FAQ

Not a real FAQ, in that I only made my first post an hour ago and no one's asked me anything, frequently or otherwise. But a few questions I suspect will come up along the way.

What are the "canon eight"?
The canon eight are Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, Garden of Shadows, My Sweet Audrina, Heaven, and Dark Angel.

Why are you only doing eight books?
V.C. Andrews died in 1986. Only eight books can be directly attributed to Andrews herself, and even of the "canon eight," there's some debate about whether the last few novels were wholly written by Andrews, mostly written by Andrews and completed by her ghostwriter, or entirely written by the ghostwriter based on notes and/or drafts written by Andrews before her death. Garden of Shadows is an iffy book on my list, but I have a Compelling Argument that that book was almost wholly written by Andrews, which I may reveal later when I review the book or if I happen to be very bored one day.

But mostly I'm doing those ones because everything after that point really sucks.

Who is V.C. Andrews's ghostwriter?
It's a pretty open secret these days that Andrews's ghostwriter is novelist Andrew Neiderman, who wrote the wonderfully creepy psychosexual horror novel Pin, as well as the novel that became the film The Devil's Advocate, back before a full-time career of being V.C. Andrews became more lucrative. He still writes under his own name and has published about a novel a year since the 1980s.

Have you read all the novels? Like, all of them?
No. I stopped reading Andrews around the time of the Cutler Series. Which coincidentally was when they started to suck. I have read the first two books of the Landry Series, which also sucked, although I have my suspicions that they may, in fact, have a touch more Andrews than some of the other later books. I have lots of theories about V.C. Andrews.

Will we get to hear these theories?
Probably! It's just that some of my theories are speculative to the point of litigation. I probably need some kind of disclaimer, don't I?

Do you plan to read all the novels?
Not if I can possibly help it. I may spot-read some of the later books if someone can convince me it's worth it.

Would you ever review the Flowers in the Attic film?
Oh my God yes. ("EAT IT, MOTHER! EAT THE COOKIE!") But let's see if I can get through the books first, okay?

Why do you hate V.C. Andrews?
I don't hate V.C. Andrews! Honestly, it's hard to know anything about V.C. Andrews and still hate on Andrews. By all accounts she was a very unhappy woman who lived her life housebound by physical illness, but who nevertheless made a wildly successful career for herself, retains an army of fangirls thirty years after her death, and is warmly remembered by her family and friends. I don't even hate her books. I just think they're hilarious.

God, do you only read trash? Why don't you read a real book?
Oh! You're looking for my other review site, The Complete Annotated Dostoyevsky Blog-O-Rama. It didn't go anywhere. Because Dostoyevsky isn't fucking funny.