spitefully? Who is the mysterious boy who knows all about her yet she knows nothing of him?

All is revealed

*SPOILER* Later we find out in a shocking plot twist that the current Audrina and the First Audrina are actually the same person, and Audrina's memory lapses are the result of extensive psychological (shock therapy) treatment she underwent following an incident where she was chased into the woods by a gang of boys and there beaten, raped, and left for dead. Mommy and Daddy dearest thought it better to convince their daughter that those horrible things happened to someone else rather than help her cope and move past what was done to her. Unfortunately, this made things worse, not better for Audrina--especially after the truth was revealed.

A story of a girl fighting to discover who she really is deapite the odds that are stacked against her (far beyond the typical tween/teen identity crisis), discovering who she can really trust, making friends, and even finding romance. Not a happy/happily-ever-after story by any means. The characters are messed up and stay messed up, but absorbing just the same.
(less)

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Apr 02, 2013 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

J 'ai adoré ce livre !

Dès les premières phrases, on entre dans la vie étrange d'Audrina, dans une atmosphère bizarre et malsaine... et pourtant, on accroche à cette ambiance, on a envie de voir ce qu'il va arriver à cette enfant, de connaître la suite.

De plus, on ne connaît rien des secrets de famille, on évolue en même temps qu'Audrina. Il y a beaucoup de questions qui se posent tout au long de l'histoire et ce n'est que dans les 50 dernières pages qu'on comprend tout, ce qui n'enlève rien à l'...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Christina Lynn Smith rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Where shall I begin? I have mixed emotions about the book but one thing for sure it kept me pulled in till the very end. The story is about a 7 year old girl named Audrina who is named after her dead older sister who died in the woods by their home at the age of 9. Right away we discover she has issues with her memory and her parents try to help her best they can. Also, in the home is her aunt and naughty cousin Vera whom insists on bullying Audrina. I loved the story and Vera was a great villia...more

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Aug 25, 2011 Adrienne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a tough one. I don't think I can rate this book appropriately. I read it for the first time when I was twelve or so, and it really influenced me. It's very twisted and dark, there are a lot of messed up parts to it, but the writing is excellent, and when I first read it, I couldn't escape the ominous mood of it even when I closed it and put it down. Having read it and learned all the secrets, the second time around didn't capture me as much, but I still flet my pulse quicken and my adren...more

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Jul 11, 2011 Josh rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

By the time Audrina sexed her husband on the grave of her dead sister after beating him for two whole pages, a tear in my eye began to form as I realized just how brilliant V.C. Andrews was.

Mind control, dead babies, three deaths from falls on the same friggin' staircase, suicide, a retarded girl obsessed with prisms, gang rape, some seriously disturbing & pseudo-incestuous father/daughter loving, a former ice skater with no legs who happens to be a dead ringer for Liz Taylor, insider tradin...more

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Jan 15, 2012 Noora rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm not completely sure if Im being fair by giving this book 2 out of 5 stars. I don't usually read the gothic/mystery kind of books, but I decided to give this book a shot. I felt like the story started out very well, it captured my interest and I was very curious as how the story will unfold. As I kept reading past the first two chapters, it felt like the same questions kept arising over and over again without any good answers or events to make it exciting. It became very dull for a while and...more

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Apr 22, 2012 Christina rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

V.C. Andrews was one of my favorite authors of all time when I first started reading. This book My Sweet Audrina is one of my favorite books. Way before movies started making psychological thrillers you could pick up a book like this and get the same affect movies try and give you now. To read how parents could try and erase your whole life and give you false memories wow now that is a true thriller. I know that when Ms. Andrews died they hired a ghost writer to continue her work and up until th...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Vanessa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Absolutely terrifying and beautiful! This is truly VC Andrew's greatest work because it lacks many of her cliches: incest, rags-to-riches, and an evil mother. Each character appears to be nothing more than the paper-dolls the "Second and Worst" Audrina plays with, but each is deep and tortured: Lucietta seems to be the ideal beautiful mother, but she lives with the guilt of making her daughter feel guilty and ugly; Damien appears to be an evil manipulator (possibly the prototype for Tony Tattert...more

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May 24, 2012 Lisa rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-the-80s

In the early summer of 1983, right after graduating college I visited my best friend who had recently moved to Va Beach. It rained and rained and rained. I found a used book store and picked this up. Here is the review I found in my 1983 journal "400 pages of sheer idiocy. Sheer idiocy. After the 1st chapters I knew it was going to be idiotic, but kept hoping it would pick up. It didn't." Get the feeling I didn't like it very much? I remember reading it like it was yesterday. Lord, it was humid....more

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Sep 14, 2011 Leah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

After reading V.C Andrew's first series (Dollangangers) I was excited to start another of her books. I saw good ratings on 'My Sweet Audrina' and decided it would be my next V.C. Andrews book, and I was not disappointed. It was haunting, suspensful, and a great read. I couldn't put the book down, just wanting to figure out more about the mysterious life of Audrina. Throughout the book you hear her family making hints about Audrina's past and it was like putting a puzzle together piece by piece....more

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May 05, 2009 Kristen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book in middle school with my sister....and it has haunted me for years. I just suggested to reread this for my book club....and look forward to going back and reliving those few days locked in my bedroom at 14 reading....and laughing...and being spooked with my sister.
WHAT THE HECK!!! WHY were we allowed to read this book? My mother had NO IDEA what we were reading. I barely remembered this story as I was reading it, it was more emotions I remembered as I went chapter by chapter. Af...more

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Nov 16, 2012 Sarina Wong added it · review of another edition

this book is definitely a twist and not just a mild one but definitely an adventurous one. its all about a family living under a very strict Christian faith where everything is by the book as in the bible. a little girl named Audrina has been raised thinking she had a another sister who had died. however in the end she learns a painful secret about her past. the book is all about faith and who to exactly trust. throughout time though, audrina does learn what happened in the past that people have...more

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Jun 21, 2011 Jill the Ripper rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: forever-vca, i-did-it-for-the-cover, this-will-never-age

This is the thing about VCA novels, especially the ones she's written herself - they are amazing. Completely flowery, perhaps trashy in a soap-opera vein, there's something about the way Ms. Andrews wrote that ties it all together and just makes it real, even with all the fantastic plot elements.

Audrina was perhaps my favourite character, for all that she wasn't strong or fierce. Vera, too, even though I did hate her at times - she was very much a creature of her parents creation, and for that I...more

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Dec 05, 2009 Trixie Fontaine added it · review of another edition

Impossible for me to rate a book like this. For some reason I never read this one when I was a kid. It was fun to pick it up now as an adult and get that old dark feeling like with Flowers in the Attic. I didn't like it as much as those books, but there was something special BEYOND the laughable stuff about the real V.C. Andrews work. I guess it's the feeling you get from reading a cheaper seventies version of Southern Gothic - tawdry, grotesque, class-conscious, freakish . . . all with a silly...more

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Dec 16, 2009 Jasmin Reed rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Audrina, sweet Audrina, kept from the world outside in a house full of people who lie at every turn. Not allowed to know the truth about anything. Thinking she is crazy or that her family is and wants her to become the same way as well.

This book has so many shadows, lies, and twists that you learn as you read nothing is as it seems to be. You keep coming close to a conclusion of what the secrets are just to turn to the next page and find that your reasoning is beaten down in one fatal swoop.

Of...more

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Jun 19, 2012 Clara Sian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was utterly infectious, it really was. Being the first V.C. Andrews book I have read, never have I been exposed to this kind of spookiness and suspense before. I am longing to read the rest of her works now that I've finished My Sweet Audrina. I highly recommend this book to anyone!

When I was reading it, my math teacher says to me "I don't know about you, Clara, but I have know idea how you can stand to read that varity of novel; as in it really freaks me out."

So if you're triggered as...more

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About V.C. Andrews

Virginia Cleo Andrews (born Cleo Virginia Andrews) was born June 6, 1923 in Portsmouth, Virginia. The youngest child and the only daughter of William Henry Andrews, a career navy man who opened a tool-and-die business after retirement, and Lillian Lilnora Parker Andrews, a telephone operator. She spent her happy childhood years in Portsmouth, Virginia, living briefly in Rochester, New York. The An...more Virginia Cleo Andrews (born Cleo Virginia Andrews) was born June 6, 1923 in Portsmouth, Virginia. The youngest child and the only daughter of William Henry Andrews, a career navy man who opened a tool-and-die business after retirement, and Lillian Lilnora Parker Andrews, a telephone operator. She spent her happy childhood years in Portsmouth, Virginia, living briefly in Rochester, New York. The Andrews family returned to Portsmouth while Virginia was in high school.

While a teenager, Virginia suffered a tragic accident, falling down the stairs at her school and incurred severe back injuries. Arthritis and a failed spinal surgical procedure forced her to spend most of her life on crutches or in a wheelchair.

Virginia excelled in school and, at fifteen, won a scholarship for writing a parody of Tennyson's Idylls of the King. She proudly earned her diploma from Woodrow Wilson High School in Portsmouth. After graduation, she nurtured her artistic talent by completing a four-year correspondence art course while living at home with her family.

After William Andrews died in the late 1960's, Virginia helped to support herself and her mother through her extremely successful career as a commercial artist, portrait painter, and fashion illustrator.

Frustrated with the lack of creative satisfaction that her work provided, Virginia sought creative release through writing, which she did in secret. In 1972, she completed her first novel, The Gods of the Green Mountain [sic], a science-fantasy story. It was never published. Between 1972 and 1979, she wrote nine novels and twenty short stories, of which only one was published. "I Slept with My Uncle on My Wedding Night", a short fiction piece, was published in a pulp confession magazine.

Promise gleamed over the horizon for Virginia when she submitted a 290,000-word novel, The Obsessed, to a publishing company. She was told that the story had potential, but needed to be trimmed and spiced up a bit. She drafted a new outline in a single night and added "unspeakable things my mother didn't want me to write about." The ninety-eight-page revision was re-titled Flowers in the Attic and she was paid a $7,500 advance. Her new-generation Gothic novel reached the best-seller lists a mere two weeks after its 1979 paperback publication by Pocket Books.

Petals on the Wind, her sequel to Flowers, was published the next year, earning Virginia a $35,000 advance. The second book remained on the New York Times best-seller list for an unbelievable nineteen weeks (Flowers also returned to the list). These first two novels alone sold over seven million copies in only two years. The third novel of the Dollanganger series, If There Be Thorns, was released in 1981, bringing Virginia a $75,000 advance. It reached No. 2 on many best-seller lists within its first two weeks.

Taking a break from the chronicles of Chris and Cathy Dollanganger, Virginia published her one, and only, stand-alone novel, My Sweet Audrina, in 1982. The book welcomed an immediate success, topping the sales figures of her previous novels. Two years later, a fourth Dollanganger novel was released, Seeds of Yesterday. According to the New York Times, Seeds was the best-selling fiction paperback novel of 1984. Also in 1984, V.C. Andrews was named "Professional Woman of the Year" by the city of Norfolk, Virginia.

Upon Andrews's death in 1986, two final novels--Garden of Shadows and Fallen Hearts--were published. These two novels are considered the last to bear the "V.C. Andrews" name and to be almost completely written by Andrews herself.

Her novels were so successful that after her death her estate hired a ghost writer Andrew Neiderman, to write more stories to be published under her name.(less)

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Quotes from My Sweet Audrina

“What is normal? Normal is only ordinary; mediocre. Life belongs to the rare, exceptional individual who dares to be different.” — 209 people liked it

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title link	preview: My Sweet Audrina
avg rating	preview: My Sweet Audrina Goodreads rating: 3.84 (11227 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1730152.My_Sweet_Audrina?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1329354678l/1730152.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1730152.My_Sweet_Audrina?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]My Sweet Audrina by V.C. Andrews[/url]

My Sweet Audrina

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