Flowers in the Attic: V.C Andrews

This was laborious to get through. A family with 4 children lose their father and instead of finding work, the mother goes back to her parent's house hoping to inherit their fortune. The mom was disinherited because she married her uncle. This book insists this is a heroic thing as they followed love...even within the family. The mom never tells her father that she has 4 children, so she locks them upstairs. She goes out with friends and lives her life trying to get into her father's favor and into his will because he is sick. The children are boring and annoying and I kept waiting for something to happen to redeem the story, like they find the game Jumanji in the attic or something...but alas, it was just a lot of wasted time finishing the book. Eventually the 2 oldest; Chris and Cathy, fall in love and have sex, which again the book makes seem totally natural and not disgusting. The two little twins health declines through the novel and the boy, Cory dies of "pneumonia" which is really arsenic poisoning. The mother tries to kill all four children because her father's will gave the fortune to her only if she didn't have any children from her incestuous marriage, or with her new husband. The three remaining children escape and evidently become a family and raise the remaining baby. So many things were wrong with this book- train wreck!