I'd heard about this one so often but had no idea what it was about, so I decided on it as a quickie Kindle read. If I hadn't gotten through so much of it, and if I hadn't wanted to finish it at that point for the 75 Books Challenge for 2024, I would have applied the Pearl Rule because it's nothing more than "Gothic Harlequin." Rather than read the remainder of the series, I did a quickie plot review on Wikipedia. Definitely not the kind of fictional place that I want to go.and 1* is probably generous. ( )

they made this series into lifetime TV movies so I have been slowly reading the series to keep up with the movie releases, pleasantly surprised that I actually did enjoy this one and the second so far.

I bought this because several people recommended it. It is not my type of story. I generally don’t like horror. I generally don't like fiction with a main focus on child abuse, perhaps because I have a friend who was severely abused. ( )

Huh.

1.5/5 or undecided

Thought I would branch out with this one. (See: tiktok rec. Mistake number one) Heard it was really disturbing and psychologically thrilling. And, of course, I heard about the incest.

I did read some reviews before I read the book. So. Maybe it heightened my expectations. Overall, I was disappointed in this book. It was disturbing, but I thought that it would be More so disturbing, that there would be a sort of cohesive theme to it all. Like. Maybe it would be well thought out, morally grey, etc. Nooope!

I did like the way that they built the mother's relationship with the children, or I guess I should say, degraded it. It was the one thing in the book that felt realistic.

That is one of the biggest problems with the book, actually. It is boring, and it is so unrealistic and convoluted. It reminds me of early American literature that I read in college. Before the novel was widespread convention, people wrote mostly in plays, in prose, etc. The invention of the novel we know is much more recent than you'd often think. And, let me tell you, early novels were written very poorly: see, they hadn't quite worked out the formula yet. Things were outrageously unrealistic, terribly paced, reminiscent of a 12 year old girl's fanfiction, and, all the while, boring. (This is another reason why Jane Austen is so amazing, actually.. When everyone was floundering to understand what made novels work, she was already intimately acquainted with its form.)

That's what this felt like to me, mostly. A mix of a teenager's flair (edgy, taboo, the mary sue of misfortune) and an incredibly boring book (like the ones I had to read in my early American literature class, but instead of incest being traumatic it was normal).

I also take issue with other things: the dialogue, the twins not getting much attention at all, things that get backfilled instead of shown when they could maybe add more intrigue.

Read the synopsis for the rest of the series. Big thumbs down lol ( )

This review will have to be for every V.C. Andrews book that I have read. I think I loved this book when I was about 16 or 17, which is about the age that one should read these types of books at. By types, I think that Ms. Andrews should have her own genre of far-fetched, sex-ridden, twisted tales. ( )