Dollanganger Family Series

 

I read this series WAY out of order. First I read Flowers in the Attic, then I went back to read the prequel Garden of Shadows before I read the sequel Petals in the Wind. I’ve already shared my personal impressions of Flowers in the Attic in my previous blog post.

First of all, I have to say that if you only sit down and read one of the books in the series it should be Flowers in the Attic as I think it is the best of all of the books. I really enjoyed reading the origin story of the family dynamics that Garden of Shadows quite a bit. I found that diving into the grandmother’s narrative explained a lot about her behavior in Flowers in the Attic. The scandals that she personally encounters are very intriguing. I would have to give a trigger warning that there is a rape scene in the prequel as well as incest. But quite honestly, if this sort of content is bothersome to someone they really should avoid the series entirely.  If you do read Flowers in the Attic and want to learn more about the bizarre family history I would highly suggest Garden of Shadows.

Petals in the Wind is a great book to read if you want to know more about what happens to the Dollanganger children as they grow up with the scars from their experiences in Flowers in the Attic  impacting their lives. While it is enjoyable if you like VC Andrew’s style of writing (as I found that I have) I would honestly say that it is not a book that NEEDS to be read either. Quite honestly sometimes I find that not knowing what happens next in a character’s life to be necessary if the conclusion of the previous book ends satisfactorily.  While there are definitely questions about how the children survive and what happens to the mother at the end of Flowers in the Attic, I did feel that as a contained story it ended the way that it needed to end. 

Personally, utilizing my imagination about how a character’s life may have turned out after a traumatic event is something that I do not mind doing at all. However, I know that this sentiment does not sell books the same way.  What happened to me is that I seriously had a huge book hangover after I finished Flowers in the Attic. I had never read anything like it before and I found myself seriously invested in the lives of the characters.  I  craved  more, which is why I had to read as many of these books as I could.  Thanks to how easy it is to order cheap used books from independent sellers on Abebooks I was able to satisfy these cravings. (Side note: PLEASE Support independent bookstores!) As someone who collects horror novels from that era, this was completely justifiable for me to do. Even if I did not find them as enjoyable I like having a complete collection on my shelf.

But I did enjoy the and I am curious to read some of VC Andrew’s other works. However, as I did some homework many of the books that have her name on them were ghostwritten. According to what I read on wikipedia, there was a serious deficiency in her real estate taxes and since her name was considered a commercial asset, Andrew Neiderman continued writing under her name to help make up for what was still owed to the IRS. Flowers in the Attic was what caused her name to initially be a commercial success.

I am interested mostly in what she actually wrote and it could be interesting project to compare the books that she wrote to the books that were ghostwritten.  It is really not unheard of for authors that are very commercially successful to have ghostwriters, especially if it looks like they are churning out multiple books in a year.  I know that the way that the publishing industry often works is that if there is one successful book there has to be a prequel or a sequel, which is how Flowers In The Attic becoming the central book in a series was likely born.  I found process of reading  all of these books way too entertaining to be too critical of this trend in publishing…at least for this series.