Heaven

What girl makes it through her teenage years without reading a V.C. Andrews novel? I’m not sure how popular her books are now but they were all the rage back in the 80’s and 90’s starting with the explosion of Flowers in the Attic. Andrews’s books seem to be brought up whenever the topic of guilty pleasures arises and they are certain one of mine, so today I chose review Heaven, the first book in the Casteel Family series. 

Heaven-Leigh is a teenage girl living in the backwoods of West Virgin with her grandparents, step-mother, father and four siblings. Due to tragedy and abandonment the family’s lives take an unexpected turn when Heaven’s father decides to sell each of his children to different homes. This book depicts the struggle Heaven experiences living with her family in a shake in the woods as well life with a couple that buys her all while dealing with missing the mother she never knew. 

As with all VC Andrews books, there are a lot of odd situation of abuse but surprisingly this book doesn’t deal with incest like some of the others. If you are looking for a guilty pleasure this one does okay. It is not my favourite of hers (well I think I should say his because the ghost writer is male) and I lacked the desire to continue on with the series. It actually took me a long time to finish reading this but I chose this for the first review because it was the Last Andrews book I read. Perhaps the other books are more interesting so maybe I may pull the other books off my shelf and give it a go. 

Surprisingly on other sites like Amazon, Heaven has pulled in higher ratings than I would have given. If you are a first time reader of Andrews do not start here, but if you have a few of the other series under your belt then you may want to pick this up at the library. If you like Heaven then maybe you would like to purchase the rest of the series.