I was moved to reread this book after rereading the first two in this series, and was surprised that I still thought that those were pretty awesome, purple prose and all. Yet I did not have high hopes for this one, because I did not recall liking it the first time, and in many respects it was even worse the second time.


The main drawback for me is the shift in narration, because even though Cathy was often over-the-top, her son Bart is irritating and dreary, and it was really being inside his head. The story itself was not all that compelling, and I think V.C. Andrews never really equaled "Flowers in the Attic" in terms of putting her characters into an interesting and compelling situation. Then again, even though this is probably my least favorite book from Andrews, I admire her creativity in terms of dreaming up outlandish and bizarre situations and characters. It is all quite preposterous, which I think is part of its charm - perhaps most of its charm.

At any rate, in ITBT Ms. Andrews has cut way back from the number of times someone uses the phrase "Damn you to hell!" - I think that she used it the most in Petals on the Wind. However, this is the first book I've noticed that this phrase is hurled back and forth between two characters, and it is one of the high points of this book.

Regardless, it was pretty dreary going at times, and about a third of the way through I started skimming my way to the final climatic showdown, and ITBT was not a page turner. Even though this was not as good as the first two [and after rereading this one I've decided to add a start to POTW], I have started reading Seeds of Yesterday.