Flowers in the Attic. V. C. Andrews

Flowers in the Attic.
V. C. Andrews.

This book is generally classified as horror, though I don't know why as there's nothing really scary about it. Four kids are locked in the attic for a few years, so that their mom can inherit lots of money. After she does, she tries to poison them slowly.

The whole point of "willing suspension of disbelief" is that you will accept the premise of the book as long as people still act like people. And that is the flaw with this book: it's totally unbelievable. And as such, boring.

People usually say that this book is just about incest and child abuse, but it truly is not overloaded with nasty details -- only a few instances which are actually handled rather well. Indeed, the writing is good throughout, markedly so for this type of book. Character development, though, is its downfall: the narrator is the most believeable, but even she has moments of being too innocent.

Not too interested in the sequels, of which there are many.