V.C. Andrews

The television network Lifetime recently released Flowers in the Attic, their small screen adaptation of the book by the same name.

V.C. Andrews and her Dollanganger series were the first adult books I remember reading. I was around  11 when my grandma loaned me her copies of:
Flowers In The Attic
Petals on the Wind
IfThere Be Thorns
Seeds of Yesterday.

 There would be one more book in the series, but I was alone for that one, as my grandma had become ill around that time. V.C. Andrews had her own health problems which meant that said final Dollanganger book, Garden of Shadows, was completed by a ghost writer.   I was young and there was no internet back then so I didn't realize that she had died or that her books would continue but would be written by another.

I'm not sure if my grandma just really trusted me to be mature or if she had not gotten around to reading the books herself.   They don't seem like most grandmother's choices for a kid not even out of elementary school yet.  Still, whether she knew what she was doing or not, my grandma got me hooked.  For a good decade or so I read any V.C. Andrews book that came out.  Even once I finally realized she had gone and they were written by someone else.  They stayed someone true to her style.  Enough for me to eat them up.

Eventually I just lost interest.  Nothing against the original author.  Not even any real issues with the ghost writer.   Maybe my interests changed.  Maybe the books didn't have the same feel as the earlier ones.

Then came news that Lifetime was producing the movie.  Flowers in the Attic had been adapted into a movie previously.  1987's Flowers in the Attic  was a flop.  Fans didn't like it.  General movie goers didn't flock to it.  Bad news for fans that it had gone so wrong since many of us had hoped that the whole series would become movies.  It seemed unlikely we'd ever see that.  With Lifetime it seems we might.

It makes me want to break out those old copies of the Flowers in the Attic series (no one I knew back in the day ever called it the Dollanganger series).  I think they're long gone.  There were read and read and read.  By me.  By friends.  I think by my grandma (that loaned turned into ownership as she told me to keep them).   Old mass market paperbacks don't hold up to much abuse.   Luckily for my Kindle, the  original V.C. Andrews series (Dollanganger) is the only one I feel I need to read and re-read.

However,  I did get one other V.C. Andrews book from my grandma, one that was not a part of any series, My Sweet Audrina.  That is the other V.C. Andrews book I have recommended to people over the years.