Reviews with content warning for Rape - Flowers in the Attic

I read this book when I was younger and remembered loving it...upon re reading this is not the case. The writing is decent, which is why this book got 2 stars. The mystery and waiting for a change in the characters lives drove the story forward. However, the ending is not rewarding or hopeful. This book is upsetting start to finish. At first, I thought this was a realistic showing of abuse and neglect. And while those two things certainly dominate the book, after reading the synopses for the rest of the series, the author seemed just to be going for dramatic and brutal as a form of hooking readers. It lacks creativity in my opinion and just verges on absurd.

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claudia_rose's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

the feeling i have when i read v.c andrews is akin to the sensation of waking up after an unsatisfactory nap where your body temperature is slightly too high, you have a dull headache and you're totally disorientated.

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emilygently's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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manonschuur's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I have no words. This book is just disgusting and horrible that at some point I really wanted to puke. It is so traumatizing that I give it 5 stars. I will never forget this book

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readersmoon's review against another edition

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3.0

Have I created a new bookshelves just for this book? Yes. Yes I did.

DISCLAIMER: This review will not be spoiler free because I have a lot of things to say and don’t know how to put some things into a spoiler thingy.

Honestly, I don’t think I’ll rate this book, because it will either be 1 star or 5 (so maybe I should put a 3, huh? Yeah, 3 stars sounds right.). There’s something so incredibly disturbing with this book, I couldn’t stop reading.

This book initially got popular before I was born, so it’s not something people talked about when I was a kid. I only heard of it recently and curiosity got the best of me. I read of few reviews and thought “oh god, here we go”. So, I went into this book with absolutely no expectations whatsoever. Based on what everyone was saying, I figured the only thing worst than the incest was gonna be the writing.

On that point, I must admit, I was surprise. Maybe because English isn’t my first language and I couldn’t see the flaws as much. Maybe in French it would’ve been different and I would’ve said something like « Mais c’est quoi ce bordel ». The writing was of course far from being perfect and I felt like Cathy was still narrating like a kid, although she was telling the story as an adult, but it was still captivating enough that I kept on reading. Not gonna lie, I even cried a few times.

Now, Freud would definitely have fun with this book. Like, seriously. What did the mother kept on putting her son’s face in her breast? Why didn’t she realize that yeah, it is pretty weird that she married her half-uncle. I won’t go into sinful thing and whatever because I’m not into that but uhhhhhh… it’s still weird. I get it, he was good looking and nice but… well… you know. And he was 18!! And she was 14!!! Need I say more?!

However, the relationship with Cathy and Chris surprised me. Because a part of me, horrible definitely, could understand, someone, how they became attracted to each other. Cathy herself at some point says that if other people were around, Chris wouldn’t feel this way about her. It’s kind of like Stockholm syndrome, but they’re both the victims. It’s really weird, but I feel like the writer really managed to show the psychological effects of their imprisonment while being young teenagers fuelled by hormones and who had no one to talked to. They played mom and dad for years and yeah, it screwed them up pretty badly. I don’t know if the writer planned this or have a weird brother-sister fetish, but I’ll take it as being a somehow well done psychological book because otherwise my mental health will never recover.

BUT, the rape part really wasn’t necessary. I knew it was coming and still disgusted me. It could’ve been completely skipped, it didn’t do anything real for the story. Make the brother and sister fall in love, FINE, they are traumatized. You know what, they had such a crappy life I might even hope that thing will work out for them because screw it, they will never be sane again after being treated like this by their own mother, so if they can find happiness like this then so be it. But the rape???? No, I cannot get behind this AT ALL. It was unnecessary and vile. And Cathy being like “oh it’s my fault” like no girl, don’t take the blame for your brother. He’s losing his mind because he’s a 18 years old virgin, obviously he’s got issues. Older guys have gone longer without having sex and they haven’t raped anyone, so… I mean, yeah he’s traumatized too, fine, but that will (or should’ve) traumatized his little sister even more. “But he feels guilty 🥺” WELL YEAH I SURE HOPE HE DOES.

Anyway, that was an interesting story. Will probably read the other books because I’ve got absolutely no self respect whatsoever.

Content Warnings

jessicafacchinigould's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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