I’ve been really procrastinating reviewing this book. Secrets in the Attic by V.C. Andrews/Andrew Neiderman bored the absolute life out of me. I own all of the Andrews’ books and since I started my blog I’ve been reviewing them so I wanted to get this one out of the way. I’ll give you the book synopsis and then my thoughts below. This review will have spoilers.

The Synopsis

Two Friends As Close As Sisters.

One Killer Secret That Will Tear Their Small Town Apart.

In the dust and shadows of the attic, they shared everything — fanciful stories, high school crushes, plans for the future, dreams to travel the world. For Karen, the attic is her escape from the reality of her stepfather’s unwanted attention. Together in the eaves of a house with its own murderous history, the best friends concoct a scheme that will put Karen’s stepfather in his place. It wasn’t supposed to turn deadly. But in the attic Karen shares one more secret with her best friend — a secret to take to the grave….

My Thoughts

My first complaint with this book (of which there are many) is the blatant, obvious title rip off from Flowers in the Attic. Flowers in the Attic is arguably the MOST popular V.C. Andrews book series and was written by Andrews herself before her death. Neiderman was apparently out of ideas and knew that this title would make people curious and wonder if it was similar to Flowers in the Attic, it isn’t.

My second complaint is all of the characters. Yep, every one of them. They were all unbelievably boring, under developed and unrealistic. Andrews/Neiderman books are not known for realistic characters and that’s fine. Part of why I love these books is because of how over the top dramatic they are but the characters in this one are just stale.

Third complaint is the worn out, over done, beat to death storyline. Of course there was over sexulaized teens, a teenage pregnancy, somebody got thrown into an insane asylum and the naive main character tried to keep everything under control. I get that Neiderman follows a formula for these stories. They all have similarities. I don’t read these books because they’re upstanding literature; I read them because they’re usually entertaining and they’re nostalgic for me. This story was just boring even with all of those things because it just felt like Neiderman was out of ideas. This story is a crappy mixture of previous books.

Do I think you should read this book? Maybe. I know that might sound crazy after the awful review I just gave it but the sequel to this book, Secrets in the Shadows, is better than this one. Basically, if you’re a fan of these books and you just read them all then yeah give it a try. If you’ve never read any books by Andrews/Neiderman then stay FAR AWAY from these. Go read Flowers in the Attic, the Landry series, the Logan series or the Casteel series.

I’ll have the review up for Secrets in the Shadows in just a few days. Let me know what your favorite Andrews book is! Thanks for reading and have a great day!