I eagerly gobbled up Sue Townsend's "Adrian Mole: the Lost Years", which covers 1984 through 1991, roughly, and enjoyed the heck out of it. Funny, charming stuff. Then I moved on to garbage :)
Years and years and years ago, my little sister and I both devoured V.C. Andrews' Casteel family series. Over the weekend, with piles of brand new books waiting, I instead choose to reread the first three in the series. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.
"Heaven" introduces us to the Casteel family, the lowest of the hillbilly scum in the mountains of West Virginia known as the Willies. Heaven lives with her father's parents, her father and stepmother, and her four half-siblings in a tiny two room shack. She learns at the age of ten that she's not fully related to her brothers and sisters, that she is instead a product of her father's first marriage to a young Bostonian runaway named Leigh (the fact that her younger brother is only 6 months younger than her might have tipped me off, but hey, she *was* only ten when she found out. Of course the really horrifying part is that Luke was fooling around on his wife who was six months pregnant. That gives you a good idea as to how awesome he is). The Casteel family have it pretty rough in their mountain shack, and when Luke, her dad, gets sick and starts spending less time with the family, his wife and Heaven's stepmom Sarah gets pretty irritated and eventually she takes off, leaving the kids to fend for themselves and look after Grandpa after Granny dies. Dad decides to sell his kids rather than, hmmm, I don't know, take care of them. I actually thought this was a good idea on his part, and the kids should have been grateful. I know I would have been, to escape that awful miserable poverty. And luckily the two little kids go to a great home and live happily ever after (although their relationship seemed like it might go incestuous, but hey, it's V.C. Andrews, and that's par for the course) but Tom, Fanny, and Heaven aren't so lucky. Heaven ends up in the home of one of Luke's ex-girlfriends, Kitty, whom he knocked up before Leigh (good grief, dude). Kitty gave herself an abortion and ended up barren, so she was excited to be able to buy one of Luke's kids. She basically treats Heaven like a live in slave, making her cook, clean, do the laundry, for hours on end before and after school. And her husband seduces her and takes advantage of her. Still, all in all, I think it was a better ending than staying in the shack in the Willies. At least she didn't starve to death.
"Dark Angel" has Heaven going off in search of her mother's Bostonian relatives and finding out they're fabulously rich (there is always a pattern like this in Andrews' books, god love her) but very twisted. Turns out her step-grandfather was the one who got her 13 year old mother pregnant, and that's why Leigh ran away from her wealthy Boston home and ended up with Luke Casteel. Awesome. Of course she found out after she had fallen in love and decided to marry Tony's younger brother Troy, who is her uncle. Whoops. When we were kids my sister and I *adored* Troy. We swooned every time he was mentioned, and rereading it I'm not sure why. He's kind of annoying, all doom and gloom and "oh my god I just know I'm going to die before I'm thirty" blah, blah, blah. Dude! You're fantastically wealthy, a talented artist who gets to spend his whole day doing whatever he wants, and gorgeous. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO BE DEPRESSED ABOUT?? Seriously? Anyway, Heaven graduates from college and returns to Winnerrow, the little town in the valley of the Willies, to teach school there to the poor hill children like she always planned.
In "Fallen Hearts" Heaven marries her high school sweetheart, Logan, and they go to Farthinggale Manor, Tony Tatterton's home, for a reception. Tony offers Logan a substantial part in his company, which Logan eagerly accepts. Heaven has dark reservations about how Tony is trying to control their lives, but Logan is so excited about being a rich businessman that she goes along with the plan. Logan is building a toy factory in Winnerrow and makes frequent trips back there, so frequent he manages to knock up Heaven's sister Fanny. Whoops! Meanwhile, Heaven discovers that Troy faked his own death, and after a night of forbidden passion she too is pregnant. Jesus, doesn't anyone use condoms around here? It's not difficult, people. So Luke and his new wife are killed in an accident and Heaven takes over custody of their little boy, Drake. What really got to me in this book was how she was so eager to return to the Willies and kept waxing poetic about how wonderful it was. Um...no, I read about your childhood and it sucked pretty bad. Give me the big Boston mansion and the servants and the Rolls-Royce any day. But maybe I'm just shallow like that.
Anyway, when Fanny steals Drake with the intention of keeping him just because she's petty and jealous and wants whatever Heaven has, there's an ugly court battle where are their dirty laundry is aired in public and in the end Heaven ends up paying her a ton of money to turn Drake over to her. I don't know why she wanted him so bad, anyway, since she had her own kid on the way plus she wasn't even related to Drake since Tony Tatterton was her biological father, not Luke Casteel. Well, whatever. In the end Fanny and Heaven give birth on the same night, Fanny to Logan's little boy whom she names Luke, and Heaven to Troy's little girl (although Logan doesn't know it) whom she names Annie. At least Heaven wasn't all high and mighty over Logan after he knocked up Fanny, since she'd slept with Troy, after all. Out of all of V.C. Andrews books I think I like this series the best because there is no predictable evil grandmother and the characters are less annoying and more likable than some of the other series. I stopped reading halfway through "Ruby", so the only other series I have to compare it to is the "Flowers in the Attic" (EPICALLY bad, love it) and the Cutler series, which I honestly don't remember that well. There are no excuses ever made for Tony Tatterton, the real villain of the whole story. I think I will be rereading for a bit. Which is not good, because I have a ton of brand new library books. But I've found in the past that when I try to force myself NOT to reread, it just doesn't work out. I need to go with it until it's done.
No comments:
Post a Comment