James's Reviews > Flowers in the Attic

5 stars to V.C. Andrews's Flowers in the Attic. This was one of the earliest books I remember reading as a young adult. I was captivated by the relationships which is probably from where my love of reading and writing family dramas was born.

As an avid genealogist, this books is ripe with analysis to understand all the connections between blood and non-blood relatives. It played to everything I found fascinating and the psychology of why people do the things they do.

The subject, incest at its core, can be a difficult one to digest; however, Andrews handles it with care. I daresay many readers are rooting for some of the couples to get or stay together -- and that's not easy to acknowledge. But ultimately, I think the reader has to forget the family relationships between some of these characters and just focus on the intensity of the drama between 2 people regardless of their relationships.

Locked in an attic. Rejected by your mother. Poisoned by someone. Religious grandmothers with a vengeance. Who is right and who is wrong? The religious themes in this book are so prevalent that you can't help but question your own beliefs.

I didn't realize there were multiple volumes in this story until many years later and went back to re-read the original one. But when I did, I was ensconced in my reading realm. This family is just so maniacal... you have to read it just to see what some people are capable of.