Author: V.C. Andrews
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: January 27, 2015
Copy: Borrowed from my Local Library

I’m still way behind on reviews but I need to get this one done while it’s fresh.

Echoes of Dollanganger picks up where Secrets of Foxworth left off and it’s disturbing. There is a part of me that just wanted to put it down and walk away, never to pick up a new title in this universe again. But I’m tragic and even though there’s not enough time in the world to read all the books I want to, I just couldn’t resist; even though I have described this book in some pretty colourful terms that were even worse than the trainwreck that was the other new book in the broader series.

Kristin and her boyfriend, Kane, are about to continue their reading of the diary together, upstairs in the attic to try and get in character. I always thought this was a little odd, but Andrews takes it darker and more twisted than I imagined. I found the whole thing very disturbing, they went beyond getting in character to re-enacting and it left my skin crawling at times.

Outside of the attic the two are withdrawing from their friends and Kane’s behaviour is getting a little erratic, I came to be quite concerned about where his behaviour was leading.

Mr Masterwood is rebuilding on the Foxworth property, things keep changing and not all is as it seems with the property’s owner. The mystery deepens and though Mr Masterwood claims that it’s not really his concern he is intrigued, as is Kristin.

The reading of the diary sees Kane and Kristin reveal some of their own secrets as they try to relate to the Dollanganger children, and we see a different side to them.

I knew about the massive change to the original story, and have read the story that comes after this, but it still bites that such a huge part of the unfolding narrative of all the books after Flowers in the Attic, and the development of the characters, can just be rewritten on a whim.

The one thing that this book does do is cement the fact that there is a strong strain of mental illness in the Foxworth line and it hasn’t managed to skip Kristin, though she may not be suffering as much as some of the others.

When I first read the Flowers in the Attic series about a million years ago it was disturbing, in the circumstances, but this went beyond that and the characters were disturbing.

I am not quite so filled with vitriol at this book and the ghostwriter who is destroying the V.C. Andrews legacy as some of the reviewers I read on Goodreads but I very much doubt that I would even consider reading it again, and I am looking forward to putting the saga to rest.

I gave this one 2 stars because I was hooked, I had to know what happened. I also got sucked into the mystery of the new owners and had to know how that played out, but I didn’t love it.

It still feels like a money grabbing rehash that takes the present to even darker places than the past and I hope that the ghosts of the Dollangangers are soon finally allowed to rest.