Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger Series)

Andrews, V. C.

ISBN 10: 0881031135 ISBN 13: 9780881031133

Publisher: Turtleback Books, 1999

Synopsis

This is the extraordinary novel that has captured millions in its spell!

All across America-- and around the world millions of readers have been captivated by this strange, dark, terrifying tole of passion and peril in the lives of four innocent children, locked away from the world by a selfish mother.

"Flowers in the Attic" is the novel that began V.C. Andrews' extraordinary career, winning her an immediate, fiercely devoted worldwide following.

About this title

Review:

"At age 13, I survived almost entirely on green apple Jolly Ranchers and Flowers in the Attic, and to this day I can't look at the book without my mouth watering. My much loved copy must have come from a supermarket (it was impossible to go to a supermarket in the '80s to, say, secretly stock up on green apple Jolly Ranchers, without a V.C. Andrews book lurking by checkout)... I loved that book.

The narrator, Cathy, who ages from 12 to 15 over the course of the story, is part princess (she is locked in a tower; she is beset by cruel foes; she has long, perfect hair until the grandmother tars it one night), and part witch (she's tantrum-prone, pessimistic, cynical). Basically, I adored her because she is like all girls around the age of 13: at turns sulky, giving, selfish, charming, nasty and heroic.

Flowers in the Attic is most famous for the fact that Cathy and her brother fall in love. It's a weird, strangely old-fashioned love story (and is Chris ever the stuff of teenage dreams: handsome, brilliant, extravagantly chivalrous), but it's not what hooked me. What kept me circling around to the beginning was that hyper-Gothic female evil. The emotionally cold, physically abusive grandmother. The cloying, manipulative, mind-warping mother. It felt so new and stunning to me -- these witches who seemed quite real. I devoured the sequels less to learn about Cathy's tragic love story than to see what kind of woman Cathy became -- princess, witch, a bit of both? -- and what she'd do with all those awful urges she inherited."--Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl, as related on NPR's All Things Considered

About the Author:

One of the most popular authors of all time, V.C. Andrews has been a bestselling phenomenon since the publication of Flowers in the Attic, first in the renowned Dollanganger family series which includes Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows. The family saga continues with Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth, Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger, and Secret Brother. V.C. Andrews has written more than seventy novels, which have sold more than 106 million copies worldwide and been translated into twenty-five foreign languages. Join the conversation about the world of V.C. Andrews at Facebook.com/OfficialVCAndrews.

About this edition

• Publisher: Turtleback Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0881031135
• ISBN 13: 9780881031133
• Binding: School & Library Binding