Seeds of Yesterday by V. C. Andrews
The fourth book in the Dollanganger series returns to Cathy as our story-teller as she narrates the story about her children Jory, who is now 29 and an accomplished ballet dancer, and Bart, 25 who as before desires to be wealthy and successful.
I did not finish this book, I just simply couldn't do it. At around half (during the Christmas chapter) I just had enough and I couldn't go on anymore, so now I'm writing my final words on this which I'm not going to call a review since I didn't finish it. Why was it beyond me to keep reading? Many (too many) reasons:
1) This story is yet again told by Cathy. In my opinion it would have been better to stick to the old format by it being told by Jory and Bart from their points of view, because the story is about them and not their mother. Nothing really happens to her (at least as far as I read) so she is useless as a first person narrator.
2) I didn't feel a connection with any of the characters. If it had been told by Jory the author could have told the story of his struggles in a sympathetic way, probably. But as it is he barely existed as a character before the accident but whatever there was before is now completely erased and replaced with God only knows what. He could have been a character I could connect with, but he wasn't. It wasn't Cathy because like I said nothing really happened to her, or Chris because during this book I realised that I hate him, positively loathe. His problem is he's just too good. All the stuff he went through didn't change him, gave him no flaws to make him, you know, human. He is all perfection and constantly scolds Cathy because she got burned when walking through fire. Chris just annoys me to no end. And I couldn't like Cindy (the adopted daughter of Cathy and Chris) because it feels that she was written as an embodiment of all the immorality and wickedness of the youth of today (which I find weird to say seeing as how she would now be older than my mother). She is, in a few words, a dumb teenager and it seems the author didn't take time to even think about this character, let alone write her good.
3) I didn't understand our, well not exactly villains, our bad-guys-and-girl. First Bart as a character has the same problems as in the previous book. What exactly makes him so angry and hateful? It was supposed to be shown in If There Be Thorns but it failed to do that so there is no explanation for his actions. In fact at one point he even says to his mother that reading Malcolm's journal about how his mother ran away with her lover and left him to live with a cruel father and all that hate that Malcolm felt for his mother rubbed of on Bart..... are you kidding me? If Cathy had actually been a terrible mother I could see how that journal might inspire Bart to be what he is, but she isn't, that is precisely the problem of the story. If you would, say, switch Bart with Chris I could see how he became what he is, but that's not how the story goes. Bart had a happy and protected childhood with loving parents. If Chris and Cathy had any faults in his upbringing it might have been that they spoiled him. And then there's Joel (Malcolm Foxworth's youngest son and therefore Cathy's uncle who was presumed dead). Right from the start Cathy and all the other "good" characters don't like him, except of course Chris. They all say he is creepy and what not without first showing Joel do anything wrong or letting the reader come to that conclusion without the characters spoon-feeding us what he is supposed to be. But what annoyed me most was that he was (at least in my opinion) an impossible contradiction. He says that in the monastery, away from all the luxuries he previously knew, he found peace, but is shown to be full of hate... so which is it? Is he lying? Then why would he be still living in simple rooms (called by everyone ugly) and praying constantly for long periods of time. But what's worse is the hypocrisy of the story. When, at the beginning of the book, Bart throws a huge birthday party for himself Cathy lectures him that it would be better to have small party and that money can't buy happiness and all that. But later when Bart throws a lavish Christmas party and Joel says that "it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God" and that all that money would be better spent on charity, Bart is angry at him and Cathy is glad that Bart is "seeing Joel for what he really is" and she hugs him and says God is on his side, because clearly Joel is just jealous of what Bart has and he just sees everyone as heathens. There are times when the story clearly shows him as a villain but then there are times when it just confuses me. And finally - Melodie. Out of all the unrealistic and impossible characters she is the worst. After her husband, the man she knew for 15, if not more, years, is seriously injured and can't no longer walk, let alone dance she immediately ceases to love him. Who does that? It would be one thing if she was just some gold-digger who was with Jory because he was a ballet star or something like that, but no. They had a loving relationship, a baby on the way, but then he is injured and she can't even visit him in the hospital right from the start. Again I say - who in the world does that? Maybe I could understand it if it happened slowly with time, if it was a story how after no longer being able to dance Jory lost his purpose to life and their relationship slowly deteriorated then I could believe that, but the story that is given to us... just a few weeks after the accident Melodie pretty much plainly says that Jory can't dance, we can't have sex anymore so I don't love him, all the while carrying his baby. I don't really think anything more needs to be said about her because, like many others, she barely exists as a character as she's nothing more than Jory's WIfe. Nothing more is said about her and her character doesn't exist separately from other people.
4) One last thing that really bugged me was the Cathy-Cindy relationship or more precisely Cathy's hypocrisy in criticising Cindy's un-modest and un-lady-like behaviour. Cindy's big sin is that she had sex with her boyfriend. So despite the fact that at the same age Cathy was sleeping with Paul she scolds Cindy for disappointing her. All the time she looks at Cindy like this virginal angel and then is disappointed when she turns out anything but that. That was the part that most disappointed me about Cathy. She doesn't even stop for a second to think that maybe her lifestyle (current and previous) should make her less judgey about such things, but no. Apparently what is allowed to Jupiter, is not allowed to the ox as the saying goes.
Ok, now this is become more of a rant than just a few last words.
But with all that said, and I think I've said everything that was on my mind, I didn't finish the book so it might be entirely possible that the second half is so much better, that it sets all the nonsense straight and makes the entire book enjoyable. All that might be possible for all I know but I honest to God don't care. I am done with this series.
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