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Product Description
Book Description
APRIL HAD ALWAYS FELT LIKE AN OUTSIDER.
Her older sister Brenda was tall, athletic, competitive, and sure of herself. But April Taylor was short, sensitive, and overweight -- and she couldn't bounce back from their father's cutting criticisms the way Brenda did. April didn't know why their once-loving dad had become a coldhearted monster, but she was sure it had something to do with her. And she could see how his cruel behavior was tearing away at her gentle mother. But a glimmer of happiness returns when Brenda brings home her college roommate: beautiful, bewitching Celia. And April wonders if she might not be so different from Brenda after all....
About the Author
One of the most popular authors of all time, V.C. Andrews has been a bestselling phenomenon since the publication of the spellbinding classic Flowers in the Attic. That blockbuster novel began the renowned Dollanganger family saga, which includes Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows. Since then, readers have been captivated by more than sixty novels in nearly twenty bestselling series. V.C. Andrews’s novels have sold more than 106 million copies and have been translated into twenty-two foreign languages.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.3 out of 5 stars (20 customer reviews)
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Fat-phobia at its finest., Mar 27 2006
By Amy Short - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: April Shadows (Mass Market Paperback)
I used to be a VCA fan. I even stuck with the books after Neiderman started writing them, and helped run the biggest (at the time) internet fan club for her. I grew out of her books somewhere after the Melody series, and since then haven't read her books that often. However, this book caught my eye. "Dares to break all the rules"! That's what the cover said! So I picked it up, and hey- April is short, sensitive, and overweight. Well, that does indeed sound different, I think to myself. How nice it'll be to read a book with a chubby protagonist, I wondered how the issue of her size would be dealt with.Well, let me say this: poorly. Very, very poorly. Throughout the entire book April does not once ever think anything nice about herself or her body. She's criticized constantly for her size, and she refuses to stand up for herself. It's not at all an exaggeration to say that at least once every five pages there is some mention of her being "overweight", "obese", "20 pounds too much" or some other phrase that points a negative view on herself. There's huge focus on her dieting and on her sister and father being angry with her for doing things like - oh my god - eating a meal! To say that I was disappointed in this book is an understatement. In a world where there are so many young girls with eating disorders and self esteem and self image issues, this book only goes to further perpetuate it all. It's funny, because I always laughed at the typical moaning of VCA's characters over their "bony collarbones", but at least those characters appreciated their bodies for what they were, in spite of their flaws.
There are other issues in this book - yes, there's a homosexual theme. Yes, it's predictable. There are so many stereotypes floating around in this book that it's ridiculous. Brenda, the jock lesbian. Peter, the Native American whose sole purpose in the story is to tell April about native lore and to "follow the wheel." Of course, there's the chubby April, who's fat because she's lazy and eats too much.
I would say that the one and ONLY positive part of this book is in the way that it deals with Brenda and Celia's relationship - very straightforward and without a lot of explaining. Their relationship just is what it is, and there's not a lot of controversy around it. (You may insert your own controversy if you wish..)
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
UGH, Aug 19 2008
By M "CultOfStrawberry" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: April Shadows (Mass Market Paperback)
I stopped buying VCA books after Black Cat, and sold all of my VCA books that came after the Logan series. The only reason I read the April Shadows was because my roommate had both books, and since it was free... why not?Even free, I still feel used and wasted. These two books are NOT VCA. Nowhere even close. April is not a good VCA name like Heaven, Dawn, or Ruby. The titles did not make sense. April wasn't a real heroine. There were no horrible, dark secrets (her father's secret was laughable) and no real family secrets at all. This book focused a lot her stumbling (and unrealistic) explorations of her own sexuality. And two books for this series? Come on...
I'm waiting for V.C. Andrews to climb out of her grave and rip Neiderman a new one.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Incredibly boring book...and I'm not even finished it yet., Jun 18 2006
By LoVe2ReAd - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: April Shadows (Hardcover)
I keep finding myself thinking "who cares?!" This book drags on and on and on. There's no suspense AT ALL. In the first few pages where we hear about Mr. Hyde, I pretty much deduced that Matt Taylor was in fact sick and that's why his behavior changed. No suspense. I knew the sister would end up gay--I don't agree with that lifestyle, but since I enjoy VC books (which occasionally had incest), I knew to expect one of the two. Figured out which it would be once they started pimping the fact that she never went on dates, boys liked her but she didn't give them the time of day, BLAH BLAH BLAH. It's all so very cliche. The story isn't interesting. April is a wimp, and halfway through the book, nothing about her has changed. It's making me feel as if it's not worth finishing. And that's disappointing b/c when I first started reading VCA books in school, I couldn't put them down....loved the Casteels, the Cutlers, the Adares, the Landrys, Logans, and to an extent, the Hudsons. I would search high and low in my county's libraries for an entire series just so I wouldn't have to wait to read the next one. Not soo anymore. I picked up the next in the Shadows series, but it looks like I'll be returning it along with this unfinished one.I hope one day the ghostwriter wakes up and goes back to VC's glory days.
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