Book Report and Review for Flowers in the AtticEssay Preview: Book Report and Review for Flowers in the AtticReport this essayHave you ever imagined living locked up in an attic for 3 years and 5 months? Have you ever imagined not growing up with your mothers care and love at the time you were 5? Flowers in the Attic is one of the more original series written by V.C. Andrews of the Dollanganger series. It is one of the best books Ive read because its depressing and dark yet heart-touching. In this book report, the setting, plot and the characters of the book will be included. Flowers in the Attic is one tragic yet a hopeful story of four children.
The setting of this book changes as the story goes on. First, it takes place in a small yet plentiful house in Pennsylvania. But after the death of his father during a car accident, the mother and four kids, move down to Virginia to the kids grandparents house. However the main setting of this book should be the attic and the small, cramped room the kids stay in. The attic was full of dust, mice, spider webs, ancient furniture and dirty mattresses. There was only one window, which barely showed any sunlight because it was always closed. The small room where they slept was stuffy, hot, but chilly at the same time because it was dim, without any natural coming in from anywhere, because as again, the evil grandmother keeps the shadow down so no one would notice the kids. The places in the book seems real to me because it was the 1930s and 50s, which still had mansions around that people live in with dirty attics.
This story is mostly about the four unlucky kids who were locked up in a cage like an animal, just waiting and waiting for hope, but only everyday they seem like they had something; it was only one small step to the pain. The four unlucky kids consider of Christopher, Cathy, Cory and Carrie. Christopher, who was handsome, young, and smart, was always optimistic and also very caring and loving with his younger siblings. Cathy, who told the story, was very beautiful and gorgeous. But personality wise, she was opposite of Chris, thoughtful and pessimistic about things that was going on in her life because she is in a much shaken environment and is depressed. Cory and Carrie was the youngest and they were the twins. They looked just liked dolls with glowing hair and fair complexion that is until they become stuck in the attic. Cory is a quiet, silent yet protective boy, while Carrie is babyish, cute, and girly like a princess. The twin grew to each other eventually because they were only 5 years old when they got locked and they has no one else but to support each other, while Cathy and Christopher was like their mom and dad. But it wasnt just the twins that had an effect. Cathy and Christopher themselves, as they grew more mature, had grown fond of each other, and even the feeling of love overwhelmed them through the years of only seeing each other growing more mature physically, mentally and emotionally as Cathy quoted, “I think Ive grown wiser than that mountain than in the past 3 years stuck in the attic reading all the library books.” Because of their personality, they had a very well balanced emotion and answers to different conflicts. For example, Chris would always tell everyone to cheer up and keep the hope up high for the twins and for Cathy, which helped them probably live longer and still be in sense. Cathy, more like the mother kind of nature, was helpful because sometimes you just need someone to take care of children, to remind you of whats right or wrong when you are in panic. Cory had a huge effect of his sister and it was the vice versa too. They would sit there and listen to each other talk, and accept each other more than normal sister and brother would.
The general storyline of this book is four children suffer greatly from not having proper care and health. They stick together through challenges the mother and grandmother put them through. The mother, Corrine, who is obsessed with money, eventually reduces her love for their children, as her father was willingly but not completely accepting her back again, from the mistake she made of marrying her half-uncle 15 years ago. The grandmother, who is very cruel and is very cold-hearted, gave nothing to the children, not even a smile, and kept on saying they were the devils work. As their mother enjoys herself in the sunshine with her new boyfriend, the four unhealthy children sits in the dusty attic cutting flowers and trees to at least try to make a fake garden for themselves to at least imagine that they were in a park running around with beautiful butterflies. The climax of this story is a part when the grandmother gets her whip and tells both Cathy and Chris to strip, so she can whip
The Children
One of the best-known of John’s works, this novel is filled with heartbreaking details about two and a half million-year-old animals: the baby monkey, and the monkey that the protagonist of one of the children wants to kill. The first is described over and over again in the pages of the book and the second is often described in little pieces and stories. In each chapter the reader feels the need to read over the details and feel the sense of closure they are experiencing when they walk into the light of day on a sunny afternoon in the woods, listening to the rain wash through a young man’s hair. These moments are not always brief, however. When the children were born, their mother died and she was the only child, yet the family she loved to children and children, who were adopted, kept working. All of this, not to mention three years of living alone in the woods, to a man who never told her where she was going, how she was going and where. He had to stop talking to her when he was a little boy; all of this at once became a child’s nightmare.
However, when the child, Cathy, is killed, the mother is taken care of and they are left to wonder exactly where she was living and what she was doing. When these things occur, they are more than just physical agony.
Chapters and stories that focus on children and their problems are often called “horrendous” by detractors. Yet, the most frightening reading of this book comes when the reader can’t get their heads around a detail, and yet the novel’s theme of the four children’s lives is conveyed with great clarity by this book.
The Children
John always seems to get things right: he likes to think about how he could have done more to help his family than any other woman I know. But, even when he has good intentions and he is the one helping them, he never takes his anger or frustration away. He is always right. Cathy is always right, she has never felt any pain but that pain should not hurt her feelings any more than anyone else’s. He is always right, he is always right. We are all going through the same things over and over again, that it is always always the same, when you start feeling the world around you as if it were yours, and then when you feel the world around you that’s not because of you as much as it is because of how things are. When you start feeling the world being around you at this time when you are trying to stop it, then the world gets in your way too.
In John’s experience, his mother was constantly wrong in her interpretation of his life or of all things, and so John was always right when he felt the universe around him being wrong. He was always right, he always was. And that’s exactly how he feels with these children. Even when they are only trying to keep him from saying what he did.
Chapters from John’s experience make him think of the children he sees so often with great intensity, in these tiny glimpses of nature beneath their feet.
Chapters and stories that are like this, and I don’t recommend the children read this book too often, for it does have a sense of absurdity in its overall look – it might be confusing at times, confusing to have to talk to one child, and some characters might even get stuck in a fight. But, while that is a problem, it’s quite hard to get people to see what this book does. I just want them to learn how to care for these children. What about our own children? The Children tells how children, when they are in their late teens or late twenties, are affected and sometimes physically violent by the world that surrounds them.
It is easy to make a case over and over that John’s children are suffering the same way as