Released in 2005, April Shadows, it says on the cover, is the "first in the new series that dares to break all the rules!" Well, I must say that that is a lie. This story breaks no rules. It's like a dead end. You read chapter after chapter, expecting a major conflict or character evolution and it just never happens.
The situation that the story starts off in is okay. It's a first person account of the main character, April, telling us about how her father, once a loving family man, turned into a mean "Mr.Hyde". The reason for the change in his behavior is kind of weak, in my opinion.
Then the story more or less focuses on the relationship between April and her older sister Brenda. It is obvious in the story that Brenda is a lesbian, it just takes April entirely too long to come to terms with it. The sexual preference of Brenda seems to devastate April for some reason that's not really justified. It's just annoying.
When I think about this book, one of the biggest problems I have are with April herself. She's a wimp. She's confused and whines about most of her situations. I kept waiting for her to toughen up and that never happened.
This book also had a tendency to have unnecessary details. For example, April was learning how to play chess and the book went on pages with a dialogue of actual chess lessons that added nothing to the story.
This novel was more like a story trying to be like V.C Andrews, rather than an actual V.C Andrews. There is a second book in the series, Girl in the Shadows, but I doubt I will waste my time reading it.
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