3.9k reviews for:

Flowers in the Attic / Petals on the Wind / If There Be Thorns / Seeds of Yesterday / Garden of Shadows

V.C. Andrews

3.61 AVERAGE

kylie_abecca's review against another edition

5.0

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Loved it!! Have read this many times and still enjoy it.

mcornell's review against another edition

1.0

dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

kerobbe's review against another edition

2.5

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Gosh golly! This is the worst thing I have ever read, and yet it might have the most compelling female villains. RIP VC Andrews, you would have loved AO3

tylene's review against another edition

3.0

dark mysterious sad slow-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

nadine_h's review against another edition

5.0

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I give it five stars because when I read it I did love it. Five Stars just for the memories lol

cezaramaria's review against another edition

3.25

dark mysterious sad

caylizray's review against another edition

2.75

dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Crazy to me that they say this book is about forbidden love when it's not portraying love at all. It's actually about the abandonment of god (in the form of a mother) and the absence of mercy's affect on the developing young mind.

Or, it's about the question no one has ever asked: is the urge to commit incest hereditary? 

I dunno, I really like the movie from the 80s and all its campiness. It seems to me that movie took all the better parts of the book. Knowing this is part of a series, the ending is still a little bit anticlimactic (especially compared to the movie which ends with such a bang). They really could've left at literally any time. But it's understandable why they didn’t, being children the whole while. 

filipa_maia's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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This book is so weird in so many ways, but also so complex and profound... I'm a little traumatized, but I enjoyed it.

This family, their relationships, everything is so rotten and dark. Those poor children, everything they endured, how resilient they were, THAT ENDING!

I'm not going to read all of the other books. I don't care what happens next. In my mind, they lived long, healthy lives, filled with therapy sessions to help them function and move past what happened in that attic.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Grief, Gaslighting, Abandonment

Moderate: Child death, Death, Death of parent

Minor: Animal death, Rape, Sexual assault, Blood, Car accident, Pregnancy, Classism

amorghouls's review against another edition

2.5

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

haley_slover's review against another edition

4.25

dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes