V.C. Andrews: A Critical Companion

This is the first full-length study of the work of gothic novelist V.C. Andrews. Andrews's ability to create adolescent characters who are caught uncomfortably between childhood and adulthood has won her millions of teenage readers. She focuses on the female adolescent experience and connects with her readers by creating characters who reflect adolescent struggles, confusion, and pain. Huntley shows that the power of Andrews's novels lies in her creation of an enthralling nightmare world, like a fairy tale gone berserk, in which the young heroine struggles with adolescent fears and frustrations in suddenly dangerous and bizarre domestic settings. Huntley locates the novels in the tradition of the female gothic, which Andrews refashioned into her own brand of gothicism: a blend of the gothic with horror fiction and the fairy tale.