Delia's Gift [Mass Market Paperback]

Just terrible. But the Mad Libs format would explain everything.

(Girl's name), a poor girl from (cultural background), is suddenly ripped from her poor but happy home and sent to live with her (evil aunt, evil grandmother, real mother). There she is persecuted by her (sister, half-sister, cousin, other female relative of similar age). She is sexually abused by (a teacher, her father, some guy in a swamp, her brother, random rapist). Eventually she becomes pregnant by (her brother, her boyfriend, a teacher, some guy in a swamp) and is left lost and alone. She is tormented during her pregnancy by the evil (nurse, nutty aunt, wife of the rapist, nutty great-aunt).

In this particular book, the last two chapters were particularly "tacked on." They were so different from the entire rest of the series, you have to wonder if someone scratched their heads and said, "But gee, shouldn't we give it a happy ending?"

I'm absolutely done with these books. Andrew Neiderman will not get another penny from me.

I have stopped reading the books that have been published under the V.C. Andrews name until recently when I was at the store and noticed the newest series "Delia". Intrigued and hopeful for a good read I went ahead and purchased the whole series.

I just finished the books and found myself extremely disapointed. Delia is a pitiful character who is a mere shadow of the glorious charaters that the true V.C. Andrews fans love. In my opinion Delia is completely ignorant and put herself into situations that anyone with half a brain could have avioded. She is constantly crying and has no backbone what so ever. Unlike other greater V.C. Andrews books, the greatest hardship that Delia must face after the death of her parents is having to wash a bathroom floor.

And the villans (who can be barely called that) have none of the evil flair that characters like Tony Tatterton and Olivia Foxworth seemed to radiate from the pages. By the end of the book the two "evil" relatives are both loving and friendly with Delia. Hello! What is the point of a villan if you like them by the end?

The plot of this series is as thin as water and makes me long for the wonderful days of the Flowers and Casteel series.

It amuses me that this book was released so early. It shows me that the publisher is getting tired of Neiderman's BS. Of course, I would also attest this to the poor reviews and sales of the last few series that Neiderman wrote.

Like all of Neiderman's more recent books (starting with Rain) these books are ridiculously easy to read, with bad metaphors and similes and cookie-cutter villains with contrived and paper-thin plots that even a soap opera wouldn't pick up.

Rain showed black people stereotypically, and the Delia series does the same to Latino people. Poor and rich people alike are also shown stereotypically (Delia v her aunt, cousin, and "father-in-law"), for example). VCAndrews worked hard to give her characters a personality, and for a while (Cutler to Logan series) Neiderman was actually trying also.

Now, Neiderman is just lazy. Like I said, his stories are cookie-cutter, and he thought that by having a Latina main character would garner him some new readers? Sorry, but it ain't happening. He tried to thrill us with a half-black main character, a woman who thought that her adopted father was her real father all along, a woman who might or MIGHT NOT BE LESBIAN!!!, a girl with a nutso mom who made her dress like her dead twin BROTHER, a girl who hit early puberty, a girl who has a crazy best friend, and now this.

VCAndrews would have written all the above characters well, so we could sympathize with them and feel for their plight. Instead, we just hate these characters. Personally, I hated Celeste for having no backbone in face of all the stupid things happening in her life, and I also hated the Broken Flower series the most because it was pointless.

Admittedly, Delia is a slightly better character with a SLIGHTLY better storyline than the last few - Broken Wings, Gemini, April Shadows, Flower, and Attic series. However, it does not hold up to the VCA standard. This Delia series would be better off marketed under Neiderman's own name, rather than under the VCA name.

Hasn't anyone noticed the steady decline in reviews as Neiderman publishes more and more books? Flowers in the Attic and Heaven have a decent amount of reviews for all of their books. But now, it seems that only a handful of people are reading them anymore and out of that handful, only a few actually liked it.

And the next series is supposed to be called 'Heavenstone Secrets'. Oy.

P.S. Neiderman is not only writing poorly, he is also writing less per book. What do you mean, you ask? Pick up a old VCA book - Flowers in the Attic, Heaven, Dawn... and open the book. See how full the page is of pretty words? Now, pick up a new book (Rain or any other book onwards) and compare how many words are on the page of a new book. See the difference? The old books were like, size 10 font, single spaced. The new books are like size 12 or 14 font, 1.5 spaced (or almost double spaced in the newest books!) Thus, we are not only given bad writing, we are given less to read - yet we are expected to pay the same amount of money we always did for a VCA book. This is a travesty. These new books shouldn't go for more than a dollar a pop if even that, because that's all they're worth.