Incomplete Tales

Series 1: Dollanganger 1, 2, 3

Series 2: Casteel 1

Series 3: Cutler 1

Review

First of all, I feel pathetic for showing up after so many months with no reviews at all. I personally feel I let myself down; this was after all mainly a source of me to get my thoughts about books out. I am back though and with 5 books in 1 review, along with 2 more coming in a few hours or days because I never really stopped reading.  I just never really wrote a bad review about a book, mediocre at most. So when I started reading the Dollanganger series by V.C. Andrews, with very high hopes, I never thought it would be this BAD. No really.

I was full on expecting a mystery thriller young adult novel (like the Dark Secrets series be Elizabeth Chandler) but it turned out to be pretty much the trashiest novel I’ve read. Please, if you are all for the love of Andrews books, I advise you to turn away. The writing is complete crap, the characters don’t evoke any emotions, and the plot…could have been but wasn’t. Take the Dollangeger series for example, the plot is very unique about children locked up in an attic for years, escape, and try to live out their lives. It sounds very interesting, until you add in the soap opera dilemma: love all and any men that are in contact, and then always get back to plotting ways to get revenge on the deranged mother. I guess I did like the 3^rd story where it was their children who were the main narrators, although the youngest son was pretty weird for a little boy. I pretty much couldn’t get myself to finish any of her books and it’s pretty suckish for me because the only reason I picked it up was it was on sale from a used book store.

The Casteel series was a little better but the plot was on a thin line very close to crossing the same path as the Dollanganger series. I actually liked the main character in this book; the original dad freaked me out and so did pretty much every character in the book. I’m guessing this creepiness set up for the rest of the series in that the girl would end up hating all men in her life. I’ve heard that the Cutler series was written by a ghost writer and might I say it was a much better job done by her than Andrews herself? I mean, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the soap opera trash in the previous series, and it was borderline satisfactory, but not worth reading.

I’d give her series a 1.5/5, the 0.5 for potential and the individual books are rated on goodreads. So all in all, I do not recommend this series unless you enjoy soap operas and you’re most recent favourite show just got cancelled, and maybe then you will find this to your liking. My apologies if I have offended anyone with this review.