Flowers in the Attic - V.C. Andrews

Flowers in the Attic
by V.C. Andrews

I was and still am very confused by this book.  It has been a long time since I read V.C. Andrews and I thought this would be a good choice for the Shelf Discovery Challenge.  I mean come on, 4 kids locked in an attic...I was intrigued by what motives their captors could possibly have and what the outcome was.  Seriously though...390 pages of 4 kids in an attic, it got a bit old...fast.

Then, surprise! Part 2 is much better.  I finally cared what was going to happen to these kids and felt like there was something worth reading about.  There was danger and drama and a mouse named Mickey...how cute is that!  the problem was that throughout the entire book I just kept going back and forth between needing to know how it ends, to make sure revenge is had and then being bored enough to want to give up and move on to my next book.

The end finally became more steady with the intensity and after reading the last page I quickly flipped a few pages to the second book in the series (the book I bought includes the first 2).  The last chapter took on a kind of horror story feel (which I guess it kind of was but I didn't really feel it until then) and I really enjoyed that part.  My biggest issue was part of the storyline.  I read all kinds of books, true stories that have harsh details of all kinds, but I had a seriously hard time dealing with the way the relationship between Cindy and Chris played out  Maybe it's because I wasn't expecting it, but I was surprised at how much it bothered me, especially since it was fiction.  

Have you read Flowers in the Attic?  What did you think?

*I read this book as part of the Shelf Discovery Challenge.

**Source: I bought this book with my own sweet loot.