There’s always plenty of new book releases to choose from but sometimes it’s even more fun to read an old favorite. I am a diehard V.C. Andrews fan… well, a fan of everything released before 2010, that is. V.C. Andrews died in the 1980s and an author named Andrew Neiderman has been writing under her name since then. He is still releasing new books to this day, but they tend to be pretty bad. One of his series that I remember loving, though, is the Logans. I read this one as a teenager, so it’s been interesting revisiting it as an adult. The first book in the series is Melody and that’s what I’ll be talking about today. This review will be spoiler free.
Synopsis:
Melody Logan knew her beautiful mother, Haille, was unhappy in their hardscrabble mining town…
But with her wonderful father’s unwavering love, Melody always felt safeāuntil a dreadful mine accident ripped her from her family’s moorings.
She was still devastated by her father’s death when she left West Virginia with Haille to follow her mother’s dream of becoming a model or actress. But first they stopped in Cape Cod to visit her father’s family at last.
Melody knew only that her grandparents had disowned their son when he married Hailleājust because she was an orphan, her mother said. Yet moments after Melody first laid eyes on dour, Bible-spouting Uncle Jacob, nervous Aunt Sara, and her cousinsāhandsome Cary, whose twin, Laura, had been killed recently in a sailing accident, and sweet, deaf little MayāHaille announced that Melody was to live with them.
Sleeping in Laura’s old room, Melody was awash in a sea of grief and confusion, with only her beloved fiddle to comfort her. Then Cary revealed the truth he’d gleaned about her parentsāa sad shocking story that only puzzled her more. Melody knew nothing of the dark deceptions that would soon surface…the devastating betrayals she would face before she glimpsed the faint, beckoning lights of a safe harbor…
My Thoughts:
- Rating-Ā
It’s been around fifteen years since I first read this book so I went into it remembering the gist of the story but not much else. I definitely didn’t remember just how terrible the adults are. Terrible, awful adults are in pretty much every V.C. Andrews’ book, with some being worse than others. In this one, Haille, Melody’s mother, is the definition of a spoiled, male centered woman. She doesn’t care about being a mother and has no problem dropping Melody off with family she’s never met. The other main adults that we see here are Uncle Jacob and Aunt Sara. Sara is kind but traumatized after losing her daughter. She’s focused on molding Melody to be just like her dead daughter, Laura. Then there’s Jacob… who’s honestly ridiculous. He gets mad if Melody even breathes and honestly, I hate every scene that he’s in.
As for Melody, unfortunately I didn’t like her as much as I did the first time I read this book. She’s around sixteen years old and she definitely acts like it. She’s very much “not like other girls” and even makes a comment to herself about how fat her best friend Alice is. She has an air of superiority that can grate on the nerves and in true teenage fashion, thinks she knows more than all the adults combined. The writing is fantastic because Melody is accurately portrayed as a teenager, but she can be tiring. The other kids in the house, Cary and May, are more secondary characters here but they become more prevalent in the next book.
This book in general is more of an introduction to the characters and the setting in Cape Cod. I wouldn’t say that a ton really happens and it could be considered boring, but it lays the groundwork for the rest of the series. I also just love the way the V.C. Andrews books are written. They’re so charming and so dramatic.
Final Thoughts:
I’m currently reading book two, Heart Song, and will have a review up for it soon! This series is giving me all the nostalgic 90s vibes with a heavy dose of Lifetime worthy drama, so I’m happy. I’d love to know if you’ve read anything by V.C. Andrews and if so, what’s your favorite book or series? Thanks for readingš¤
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