Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews

Book Details
Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews
Paperback, 400 pages
2005, Pocket
ISBN: 1416510885
Series: Book 1 of Dollanganger

Synopsis
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

Flowers in the Attic is one of those books that everyone you know seems to have read when they were a teenager. The book was pretty slow going for me in the beginning. Once the children get locked in the attic, they wanted out. So did I. I put the book down repeatedly. It just wasn't working for me, but once I sat down and really pushed myself, the pages started flying.

Flowers in the Attic is horror in the scariest sense, the horror that could truly happen. The terror that occurred was not perpetrated by some supernatural bogeyman, but human beings being inhuman to each other. There has been a lot of talk about the incest portrayed in this book, as it was the only thing I had heard about before reading it. It was there and it was graphic, but not overtly so. It was important to the storyline and as tastefully done as possible given the topic. It didn't seem to be written for shock value, but to help the deeper meaning of the story emerge.

The ending of the book threw me. Everything was resolved and satisfying, in a sense, but it wasn't the way I wanted or expected the story to end. I wanted vengeance, revenge, retribution, but, in the end, V.C. Andrews stayed true to the personalities of the characters she created and the ending made more sense because of it. I don't think I would have appreciated Flowers in the Attic if I had read it as a teenager, but as an adult it was definitely a worthwhile read.

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