Flight into Fantasy

Yet again, this review will contain spoilers. If for some reason you want to encounter the Dollangangers pure and unsullied, you should not read further.

Title: Petals on the Wind: The Dollanganger Saga, Book 2
Author: V C Andrews
Genre: Gothic horror/WTF trainwreck
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: You know, that’s a really good question. Let’s just call it trainwreck syndrome and leave it at that.
Synopsis: This book picks up exactly where Flowers in the Attic left off. Chris and Cathy make it to North Carolina, where they are taken in by Paul Sheffield, who it turns out raped his first wife and screwed around on her, and yet who is the least dispicable man in the entire series. Chris becomes a doctor, Cathy begins her dancing career, and Carrie graduates to the position of complete tragic figure. Oh, and Cathy manages to take revenge on her mother by… sleeping with her stepfather and having his baby.

My Thoughts: I’ll give Flowers in the Attic some credit. It was a bad book, but there was something cheesy in its badness that made it strangely compelling reading. In this sequel, any sense of fun I had with the story is gone, and I’m not entirely sure how come I managed to finish it. Also, a reader has to have a heart of stone not to have some pity for four kids locked in an attic for years, but the sympathy doesn’t last when at least the character narrating the events of the story is a complete sociopath. What makes it worse is that we are supposed to gloat over Cathy’s mastery of everyone around her, from her brother (who is still in love with her! Ick!) to her stepfather, to her mother and grandmother at the end. Reading this book was an absolute chore, but I was determined I’d see it through to the end.

In my review of Flowers in the Attic I mentioned that I was bothered by a really troubling and very explicit misogynist streak in the text. This is here in spaids as well. Cathy is constantly playing games with the men in her life, alternately seducing and then pplaying hard to get. It’s worse in this book, though, because it’s also clearly Cathy’s fault when Julian, the dancer she first marries, hurts her. After all, she provokes him, and people actually tell her that she needs to stay with him or he’ll kill himself. When she doesn’t heed this advice, Julian gets into a terrible accident and eventually does end up killing himself. As I read, I kept wondering if any teenagers reading this book, struggling with their burgeoning sexuality, actually think relationships between adults are like this? Because seriously, Cathy should have gotten the hell away from Julian long before he conveniently died.

Also, Paul Sheffield, the doctor who takes the Dollanganger kids in, has a terrible past. See, something horrible happened to his wife so she hated sex, so what does Paul do? He rapes her, because he is a man and he has needs, you know. It’s implied that it was Paul’s wife’s fault for not getting over herself, and it was further her fault when Paul slept around with young girls. Just… ugh.

The revenge Cathy exacts is also painful to read about, because not a whole lot happens. Cathy and her mom shout backstory at each other, then the house catches on fire, and that’s pretty much that. There was also a painful scene in which Cathy whipped her helpless grandmother, which, rather than being cathartic at all, was just so very wrong on so many different levels.

Final Thoughts: I hated this book. It was a chore to read, most of its characters were completely unlikeable, and I was really bothered by how much the author clearly seems to hate her own gender. The train wreck syndrome doesn’t make this book worth pursuing.
Final Grade: F

Other Opinions

• Mrs. Giggles, whose opinion is very different from mine

P.S. Oddly enough, the book I started reading after I finished POTW was Jennifer Donnelly’s The Tea Rose. It’s another rags-to-riches story featuring an indomitable heroine successfully gaining revenge over the people that did her wrong. However, it’s a much better book, because I like Fiona and she’s not a sociopath. Plus, there’s no incest. Always a good thing.