Seeds of Yesterday

When I originally found these books, while cleaning out my basement, I was so excited to reread them because I remember thinking they were the best thing ever written when I read them as a teen. Now as an older adult, I hate them. I was originally planning to keep them and put them on a bookshelf to remember and reread again. Now I want to put them in the recycling bin.

I hate Bart with a passion. I hate Chris and Cathy. I hate that even after the torturous life they've had they still cling to their belief in God. WHY?! HOW!? It was belief in a God that caused all their problems and they still believe!? I don't understand!

I hate that Cathy doesn't recognize, and apparently neither does Doctor Christopher, that she was abused in her show more relationship with Julian. She still blames herself for his death and says, like, "If I just loved him more! But instead I loved Chris." No, that's not how it was at all. Chris is also abusing you -- Cathy, you are stuck in a constant cycle of continued abuse!

I kind of really hate these books now. I've decided to put all of them into the recycling bin.

Adrianne show less

"I am caught between Heaven and Hell in a kind of purgatory where ghosts of the past roam the hallways at night."

Foxworth Hall has been built again.

I just finished a long-overdue re-read of the finale of the five-book Dollanganger saga. Yes, I'd forgotten most of it, with the exception of the oh-so-sad ending and the return to a manor that once terrified everyone in the series.

While Flowers in the Attic started the journey that destroyed four innocent young lives, the series continued to follow the mains Cathy and Chris who had to cling to each other for sanity and life long after they left the attic. The ending of the book was actually beautiful. It's demented and dark, but it's fitting to go back to where it all started.

Besides the show more dramatic but perfected finish, Seeds of Yesterday suffered from some of the same things 'If There by Thorns' did. While told only through Cathy's point of view again, thankfully getting rid of the shifting POVs of the boys from the previous book, it still focuses on truly unlikable characters.....Frankly Cathy's kids grew up to be annoying. Whiny, self-pitying, pathetic and in some cases evil messes. I get sticking around for the salvation of a son but it became unrealistic. Seriously, Bart is just too annoying, Melanie is one of the worst excuses for a woman ever, and Cindy's wailing made me want her to face a tragic ending of her own.

Andrews rocked with beginnings, endings, and shredding a reader's hearts to pieces, but she sometimes overplayed the already dramatic tone of the Gothic. This book particularly reads unrealistically when it comes to most of the dialogue. Also, I am definitely getting tired of looming, older men's presences in the house spoiling everyone's fun.

It's weaker in comparison to the rest of the series except 'If there Be Thorns', but it's still a Dollanganger sequel, which wins points on its own. The haunting vibe was still very much alive in the pages, and that ended - while bleak and leaving me feeling like I have some lead sitting in my chest - is in a strange way a beautiful wrap-up of a twisted family line.

"He's up there, whispering in the winds to tell me that's where the purple grass grows. They're all up there waiting for me." show less

This story doesn't have so much to do with the first three Dollanganger books, as it's now 1997 (over a decade set after the actual date VCA published this, in the mid-80's) but still stands as a decent story in its own right, with the surprising reappearance of a character long thought dead. And religion comes back with this character, reminding Chris and Cathy all too well why they didn't want anything to do with religion. As a part of a series, Seeds of Yesterday doesn't contribute overmuch to the Foxworth saga, which is sad, because it'd have been nice to learn more about the Foxworths.

I know that Joel did reveal to Chris and Cathy some more of the Foxworth history that they had been unaware of, but I don't think he revealed THAT show more much, not that he was in a position to have a lot of information to begin with, so eh.

Personally, I feel that this is the weakest of the books that VCA herself wrote. The Dollanganger series could have ended at If There Be Thorns. Sure, this was VCA's work, and she could have done whatever the fuck she wanted, and yes, there were good parts to this book, but I think there were several things she could have done differently. Oh well, no author I have ever read had ALL their books be 5-stars in my perspective. show less

This book dragged even more than the previous one, if such a thing is possible, and just felt really far fetched and poorly resolved. Bart (Cathy's younger son) has inherited the Foxworth millions (kind of - he only gets some of it until he's older) and so has decided to rebuild the Foxworth mansion. Yes, the house that his mother was held captive in and that is the scene of so much Angst and Misery, that got finally burnt to the ground, gets to come back despite the implausible unlikeliness of this for this sequel. Even more unlikely, instead of everyone Fleeing for their Lives, they decide it would be really nice to go there for Bart's birthday party. Jory gets crippled at the party, and instead of going 'this house is where all our show more terrible things happen, why don't we go somewhere else' everyone goes 'oh, Jory can't walk, we'll just stay here for two years, even though it makes us deeply unhappy'.

Most of the plot is that Bart is being corrupted by Joel, his evil uncle. Or is he? Maybe he is just a nice old monk and Cathy is too suspicious? Maybe he is not really Bart's uncle? A huge pile of evidence builds up that Joel is Evil - the smashed up ship, the party where no-one comes, Jory being left exposed to the elements, the accident that cripples Jory - yet no-one really ever does anything about it. And at the end, he just wanders off back to his monastery to die, without any real resolution.

I will say, it is an interesting book if you want double standards on male and female sexuality. But 'read this, it has some stupid and infuriating stuff in it' is not a recommendation. Cindy is now a horny 16 year old, who is probably having more sex slightly younger than would be ideal. But Bart's over reaction - beating her boyfriend to a pulp, and carrying her naked up to the evil uncle so they can tell her what a whore she is - is insane and abusive, and yet the vast majority of the blame comes back to Cindy, who should have kept her legs together. And this is at a time when everyone knows Bart is sleeping with his lovers and using prostitutes in the village! Oddly, when Cindy does do bizarrely cruel things - she teases and taunts ex-monk-Joel at Christmas in a way that is just really rude - that's OK, because Cathy has a Feeling that Joel is Evil.

I'd have liked more about Melody. She's so weak - her husband is crippled, and she is depressed and then runs away - but in such an impossible position - Cathy is taking over the care of Jory and the children, and giving her no space.

The ending is rushed, and sad, but sad in a way that doesn’t fit with what has gone before. Chris dies in a car accident, Cathy grieves for 9 months and then dies, poignantly in the attic with a smile on her lips. I'm glad I made it to the end of the story, but really, I think the story ended at the end of book two... show less

I found this book to be so awful that I could not even finish it. I just skimmed through the last ten or so chapters to see how it ended. Cathy and Chris are two of the worst parents I've ever seen and seem to get dumber and dumber as each book goes on. With Bart's history, with their own history, and with the history of Foxworth Hall, you would think that ONE of them would have a clue in between them. This is not to be the case. They stand around like blithering idiots while things fall apart around them. If I were 15 I might be able to accept this, and maybe 15 year old's were the intended audience for this book. In the first book, I actually felt sorry for these characters. By the time I got to this one, I thought they were all horrible.

"Seeds of Yesterday" is the final saga of Cathy and Chris from the "Flowers in the Attic" series and the characters have come full circle in this novel.

It is now many years after the end of "If There Be Thorns". Cathy is fifty-two and Chris is fifty-four. Jory has grown up to marry his childhood sweetheart, Melodie, and both have become successful dancers. Bart has just graduated from Harvard Law School and although, as Cathy points out, his psychiatrists have declared him "cured", it quickly becomes evident that Bart is still suffering from some pretty serious issues. Corinne, Cathy and Chris' mother, has left Bart the rebuilt Foxworth Hall, which Bart plans to reopen and make the grandest home in Virginia.
Cathy and Chris have show more arrived, to live once again, forty years later, in Foxworth Hall. You would think they would immediately realize that this may not be the best idea, if for no other reason that their mental health, but no, they come for a fairly long visit.

Jory and Melodie come for a visit, along with Cindy (Chris and Cathy's adopted daughter from "Thorns") and their long presumed dead Uncle Joel Foxworth shows up - - much as John Amos Jackson did in "Thorns". Joel's only purpose seems to be to spout off Malcolm-like pseudo-religious vitrol - - why no one tells him to pack his bags and get the hell out is beyond me.

Although this story is told again from the perspective of Cathy, and feels much more comfortable than the narrative of "Thorns", Bart again seems depraved and warped. It's hard to have sympathy for a character that seems so unredeemable.

Chris and Cathy's love story continues and is as bittersweet and tender as ever. Their love seems genuine and real. As does Jory's love for Melodie. His eventual anguish over being paralyzed, losing his career and eventually his wife are the only parts of this story (other than Chris and Cathy) that ring true.

The rest of the story feels forced and the characters very one dimensional. Can Bart be any more like Malcolm? Can Joel be any more like the Grandmother? Can Cindy be any more like a young Corinne or Cathy? Even Jory and Melodie have blond twins, a boy and a girl - - giving us visions of Cory and Carrie.

Reading the story you wonder how much grief and anguish one family can take. And why everyone seems to be stepping around Bart and making excuses for him. You get to the point where you wish Chris or Cathy would just knock his lights out.

This book is worthy to read as a conclusion to the Dollanganger saga - - although the ending is a bit rushed and Chris and Cathy's demises are tragically sad.

Definitely does not compare to "Flowers" or "Petals" but as good as, if not slightly better than, "Thorns". show less

The forbidden love that blossomed when Cathy and Christopher were held captive in Foxworth Hall is one the Dollanganger family’s darkest secrets. Now, with three grown children and even a new last name, the pair seem to have outlived a twisted legacy. But on their son Bart’s twenty-fifth birthday, when the spiteful and disturbed young man claims his rightful inheritance, the full, shattering truth of their tainted past will be revealed at Foxworth Hall—the place where the nightmare began, and where Christopher and Cathy were once just innocent flowers in the attic…