Flowers In The Attic | VC Andrews | Review

Flowers In The Attic | VC Andrews | Review

• Sunday, 13 January 2013

“I am a pretty, useless ornament who always believed she'd have a man to take care of her.”

Flowers in the Attic was one of those books that had been sitting on my mum's book shelf for years. I would sit in my mum's room and look through her book collection. I'd always love the covers of VC Andrews books. There was always a pretty face, but usually it was sad. I picked up Flowers in the Attic purely because of the title, I was pleasantly surprised at the inside of the book.

Flowers in the Attic follows the story of the Dollanganger family, narrated by the second eldest child, Cathy. After their father dies in an accident at the start of the story the family relocates to their maternal grandparents house. It's then that all 4 children are locked away upstairs out of their grandfathers view. In order for Cathy's mother to claim inheritance, she wasn't meant to have any children. The children are locked away and slowly days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months. As time goes on the children's relationships with each other evolve, their feelings towards their mother change and their hope for freedom diminishes.

A theme quite common throughout VC Andrews' books is that the majority of her books begin with tragedy. Not necessarily a death, but tragedy is what generally gets the usually gothic themes and stories started. Flowers in the Attic featured some disturbing themes, especially for the time it was first published. The book can be kind of hard to read at times, the topics and themes can be really quite sad and disturbing. But once you're able to get passed that and look at the whole book, it's easy to understand why this book was such a big hit among teens when it was first published.

The books is the first in a five part book series. After the first book I felt the urge to get through the next four books as quickly as possible. I sympathise with the children locked in the attic and the turmoil their life brings and find myself quickly turning on their mother. The book can feel like a long read, like it's never ending and dragging on. It's this length that leaves you able to fully understand what's happening in the tale, a life lived in a room, moving slowly.

I wouldn't recommend Flowers in the Attic for those soft at heart, or those sensitive to disturbing themes. I have no other books to compare this to other than other books published by VC Andrews herself. It's definitely more of a gothic read, a dark tale.

This post was written by regular reviewer Taylah, get to know her here.

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