book 3 final project

My horror genre book I chose was Flower in the Attic by V.C. Andrews. In my book V.C. Andrews wrote the fiction tale of a broken family who is forced to live stuffed in a tiny room connected to the attic in the house of their religious and abusive grandma. This is the first book in a series of five about the Dollanganger family and their struggles.

The book started out with a perfect family of six two happily married parents with four younger children, but then tragedy struck. On the fathers birthday the family had set up a surprise birthday party for him they were waiting for him to come home when two police officers arrived and told them that their father had died in a car crash. After that they lost everything and had to move out of the house thinking they had nowhere to go but the mother took them to their grandparents house who they never knew existed. The mother told them that they would be rich from all they inherit but withheld a lot of information from them. In the book it shows carries first thoughts about the new living conditions “I didn’t like her I wanted to go home. My lips quivered. I wanted daddy alive again.” When they got to the house their mom Corrine explained that she had married her half uncle and for that their religious grandparents had disowned her, but she had written them letters and they let her stay with them. What the grandfather didn’t know was that she ever had children and he can never find out so the four kids are stuffed in small room connected to the attic locked in so no one knows they even exist. The plot keeps adding new problems when they solve one problem and their situation keeps getting worse and worse. One problem that occurred while up there is their little brother got really sick and they didn’t know what to do since they couldn’t leave the room. Other smaller ad worse things popped up in the book making it have an amazing plot. There were eight main characters in the book the four main were the kids Chris the oldest, Cathy the middle whose point of view it’s told from, and the youngest twins Cory and Carrie. There was the mom Corrine and her parents the dying sick grandpa and the strict abusive grandma. Cathy and Chris were rounded characters who changed a lot throughout the book. Carrie started out as a young innocent sweet girl with little responsibility. As the book progresses she become more independent, strong, caring, and has grown to be like the twins new mother. A quote Chris said to Cathy showing how she has matured was “do you think I don’t know that you are more of a mother to Cory and Carrie than she is? Do you think I failed to see the twins only stared at their mother, like she was a stranger?” the same thing happened to Chris as Cathy, he became more responsible, mature, smart, and strong willed, and stayed an optimist. The mother Corrine also changed throughout the book. She started out as loving, caring, and an attentive mother. But throughout the book she becomes greedy, meaner, and barely cares for her children any more. One of the reoccurring themes in this book love, a quote from the book to support this is, “Love doesn't always come when you want it to. Sometimes it just happens, despite your will.”

I would rate flowers in the attic a 7 out of 10. I give it this rating because it was a good plot and something was usually happening. I also wanted to find out all the secrets hidden within their family and lives. I also think it was a very well written book. What I didn’t like was in around the middle of the book the things happening with the kids was getting really weird and creepy, but I guess it’s supposed to be since it was a horror. So overall it was a well written interesting yet quite weird book.