Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger by V.C. Andrews* | Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Is it possible to scrub a book from your memory? 

Oh, boy. If I could give less than a star to a book, this series would be one of the half stars. Total. All three of them. Ugh. Where to begin? Well. My first thought is terrible. Just as God-awful as the first in the Diaries series, Echoes of Dollanganger and proves once again, for me, that Andrew Neiderman has no business writing under the V.C. Andrews name anymore. It's time to let her legacy go on as it should have been to begin with. Which each release under the V.C. Andrews name, I can't help but ask myself two things.

Why and how did these books get published to begin with?

Shudder.

Gone are the signature trigger warned novels and in their place is a clusterf*ck of dullness.

Whereas the original/real V.C. Andrews titles were all horrific, cringey, campy fun--the better part of a decade of the books released through Neiderman's era of V.C. Andrews have been some of the worst pieces of literature I have ever picked up. Granted, he gets a half star for trying to return to his former glory (some of his earlier work as V.C. Andrews was at least mildly plausible and a bit entertaining) all the while attempting to capture the spirit of V.C. Andrews' greatest works. I'll say it again, like other reviews of this series: it's a train wreck you can't look away from.

While I can look away, eventually, from all that he has produced and milked into this series, I can't get into his desire to retcon the original stories. That's a spoiler for the next installment.

Furthermore, why are we still publishing add-ons and spin-offs to the Dollanganger series? I mean, sure it's an iconic property and the last few years have been full of Lifetime adaptations of the classic V.C. Andrews stories. But what was the point? We see only a glimpse of Foxworth as we knew it through the eyes of this new character as well as in Christopher's journal, diary, whatever, but it's so endlessly dull I kind of wanted to hit myself in the face with it.

Beyond this, I can't remember anything that happened in it. It's that bad and forgettable. I'm quite insulted on V.C. Andrews' behalf because frankly, this is just disrespectful. And so bloody pointless. Echoes of Dollanganger was not the book for me and I stand by this. Her legacy, fans and stories deserve better than this.