Secret Brother (Dollanganger)

I would like to start this review off with a prayer (not written by me) regarding this new book. One might wonder why I am adding this, but you will see why. (the prayer comes from a wonderful VCA fan page 'Attic Secrets' on Facebook)

"Dear Lord. If you are out there please answer my prayers.
I will receive my copy of VC. Andrews Secret Brother tomorrow. I worked hard babysitting, doing chores, cleaning up around the house to earn money to buy the book.
I swear, I was a good obedient girl. All I hope for is that you grant me this one wish.
Let Secret Brother answer the mysteries of who is Kristin's mother, and what happened to Bart Jr and Jory and their children, let us know how Cory was taken to hospital even though we know it was too show more risky for John, Olivia and Corrine to let him be treated in case he could tell doctors the truth. Let us know exactly who receives Chris Sr's letter. And lastly dear God, let this not be another pointless story.
Let it actually be a story about a Dollanganger child and not just some hopeless story of a random, spoilt brat that we don't care for. Thank you for listening.

-Wilted Flower"

Are Wilted Flower's prayers answered? NONE of them.

This book is utterly ridiculous. The story is more about Clara Sue (no, not Clara Sue Cutler) than it is about Cory, her "secret brother" who is adopted by their grandfather after her brother dies at the same hospital that Cory is dumped at after the events of Flowers in the Attic. In Petals on the Wind, it is made pretty clear that Cory died, and that his body was hidden away in Foxworth Hall. Yet we learn in the previous Diaries book that Cory is still alive (yes, Neiderman pulled a huge, and sloppy retcon) and that he is the one behind the restoration of Foxworth Hall after Bart burned it down.

We learn nothing new about the Foxworths. Nothing new about the Dollangangers. Which, I can honestly say, doesn't surprise me at the very least. Whenever Neiderman did touch upon the Foxworths/Dollangangers in this new series, he always did so with a clumsy touch, pulling retcon after retcon. And this is WHEN he bothered with them at all - most of this series wasn't even about the original story, just stupid boyfriend/girlfriend drama with Kriston in the previous 2 books, and Clara Sue in this book.

For eff's sake, stop publishing these books. The ghostwriter made much ado about this series on his VCA Facebook page, saying that we would learn new things, that the Foxworth/Dollanganger story was not over, that there were plenty of secrets left, etc etc. For all the advertising he did, all the hype he created over this series, you would expect that this new series would have something worthwhile about it.

WRONG. So, so, so, so, soooooo horribly WRONG.

He completely failed to deliver on these promises. There is absolutely nothing worthwhile about this series for anyone who's been a fan of the original series. This series is by far one of the worst he has ever written, not just for how he handled the story itself, but the sheer cheesiness of his writing. Neiderman has gotten much worse in his prose since he penned the spectacular Cutler family series. Seriously, it's almost hard to believe that the same person who penned such an enjoyable series also wrote this junk. It's obvious that Neiderman needs to do two things.

a. Slow the eff down with his writing. When you look at how many books he has written over the past 30 years, he averages over 3 books per year. This is less than 4 months per book, and books also need to be edited - seems like there is none being done at all now. The quality is so poor that I'm surprised he's still being published. There have been so many complaints about the newer books yet he cavalierly continues to churn out this garbage. Maybe he needs to just step away from the computer and take a year's sabbatical or something to recharge his writing juices, or something like that.

b. Retire from the VCA name. Personally, I don't care if he wants to continue writing under his own name. It's his name, so whatever. Let him do as he pleases with his name, but with over 70 books under the VCA name (when the real VCA only wrote 8 books in her lifetime) this ghostwriting situation has gone beyond ridiculous. When a ghostwriter's career (and number of books) far exceeds the original author's own, it's past time to stop. VCA wrote (or started) less than 20 percent of the books attributed to her, isn't that ridiculous?

Long story short - this Diary series simply is not worth your time, or money. It takes Neiderman 3 books to tell us essentially nothing new about the Foxworths/Dollangangers. By all means, avoid, there are so much better books out there. What Neiderman and the publishers are doing now is beating a dead horse, and in this case, the dead horse has been reduced to a broken, already turning to dust, skeleton.

Fuck this shit. show less

Secret Brother is Book 3 of The Diary series. Corrine and Garland are finally wed, but she's so self-absorbed that she doesn't even notice that Garland is controlling her and that enormous house has more secrets than you can imagine. As Garland eventually has her around just to look pretty, she begins having difficulty controlling their son's tandrums, she becomes jealous of Dora. It seems that everyone knows about these secrets except Corrine.

After the death of VC Andrews, I thought that no one could replace her or have a writing style similar to hers. But Secret Brother was a very happy surprise. I was drawn in from the very beginning, this was a fantastic novel. It is a wonderful addition to the Flowers In The Attic series.

I don't understand some of the comments on here. This was a good stand alone book, but it needs another book after it to give more information on the Count and his life after he grows up. I still have more questions, but I don't think it was as bad as everyone made it out to be. I think he left it open to write another book, but the reviews are so bad I am not surprised he didn't write another one. I wish he would. Maybe the Count could meet with Kristen and they could both talk about what they know. Maybe it would help them out together.