I picked up Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews at the library so that I could reread it for the first time since I read it in middle school. I think it was trending on Threads as a reread or something and that triggered the memory of this book ripping through our middle school and everyone trading around the same copy of the book. Some of my friends loved it and others thought it was weird and didn’t finish it. I read the first book and a couple of others in the series from our local library since I enjoyed how much more grown up the book was. It really triggered a whole new level of books for me to read in the young adult rather than the middle school reading section and even got me on the track to read more adult level reading books.
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Flowers in the Attic is about a family of siblings that lose their father in a terrible accident and their mother moves them in secretly to her parent’s house while she figures out her new life. The children are stashed in the mansion’s attic by their mother and grandmother to avoid discovery from their very cranky grandpa. Cathy, Chris and the twins are left up there for a long time while everyone waits for the grandfather to die so their mother can inherit his vast fortune.
They have strict rules to follow and are fed regularly by their grandma while their mother navigates life without their father. Through this time they grow up and begin to discover some of the many secrets the of their family while trying to keep everything as normal as possible.
I loved this book as a middle schooler and skipped over some of the more sordid sections with my innocence but now that I have read it as an adult my perspective is very different. I have more clarity on their mother and the situation she puts them in and the book is more horror than a fantastical tale to me now that I am an adult.
The book is very old and I am sure a lot of people have read it but I will not give away any spoilers nor will I mention any of the subsequent books and what ends up happening with Chris and Cathy although I will say that the story does get stranger and now that I have read the first one I may try to read the next couple as well to see if my memories of them are correct.
Overall I would recommend these books to anyone that likes the obscure or needs a good thrill as they are well written. I would not however, recommend them for a middle schooler but maybe someone a couple of years older in high school.
This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
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Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews
