Family Storms

Family Storms marks the beginning of the twentieth family series (including standalone such as My Sweet Audrina and Daughter of Darkness) written under the VCA name, and the seventeenth series penned by the ghostwriter. Family Storms is also the seventieth book published under the VCA name - an astonishing number when you consider that the real VCA was only able to actually finish just seven books in her lifetime. Well, eight if you include her sci-fi book, Gods of Green Mountain.

Not only that, but right on the cover of this book, it says that it is from the same person who created Flowers in the Attic! Why does this dishonesty persist? V.C. Andrews did NOT write this, and she is in no way responsible for this atrocity!

I was sincerely show more hoping that 'Family Storms' would be better than its two predecessors, the Heavenstone and Daughter of Darkness books. Heavenstone and Daughter of Darkness dabbled in the supernatural, with disastrous results. Given that this book was hopefully to be a return to a more 'normal' storyline, and the back cover blurb actually sounded interesting to me, I was hoping that Neiderman might have learned from the negative feedback he has received for his recent efforts and tried harder with this one.

Final verdict? It IS a bit better than the last few series that the ghostwriter churned out with his poison pen. But given how abysmal the books have been over the last few years, it really isn't saying much. If anything, the metaphors and descriptions become more cliched every year (along with a couple of typos) and the writing feels more like something you might find in a beginner's creative writing class. Still, the story was better than the last few, so yay.

One would think that Jordan March was the same girl from the Early Spring series now all grown up and a mother, but Neiderman has simply chosen to copy-paste a name. Now, if the adoptive mom had just one of these names with a different name coupled with it, it would have made more sense. But recycling both first and last names? Really? Is this what these books have come to?

This story is a little different, since the main characters, Sasha, is homeless and is described as living under cardboard with her mother. It starts off as being rather rainy (appropriate opening for this book, I must say) The homeless are stereotyped here. It seems that the ghostwriter would rather stereotype than do research on the people he's writing about, since he had shown deaf people, blacks, Mexicans, lesbians, fat people, and other groups in a stereotyped manner with broad brushstrokes that offer them no real depth.

It seems that the ghostwriter doesn't care about the wonderful multigenerational sagas that made VCA classic. In the last few series, sibling rivalry was the main focus - Celeste/Noble, April and her sister, Lorelei and her sisters, Cassie and Semantha... the list goes on. Sure, sibling rivalry happens, but the rivalry between Heaven/Fanny, Dawn/Clara Sue, Gisselle/Ruby were more realistic and just one part of a larger story.

Sasha's new stepssiter is mean to her, but Kiera just comes across to me as a huge brat, so I couldn't feel sorry for her even after she almost died. The petty and cruel tricks Kiera and her friends play on Sasha (including making up a crazy club called Virgins Anonymous in a ploy to make Sasha get a tattoo) were just contrived and over the top. I felt bad for Sasha at first, but she is so stupid - if these girls had told me about the VA club and tried to make me get a tattoo, I'd have told them to bugger off because the way the girls told it sounded so fake that I would have seen through it. So Sasha is framed and almost thrown out, but the story suddenly ends with a happy/sad twist.

Sasha was at least a more likeable and sympathetic character than the last few 'heroines' that Neiderman penned out. She has to deal with her mom and being homeless, and the story starts off with her telling us some stuff about herself, so you feel bad for her. But 'Family Storms' was refreshing in some ways, including the fact that I liked Sasha better than any character Neiderman has penned in a while.

So the story ends in a somewhat cliched way, but at least it made more sense than the ending of Daughter of Darkness. Sasha's main adversary in this book was her foster sister, but the ending hinted at something from Mr. March. It seems that the next book will explore some March secrets because Sasha has noted that her foster parents don't talk about their relatives, so I am hoping that the sequel to this book will remain as consistent as this one instead of spinning off into something stupid and unbelievable like the Gemini series did.

I almost cannot believe that there was once a time where I actually got excited upon seeing a new V.C. Andrews book in display at a store (even knowing it was written by the ghostwriter) I would writhe in anticipation for days before the release date, and would actually feel light-headed as I entered the store. I always looked for the cleanest, brightest copy, making sure it had no scuffs, nicks, or creases from the people who had to stock the book display, because I wanted the most perfect copy of the book! I could not wait to get home and read the book, so if I had to wait in the cashier's line, I would start reading it right there!

Now, every time I see a new book with the VCA name slapped on it, I feel nothing but disgust. What was once anticipation, excitement, and love waned to like during the Hudson series, to an ever-increasing sense of disillusionment and disappointment with the Shooting Stars and DeBeers series. It turned into full-blown loathing during my reading of Midnight Flight, and percolated into anger and hatred during Black Cat. Sometimes I wonder if the person who penned the highly enjoyable Cutler series is actually the same person who penned the ever-increasingly lackluster series that started with the Hudson series. Does the ghostwriter have his own ghostwriter?

Virginia Andrews left notes and outlines after her death, but Andrew Neiderman ran out of these a long time ago. This book, and so many of its predecessors, bear NOTHING of a classic VCA book. There are no stepback covers. There are no multigenerational family sagas with horrible secrets from ancestors affecting the lives of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Even the titles themselves bear no resemblance to a classic VCA book.

The heroines no longer have cool names that inspire the titles for the rest of the series they star in. Instead of beautiful names like Heaven, Dawn, Ruby, and Melody, and awesome series titles that spin from these cool names, we're now stuck with names like Semantha, Jordan, Sasha, Lorelei, April, and so on and so forth. Not that these names are ugly by themselves or I have anything against girls named that, but these names simply do not fit in the 'VCA' formula that any TRUE VCA fan knows and loves.

Sasha is a okay character. I will admit that I liked her better than Zipporah, Delia, Semantha and Lorelei. She is closer to a real VCA character than any of the girls from the last few series. But that in itself really isn't saying much, as her characterization has not been handled well. You're supposed to feel bad for her because she's poor and she lost Mommy in a car accident, but her voice/narration is so... blah and cliched.

And the title for the next book in this series is supposed to be 'Cloudburst'. Really? We already have 'Gathering Clouds' as one of Neiderman's pseudo-VCA titles. And it's not a title that works well. Actually, 'Family Storms' is a pretty awkward title on its own, as well (along with the fact that we already have a book with 'storm' in it, 'Eye of the Storm') If Neiderman wanted to use weather-based titles, 'Shower of Tears' would have been a way better title, or 'Calm Before the Storm', 'Scream in the Wind', 'Deluge of Sorrow', 'Downpour', and so on and so forth... hey! See how easy it was for me to think of these cool titles? And Sasha could have been called Cascade or Blizzard so her name could have been more fitting with the weather theme of the series. Wow! All I had to do was look in a thesaurus! I should be the new ghostwriter!

But nah. VCA has been dead long enough, and I respect her too much to use her name for my work. When I write my own books, they will be under MY OWN name and no one else's. show less

Really draws you in and holds your interest. Well written and makes you feel like you really know the main character.

I absolutely adored it!

I literally couldn't put it down. The novel kept me wanting to read more and that is what I LOVE about certain books. It had a really strong plot line with lots of twists and turns that keep a strong grip on your interest. The novel also has a surprising turn of events. '

There is a lot of hostility between some members of the March family that makes you really wonder what secrets the family holds and the way they act towards each other makes it seem like something else is going on behind closed doors.

Hopefully all will be revealed in the second book Cloudburt. This is definitely on my rereads list and I can't wait to read the second installment.

Sasha's father leaves her and her mother and they become homeless. They live on the streets for months until tragedy strikes. A rich girl who was high has run over her mother and her. Sasha's mother ends up dead while she only has a broken leg. The girl's mother offers to take her in and Sasha is whisked away into a life of luxury. But the girl who ran her offer has a tough time dealing with Sasha living in her dead sister's room and enjoying benefits she never got to.