Garden of Shadows

This book is the last in the Dollanganger series, but is the prequel to Flowers In The Attic. In it, we meet the young, handsome Malcolm Foxworth, who started it all. After taking Olivia for his wife, they retire to Foxworth Hall to raise a family, but darkness soon descends. Malcolm's father, Garland, returns with his new bride, Alicia, who is—of course—young, beautiful, and pregnant. Olivia has two sons, Malcolm and Joel, and Alicia soon produces a son named Christopher. Now the shenanigans begin. Lust and incest prevail—as it must with this bunch—and Alicia soon has a daughter in secret, fathered by her step-son, Malcolm. Alicia and her son, Christopher, move on, leaving her daughter, Corinne, behind. But is that the end of show more it? Oh, no. Now grown, Christopher—Alicia and Garland's son—returns and sweeps Malcolm's cherished daughter, Corinne, off her feet, starting the whole cycle over again (since they are half-siblings). But you really can't blame Corinne for falling in love with her half-brother since she only thinks Christopher is her uncle. (Are you keeping up?) What is it with these rich, coddled people? Oh, that's right...they're inbred. After these two young lovers are disinherited and banned from Foxworth Hall, they marry and raise four children—Christopher, Cathy, Cory, and Carrie. At the same time, Malcolm and Olivia grow old and bitter. Years later, after Malcolm suffers a stroke, Corinne, now a widow, returns to Foxworth Hall with her four children conceived with her half-brother, and the legacy of Flowers In The Attic is born. Gothic horror doesn't get much creepier than this. show less

My foray into Dollanganger hell continues.
Thanks, Alligator.

We're slowly reading this series out of order, since the question of the grandmother haunted us quite deeply after the ending of [book: Flowers in the Attic]. Why was the grandmother so crazy? Was she the true villain, or was it more Corrine? Is anyone in this family not entirely messed up? Well, the answer to the last one became blindingly clear by the end of this book. Everyone is terrible.

Olivia, the grandmother in [book: Flowers in the Attic], is the main character of this prequel. Here we learn how she became part of the Foxworth family, and just how things transpired between the children's parents. It's an... increasingly disturbing Southern Gothic Horror that lives up to show more all of the tropes of the genre. It's also deeply engaging even while making you continuously wonder why you're enjoying this trainwreck so thoroughly.

It's worth noting that while reading this I had the pleasure of seeing the Grey Gardens documentary and musical, and it was difficult not to see the disturbing similarities between the two and this book. Perhaps Olivia would have felt better with 52 cats, some raccoons, and opossums. Perhaps They would have been a bit better for her than John Amos's presence? Then again, maybe that just would have worsened things, and at least Garland was far more bearable than Big Edie when push came to shove. show less

After reading the rest of the Dollanganger series, I was naturally eager to start this book. It is stunning how a woman that you end up feeling sorry for turns into such a horrible person in FitA. Yes, Olivia went through a bad transformation, but here you see who the REAL villain is.

Tempting hints of Malcolm and Olivia's turbulent relationship with one another and their children and grandchildren were hinted at in previous books, but here, from Olivia's own viewpoint, we see why she has suffered. Mind you, this doesn't absolve her of the bad things she did to the Dollanganger children, but you can see how she became the kind of person she did, and what led Chris and Corrine to run away from home.

This book was started by V.C. Andrews, show more but she passed away from breast cancer before she could finish it, so it was finished by her ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman. He did a decent job, but he really should have paid more attention to what VCA wrote as he does several contradictions and retcons, including...

- The dollhouse that belongs to Olivia stays at her old house. There is no mention of it ever arriving at Foxworth Hall, as it does in Flowers in the Attic. (In FitA, Corrine tells her children that the dollhouse was in a glass case which Malcolm smashed so his daughter could play with it)

-In Flowers in the Attic, Corrine tells her children that Olivia was abused by her mother (she was locked in a closet, causing Olivia's claustrophobia and unwillingness to go into the attic), while in GoS, Olivia recounts a warm and loving relationship with a gentle mother, and goes into the attic several times, especially once when she has Alicia captive in there.

-In Garden of Shadows, Malcolm Jr. dies at Foxworth Hall in a motorcycle accident; in Flowers in the Attic, Corrine tells her children that he died at a cabin he had built.

-In Flowers in the Attic, Corrine tells her children that Joel ran away from home and sent a single postcard, while in Garden of Shadows, Olivia mentions many newspaper clippings were sent home. Corrine recalls Joel saying goodbye to his parents, while she was not present in Garden of Shadows.

-In Flowers in the Attic Olivia screams at Cathy and Chris that their parents eloped secretly and came back to ask forgiveness for falling in love. However, in Garden of Shadows, Olivia catches Christopher Sr. and Corrine making love. This leads to a confrontation with Malcolm and Olivia, after which Christopher and Corrine willingly flee Foxworth Hall.

-In Flowers in the Attic Corrine tells Cathy that she was 12, and out bike riding when she got her first period, while in Garden Of Shadows Corrine is 14 and proudly shares the news with her mother.

-In Flowers in the Attic, when confronted by Cathy, Corrine reveals that Malcolm wrote on a letter to her, in reply for her pleas for help after Chris Sr. dies, that the only thing good about their (Chris Sr. and Corrine's) marriage was the fact it didn't create any devil's issue (inbred children). In Garden of Shadows, Olivia says that she writes the letter, and Malcolm does not write anything on it. Also, Olivia does not let Malcolm know about the children, knowing that Malcolm would be bewitched by their beauty, especially the girls, and would not punish the children for the evil that their parents have done.

-In Flowers in the Attic, Corrine tells the children that her parents had forced her and her brothers to attend church every Sunday no matter what. In Garden of Shadows, there is no mention of the family ever attending church.

There's several more, but these are the most glaring to me. This book could have been better if Neiderman had been more careful about paying attention to what V.C. Andrews actually wrote. It's a shame that VCA had to die at a relatively young age, because look at what has been done to her legacy by Andrew Neiderman and Suzanne Andrews Myers almost 40 years later.

The classic stepback cover to this confuses me, and I've had discussions with other VCA fans about it. Personally I choose to believe that the people on the cover are a younger Malcolm/Olivia (front) and their old/bitter selves in the back. The reason I say this is because the younger woman is a redhead, while Corrine is a blonde. Some say the older couple is Malcolm/Olivia while the younger is Chris/Corrine. I'd love to know what the cover designer was thinking when they made that cover, because it's just weird to me, lol. show less

This book was so good. In some ways it was just as sad and creepy as the others. This one gave me an eye opening experience into who the grandmother was as a person.

I absolutely hated the grandmother in the first four books, but this one softened my heart towards her, though I ultimately ended up not liking her (great character, just ended up being a terrible person).

The grandmother's story started out as one of hope for a girl who didn't fit into society's definition of beautiful, something she desperately wanted. The repeated crushing of her various hopes and dreams and the twisting of her character by Malcolm and life's circumstances was a sad and terrible thing to watch.

I did enjoy getting to see that such an awful person wasn't show more always that way and even after she had become twisted, she still harbored a scrap of the person she once was. show less

I've always read books and in my early teens I read a lot of Catherine Cookson which I loved. When I was in my mid to late teens someone introduced me to Virginia Andrews and Flowers in the Attic. I had never read anything like it before and loved it so much I devoured the whole series.

I wanted to revisit the books as I had recently watched the adaptation on tv of Garden of Shadows and I'm rewatching the Flowers series. I still feel the same about the book even though it's probably been forty years that I first read the books.

Garden of Shadows is technically the fifth book in the Flowers series but the prequel. As I know the story it didn't matter that I've picked this book up first. Garden of Shadows is about Olivia and what happens show more when she marries Malcolm and lives her life at Foxworth Hall.

This book and the whole series are not to be underestimated though. This dark gothic family drama has lots of secrets. The themes in the book are as dark and include incest, rape, jealousy, cruelty to name just a few. These themes don't stop with this book either but continue through the whole series.

I still loved this book as much as I did the first time around. I'm so glad that I decided to reread the book and will certainly continue with the series. show less

"Garden of Shadows", the prequel to "Flowers in the Attic", goes back to unchartered territory and succeeds in giving a new twist to the Dollangager saga.

"Garden" is the story of Olivia (the Grandmother) - - a few pages about her upbringing by her loving father, before we are taken right into her "arranged" marriage to Malcolm Foxworth, a good looking young man whom she feels love for, but that quickly turns on her wedding night when she is raped. Olivia comes to find out what a horrible, cruel and manipulative man her husband is - - he married her specifically because she wasn't pretty and attractive, a woman as opposite from his own mother as imaginable.

Olivia quickly supplies Malcolm with the heirs he requires and her life becomes show more a sad day after day of a loveless marriage. She is only spared by the arrival of her cousin, John Amos Jackson, who begins preaching religion to her, giving her a new place to turn.

And such would her life have been, had Malcolm's father Garland not arrived with his new teenaged bride, Alicia.

Without giving away too much of the story, or the spectacular twist that is revealed, I found "Garden" to be an absolute engrossing read. I even found sympathy with Olivia, despite her future actions in "Flowers" -- her coldness and seeming indifference is somewhat explained in "Garden". The character of Malcolm is shown in an even clearer light as manipulative, depraved and suffering from severely dysfunctional mother love/adulation/hatred.

Prequels often tend to fail, but "Garden" succeeds in being a fascinating story and giving a new twist on the old familiar Dollanganger saga. show less

This book was so good. In some ways it was just as sad and creepy as the others. This one gave me an eye opening experience into who the grandmother was as a person.

I absolutely hated the grandmother in the first four books, but this one softened my heart towards her, though I ultimately ended up not liking her (great character, just ended up being a terrible person).

The grandmother's story started out as one of hope for a girl who didn't fit into society's definition of beautiful, something she desperately wanted. The repeated crushing of her various hopes and dreams and the twisting of her character by Malcolm and life's circumstances was a sad and terrible thing to watch.

I did enjoy getting to see that such an awful person wasn't show more always that way and even after she had become twisted, she still harbored a scrap of the person she once was. show less