Showing posts with label author: v. c. andrews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label author: v. c. andrews. Show all posts

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Book Review: Heavenstone Secrets

Author: V.C. Andrews (Ghost Writer)
Title: Heavenstone Secrets
Publisher:  Pocket Star
Publish Date: December 2009
Rating: 1 Stars
Book Blurb: SECRETS ARE AT HOME HERE . . .

The Heavenstone sisters live with their mother and father in a grand old mansion in bluegrass Kentucky. Semantha, the younger and prettier one, is afraid of so many things— darkness, strange noises, mysterious whispers in the night. But nothing frightens her more than her sister, Cassie. She is older and wiser, and always telling Semantha what to do, what to wear, and how to behave around those wicked boys at school. Semantha has her eye on one special guy—but Cassie has other plans for her. In the Heavenstone house, big sister knows best.

. . . AND THERE’S NO ESCAPE.

When tragedy strikes like a lightning bolt from heaven, Semantha’s life becomes a living hell. Under Cassie’s constant, watchful eye, she feels like a prisoner—a helpless pawn in her sister’s cruel game. When Cassie begins wearing their mother’s clothes and vying for their father’s affections, Semantha realizes she must bring their twisted sibling rivalry to an end . . . before a new generation is born.

Review: Sometimes you read a book even though it is bad because something about it interests you. With Heavenstone's Secrets this isn't the case. I read the whole thing because it was like a train wreck that I couldn't stop looking at.

V.C. Andrews books weren't the best stories, but once you started them you couldn't seem to put them down. You wanted to know what was next. The ghost writer who has been V.C. Andrews since she passed away in 1986, is getting sloppy. This story was weird, but there was nothing to explain away the weirdness.

Cassie wanted to be her mother and she slowly does things to make that happen, except for sleeping with her father. In a real V.C. Andrews novel, that probably would have happened. Instead she takes control of her little sister, Semantha's (what kind of name is that anyway) life and makes it miserable. But nowhere in the story does the writer explain why she wants to be Mama Heavenstone.

Then there is Semantha. Oye, the character was so wimpy, she made me want to scream. Cassie was only 2 years older than she was. I can't see any girl that was in her teens taking the orders Cassie was giving without a rip roaring fight, respectable family or not.

The other thing that bugged me were the parents. They even let Cassie boss them around. Hell, the dad's followed his daughter so blindly that his wife ended up DEAD! (Not saying how...you just have to read the book and share in my pain) .

I will probably read Secret Whispers only to get some closure from this book. (And I'm a a masochist) If you are thinking of picking up this book, I seriously advise you to put it DOWN!

Saturday, July 24, 2010

This Is So Scary I Have To Wishlist It!

I'm reading a V.C. Andrews novel right now. Please don't tell anyone. I'm really ashamed of myself for picking it up, but it was given to me!!

It also got me looking at the books that were ghostwritten after Ms. Andrews passed away in 1986!! Yes, she died more than 20 years ago and this dufus is still putting out bad novels in her name.

OMGWTFBBQ!

Most of the novels that carry her name were ghostwritten. She only wrote 8.

Oye vey.

But this book is due out in Oct and it just looks so bad that I have to read it.

Book Blurb: When I was a little girl, Daddy told me never to fear the dark. “We exist because of the darkness,” he told me. “All of you are daughters of darkness.”Beloved bestselling author V.C. Andrews’s passion for vampires comes to spellbinding life in a long-awaited novel of dark desires as all-consuming—and forbidden—as in Flowers in the Attic. One night, with the sound of a young man’s scream, high school senior Lorelei discovers that her stern but loving father, who adopted Lorelei and her sisters as infants, is no ordinary man. He has raised his beautiful girls for one purpose: to lure young men into their world of shadows. Like her sisters, Lorelei has been trained in the art of seduction and warned never to fall in love. But when she meets a handsome and charming classmate, she boldly defies her family and follows her heart—even if love is a poison

Unbelievable! The ghostwriter is going all vampire on us! How very interesting, and horrifying.

I feel really sorry for V.C. Andrews, that her own legacy of weird novels is being tainted by stuff like this.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

I Don't Understand The Appeal


There is a series besides Twilight that baffles me. Actually its multiple series, V.C. Andrews and her many books with similar plots and loads of incest and other nasty things.

What is it about these books that draw readers, and still do, long after the author's passing? (Even though the estate is still somehow publishing books under her name)

I remember being in junior high, back in the late 80s and devouring the books. I read the Flowers In The Attic Series and the Heaven Series and My Sweet Audrina. After that I gave up. Everything was too similar even though the plots were different.

I loved the gothic nature the stories had, but I hated that you could never really tell the time the novels took place and often where the story took place. The funny thing is, when I talk to kids that are the same age as I was, I find they are reading them too, and I wonder what the appeal is? Sure the books are well written, but they aren't that great. And then there was the movie? Did any of you see that? It was awful!

So to those of you who have read these series, I ask, what do you think the appeal is? Did you love the books or hate them?
 
Blog Design by Use Your Imagination Designs using images from the Tea Time kit and the Saturday Night kit by MK-Designs