Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger, #1) in V.C. Andrews

Jun 07, 2014 Leigh rated it really liked it

Shelves: mini-series-trilogies, 2014, favorites, family-saga, annual-read, 2016, fictional-saga, old-favourites, audio, 2017

EDIT January 10th 2015: After reading the prequel first and then moving onto Flowers in the Attic I did notice some things. One is the inconsistencies between the two books. In the prequel daddy dies on his thirty fifth birthday in Flowers he dies on his thirty sixth. The stories Corinne tells her children about her childhood don't mesh right with the prequel either. She made it sound like she was hated by her mother, though in Olivia's story she loved her daughter dearly as well as Christopher EDIT January 10th 2015: After reading the prequel first and then moving onto Flowers in the Attic I did notice some things. One is the inconsistencies between the two books. In the prequel daddy dies on his thirty fifth birthday in Flowers he dies on his thirty sixth. The stories Corinne tells her children about her childhood don't mesh right with the prequel either. She made it sound like she was hated by her mother, though in Olivia's story she loved her daughter dearly as well as Christopher Senior even after they ran away. I guess it's because the ghost writer wrote the prequel but I can't say for sure. I tried to find instances where the grandmother showed compassion or a slight spark of the character from the prequel, but apart from her giving Cathy a pot of real flowers for their attic garden, I found nothing. She truly was a monster, from the tar on the hair, to the abuse she doled out. The only one worse was their own mother. Seeing the spoiled child Corinne was in the prequel I could see her becoming this way. She always had to have her own way no matter who or what got in her way and as Flowers progressed she saw her children as obstacles to gaining tremendous wealth. I also wonder if somewhere along the line she learned the truth about her relationship to her late husband and became so disgusted by that she felt she had to destroy her children. Out of all the characters in this series Corinne is the one I have always truly wanted to learn about and I wish that Andrews had published a book told from her perspective. I would love to see her go from loving mother to selfish sociopath, but sadly Ms. Andrews is long gone and given the reviews of the ghostwriter's attempt at Christopher's side of the story I would rather the workings of the mind of Corinne Foxworth to my own imagination.

Twenty years ago my 12 year old self was searching for something to read. My mother had a collection of V.C. Andrews, I think just the Dollanganger and Casteel series and these fascinated me because of their covers, with the old step back pictures in them. I choose to read Flowers in the Attic, having convinced my parents to let me watch the movie (1987 version nothing like the book at all) and I was enthralled and re read it several times over the next couple of years. I remember being the only one of my friends who had read it. My best friend was quite shocked when she read over the grandmother's list of rules, I think it might have traumatized her. Unlike most people, back then the incest and sexual tension went right over my head, in fact I barely remembered it being there. Only the abuse they suffered stuck in my head. It had been many years since I read Flowers in the Attic but with the remake of the movie and the sequel Petals on the Wind I couldn't resist and wondered if the book would still hold up as the amazing read I remember when I was young. Surprisingly it did hold up, I still found the story quite gripping and riveting, even though I knew exactly what would happen next, I still felt the drama and suspense of the each moment, however I did look at some things in a different light. I noticed the incest, the sexual tension. I mean the two older children not only were checking each other out, but also their parents, that was disturbing. The writing was at times overly flowery, and the hair issue was an annoyance. Really your hair or food? You do know hair grows back right? Besides who's going to see it you're locked in an attic. So while the book still held my interest and I think it's still a pretty good story (not for the faint of heart for sure), with age and maturity I caught onto a few things that went over my innocent 12 year old head and it did sort of spoil parts of the book for me. Onto the sequel next, my head is spinning just thinking about it. ...more

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Jan 01, 2015 Janet rated it it was amazing

I just finished rereading Flowers in the Attic. I read it in the 1990's and after recently watching the DVD I was prompted to reread the story as the DVD left out so much content and changed the ending of the story as I remembered it from the book.

I am so happy that I reread this book. I couldn't put it down. I had my head in this book every spare minute that I had. It is a very sad story. I cannot relate to the older female characters in this book. How any mother could turn against their young, ...more

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