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Summary: Confusing when switching points of view
Review: This story like MY SWEET AUDRINA confused me. It started with Cathy's point of view. Then it turned to the view point of her sons. It was terrifying to the whole family when Bart turned mean. Jory was upset when his dog Clover was killed. Cindy was scared to death of Bart when he threatened her. Cindy needed to be reminded that she could trust Chris and Cathy and Jory. John Amos had no business using Bart to get to Chris and Cathy.
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Summary: The weakest link
Review: This book is terrific too, but not nearly as engaging as all of the others in this series. I think it's because it is from the child's perspective, and I think that tends to water down the characters that you've invested so much time in. That said, this book is really well written. Bart is extremely interesting. This is the one that I re-read the least. It's not as good as Flowers, Petals, or Seeds, but it was necessary and worth the time spent reading.
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Summary: "The Bad Son Versus the Obedient Son"
Review: Chris and Cathy made a loving home for their sons, Jory,and Bart. Then the lights came on next door. Soon the Old Lady in Black was there, watching them, guarded by her strange old butler. Soon she had Bart over for treats and asked him to call her "Grandmother." And soon Bart's transformation began from this point on in the story. Fed by the hint of terrible things about his mother and father, this leads him into shocking acts of violence. Now when this little boy trembles on the edge of madness, his anguished parents await the climax to a horror that flowered in an attic long ago, a horror whose thorns are still wet with blood, still tipped with fire. As I read, I always wondered what Bart would do next.A good read.
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Summary: Not very intresting
Review: Although it is narrated by Bart and Jory,I didn't find it very intresting.Corrine deserves more suffer.Bart's attitude is to hostile.And I believe its more of the same thing.I did believe that Cathy's hate was going to make her become more of Corrine.She really did forget to fast.It's not a bad lecture but I expected more.
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Summary: Good but not as good as ........
Review: The first two books in the Dollanger series. It's a good read though so try it.
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Summary: I think V.C. Andrews is sicker than her characters...
Review: I have read many of V.C. Andrews books and they all horrified me. At first it was interesting because I had never read about these kinds of situations before...then after I got through the Dollanger Series, then the Cutler Series, then the Casteel Series, ... ...all of her stories have to do with some form of incest and I think she uses her books as a way to brainwash the younger generation into believing that incest causes problems, but if you really love each other...ITS OKAY!!
So I figured I would warn everyone... ...
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Summary: possibly the best and the saddest
Review: This is told by 14-year-old Jory and 9-year-old Bart, the children of Cathy (of the "Flowers in The Attic" series.) She is now married to her own brother Chris but the kids do not know this. They have adopted Cindy, the 3-year-old daughter of one of Cathy's ballet students who as died in a car accident. Bart has always been insecure in that he is not as graceful or as smart as Jory, and fears there will be even less love for him with a beautiful toddler in the house. Next door, an Old Lady in Black (as Bart thinks of her) has moved in. She has Bart call her grandmother and she is soon his favorite person. Bart believes she is indeed his grandmother, and she tells him enough stories about his mother that seem to be true. She also asks Bart questions about Chris and Cathy as if she wants to know more about them as they are today. Like all of Andrews' books, there is tragedy in the end. The pity of this one, which makes it stand out from the others, is how one little boy's need to be loved was used by all the adults to meet their own emotional needs, leaving him changed forever in quite the wrong way.
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Summary: V.C. Andrews is a genious!!!
Review: Not one of her books have been bad...and this one is almost as good as the first. I think the second one is the best..but if you liked any of them you will like this one as well!! The story: cathy and chris are lovers, cathy's children find out the truth about their past...cathy's mom comes back and moves in next door. it just gets better and better. and the end is so good! i won't ruin it for you but I cried...simple as that!
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Summary: Bart rules this one! If he only knew...
Review: I thought this story was wonderfully told! I loved the idea of Jory and particularly Bart narrating it. Bart is by far the most complex and interesting character that VC ever created (save Malcolm...whom Bart closely resembles in this book and Seeds) and so it was a nice diversion from Cathy's narration in the past two books. In this one, Cathy and Chris are living together as husband and wife with their two children (to whom Chris plays step-father); fourteen year old Jory and nine year old Bart. Things seem to be shaping up for the remaining Dresden dolls. Then Cathy adopts a sweet little girl, and an old lady dressed in black moves into the mansion next door...both of these lead to Bart's life altering psychosis in which he believes he is the old man...Malcolm Foxworth! Predictably, things go downhill from here (what's a VC story without a little DRAMA?!!), yet little Bart manages to keep the reader intrigued. If you've read the first two novels; Flowers In The Attic and Petals On The Wind, I higly recommend that you give this one a go as well!
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Summary: A Time to Reap
Review: If There Be Thorns is set up differently from other V.C.A. novels. The story is told from the points of view of Bartholomew Scott Winslow Sheffield, Julian Janus Marquet Sheffield aka Jory, and a little bit of Cathy. Cathy and Chris Sheffield are now living in California with their two sons. Bart is an interesting kid, right from the very beginning. He likes to squash bugs with his bare hands, he is always making a mess, he's a picky-eater, his nerve-endings don't meet his skin, and he is also especially sensitive. It disturbs him greatly that people like his brother Jory can hear the "music of colors", something he can't do.
Jory is a dancer, like his mother and biological father. He looks a lot like Julian, and his grandmother Marisha hopes to turn him into the dancer his father should have been, and then he will achieve the fame that she and her insane husband wanted for their son. Cathy favors her oldest, but perhaps that has something to do with him being a dancer, and the ideal son. Bart is odd; clumsy and awkward. Yet, things get worse when an old woman in black moves next door and begins to invite Bart over. She calls herself his grandmother. She has a crazy butler, John Amos Jackson, who gives Bart Malcolm Foxworth's journal, and begins to slowly turn him against his mother, and all women. As if that isn't bad enough, Cathy gets it into her head to adopt little kewpie doll, Cynthia Nickols, two-year-old daughter of her dying ballet student, Nicole Nickols. Chris doesn't really want this little girl; he thinks they are risking enough as it is, and Cindy might be their undoing, though Cathy apparently has taken care of all legal concerns. But then there is Bart, who becomes the middle child, and he felt neglected enough as it was before "hateful Cindy" came along. There is another source of tension in the book, though. Madame Marisha plays an important part as another grandmother who wears nothing but black, perhaps V.C. Andrews symbol of a remorseful mother. Madame M. is determined to save Jory from mistakes made with her own son, that led to his downfall, and she seems willing to sacrifice anything to atone for bad decisions made in the past, even if it means sacrificing Cathy's family.
Mostly what drives this book are the characters. Bart, of course. And as for Jory, Cathy compares him in personality to Chris, but Jory is a much more likeable character than Chris, and ten times less stupid. Though Chris is always described as being very intelligent, he appears to lack understanding when it comes to others. Jory mentions how he doesn't really understand his youngest son, and doesn't sense the growing hostility in Bart, something Jory and Cathy pick up on quickly. Jory is disturbed by his brother's behaviour as well as with his parents'. He knows that his parents do not have the kind of relationship that his friends' parents do, and he realizes that much of what is communicated between Cathy and Chris is left unsaid. Jory is extremely close to Chris, perhaps because Chris helped raise him, but it also foreshadows the later realization that he is not just Jory's and Bart's stepfather. I think Bart's character is fascinating. I think of him as a trickster. I found Jory to be interesting too. He is truly one of the only decent V.C. Andrews characters. And if that makes him boring, so be it. And he is not so boring since he does have a Julianesque temper in some ways, and he does, at the end, begin to question Chris's motives (I don't like Chris). Though he forgives him and Cathy; I choose to see that as a strength rather than a weakness. The ending is great, and leaves you wanting more. But more importantly, it gives three people's takes on the same horrifying events. Jory is optimistic, though a little concerned about the future ("out of the ruins should come the roses"), whereas Bart is darker ("there has to be darkness if there is going to be light"). Cathy tries to be positive, but you can tell she is seriously worried about what Bart will do next, and "that the evil that lived in Malcolm will live again"---through Bart. She does finally find a way to "thwart" the evil spirits that haunt her; writing becomes a sort of catharsis for her, as was dancing before. I found it interesting how each character finds peace in their own way, though the turmoil has yet to end. And Cathy realizes that the old biblical quote is true; "seek and you shall find". Well-written for a non-classic. As for the animal abuse, it is disturbing, but I don't see how it can be any worse than the abuse in the previous two novels. Not to mention that it is the crazy characters who are hurting the animals; that should say something right there. Whereas Jory, the good son, threatens to call the humane society. I'd just like to comment on how V.C.A. is applying the natural tendency of a psychotic person to begin with petty acts of destruction, such as Bart killing any bug he came across. He also showed masochistic tendencies, he forced his dog to act like a pony (the kid was just not right), then he went on to starve his dog so that he would miss him, and on and on. It's a progressional thing. Jory was more than willing to believe that Bart could have been responsible for stabbing an innocent animal with a pitchfork...he already had a violent history. So therefore, when human beings' lives were being put in danger, it wasn't so much a leap for Jory to believe that his brother could have been involved. V.C. Andrews went about it right. I don't understand why anyone could believe that sadism, masochism and rape is ok, but just mention an animal being mistreated, and V.C.A. has officially stepped over the line. Perspective is needed, and so is appreciation of necessary character development.
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