Customer Reviews

Broken Wings

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The ONLY good thing about it was that there were no annoying letters by other "VCA Heriones" to try to get you to buy "their" book. If someone like, say, Willow, were to write the girls saying, "I think we are truly sisters of the heart. It takes my breath away! Please read my books!" I would scream! Rip my hair out! Burn the books! As it is, I am very annoyed and refuse to read another VC ghostwriter book again. What "startling surprise" did we get here? What "new characters"? Every VC ghostwriter character is EXACTLY the same with different looks, though I find similarities from all the grls all the time The difference here is these girls whine as they're doing drugs and running away! 0 stars for me!

Well, after reading quite a few of V.C. Andrews books, I am relieved to say that our ghostwritter has finally found the groove.

Orphans and Shooting Stars and whatever the heck the other miniseries was, were alright, in some parts, and just plan reeked in others.

This one, however, actually got me into the book, and the ending actually made me curious and want to go read the next book; what a book should actually do.

The good:
New types of characters, not so innocent, not so bland

The bad:
It got repetitive and predictable by the end

The ugly:
The sex scenes. If you can't do it right, don't do it at all

These three birdbrains are for the birds.

Robin, a bird's namesake who is taken from her salt-of-the-earth moralistic grandparents in Ohio to chase her mother's dream of performing in the Grand Ole Opry. Naturally Robin resents leaving the strict moralists; once in Tennessee she runs around with a questionable crowd; shoplifts and gets a stupid fat girl named Kathy to cover for her when she shoplifts. She also gets involved sexually with an older man and goes joyriding. Her antics finally land her in court and a judge remands her to a special school in an undisclosed location. A Dodge car picks her up and deposits her minus her belongings to this undisclosed place.

Teal, another birdbrain who is named after a bird (teal duck) is the classic, stereotypical "poor little rich girl." Unwanted by her disinterested parents and ignored by her adult brother, Teal steals and runs with a wild crowd. She will do ANYTHING for affection and attention and when she steals a bracelet costing some $10,000.00 she is placed under house arrest. She has an affair as do most GW/VC Andrews girls and this Mary-Sue character has an affair with a boy on the other side of the economic tracks. He at least seems like a nice guy. They run away together with his younger sister and brother in tow, but reality forces them to return and Teal is placed on a plane to an undisclosed location.

Phoebe, also an avian namesake lives in Georgia with her salesman father. Phoebe's mother, like Robin's (birds with singing mothers) cherishes a dream to sing in jazz bars. She deserts her family, leaving Phoebe to her overwhelmed father. Phoebe is barely literate and, like the other Mary-Sue characters in this book runs with a wild crowd. When her father is killed in an accident (so many of GW/V.C. Andrews' characters are killed off in car accidents - at least ONE car accident claims at least ONE casualty in just about every V.C. Andrews series), her aunt and uncle take her in. The aunt, a stern and moralistic sort grudgingly does her Christian duty and her uncle Buster, a dour soul lays down some more laws. Their two children do what they can to be thorns in Phoebe's side. Once in this affluent suburb of Atlanta, Phoebe is enrolled in a local school where she is placed in a self-contained class for children with learning disabilities. It is there she learns she has dyslexia.

Like the other Mary-Sues V.C. Andrews books are INFAMOUS for, Phoebe has an affair with a rich boy named Ashley. They are caught in the school nurse's office. Phoebe STILL doesn't get the message and she runs away, this time to find her mother who is in a hospital. Once there, she is captured and brought back to her Uncle Buster who arranges to have her transported by ambulance under sedation to the mystery school.

This ain't great, but it'll do for reading on a plane. It makes you wonder when the very last GW/V.C. Andrews will be written. The sex scenes are trite; the characters are almost always Mary-Sues and the same themes keep cropping up. Thank goodness there is no villian named Olivia or twins or a tired brother-sister union thrown into the mix.

This book is for the birds (buzzards that is), if they'll have it.

This was actually one of the better 'VCA' books that Neiderman had published in a while. Unlike the last few books before this, I actually enjoyed Broken Wings. The stories of the girls were believable. It really is too bad that its sequel, Midnight Flight, was actually one of the WORST 'VCA' books that Neiderman ever published...

I thought this book was okay. I didn't like that once you started to get into the characters the story ended. I like the series better, like Ruby and Dawn. I recently read a book by another author, Sherry A. Mauro. Her novel EVEN ANGELS FALL is similar to VCA's narrative style. I highly recommend this book to any VCA fans and horror/mystery booklovers!

Totally dissapointed. Why? Because like the latest books shot out of the V.C. book making machine characters did not seem really developed. Born to be bad..ok. They steal, lie ,drink and sleep around and act totally messed up which is a nice change of pace but I felt like it was the same paper dolls just dressed in biker chick wear this time. The characters don't seem very fleshed out to me and it's merely their anti social actions that seperate them from Melody or Laura in my mind. And the thing about them going to some 'special' jail. Gimme a break! Hopefully it's not going to be like the Orphan's or Falling Stars with some evil person running the place. Imo, it would be interesting to see them try to fend for themselves in a real jail. But these are V.C. girls, soft and sensitive inside, they would be pounded to play do putty in five seconds if they were in a real jail!

Let me start off by saying that I'm glad that the author decided to put all the girls stories in one book, instead of using four (or in this case it would have been 3) different books. Also, these characters are a nice change of pace from the usually VCA girls who are weak goody-two-shoes. It's good to see VCA girls that aren't so perfect, and doing bad things for no true purpose. Robin's story is the best, and although Teal's story is good she comes across as a "poor little rich girl", Phoebe's story kinda dragged on, although it was shorter then the other two stories. I guess the author got bored with it and decided to wrap it up quickly. For the most part this book is really good, the reason I gave it 3 stars was because I thought the prologue was unnecessary, and Phoebe's story didn't hold my attention at all.

This book has a very satisfying balance. For once, these girls are not the innocent (and sometimes extremely flaky) victims of circumstance that become devoured by the "cruel" adult world. Like Hannah, they are more balanced, and take a large part of the blame because their behavior is genuinely bad. Their parents as well, react realistically to these little problem children. No one rapes them, no one locks them in the closet. The parents rant and rave and ring their hands, tell them to act like adults and finally end up giving up on them. This is also done very realistically, for the most part. They are in no way the cruel adults from Ruby or Dawn, although they sometimes act ridiculously as well.
This story is told from the perspective of three girls, Robin, Teal and Phoebe. Another thing, I love is that these girls don't have wacky names. I mean, Cinammon? You call a horse that.
The first story is Robin's. She is travelling to Tennessee with her mother who is pursuing a dream of being a country music star. Her mother is laughingly immature sometimes, but she comes across as one of those street smart women with a heart of gold and honorable intentions. Robin doesn't care much for her and constantly refers to her as "Mother darling". She blames her mother for a pretty significant mistake that she made a long time ago. I don't blame her for this, but she thinks this gives her the right to smoke and shoplift and genuinely be a pain in the butt. So Robin is sent to a special school where she meets the other two little darlings. All this is pointed out in the prologue so I'm not spoiling anything.
Next is Teal. She is a genuine brat. Teal is also a pathological liar. She feels that she is not loved because her parents keep telling her to act like an adult-and she does, need to act like an adult. Throughout her story, she reminded me of numerous past VC. Andrews villians, Clara Sue, Fern, Vera and Gisselle come to mind. This is refreshing, because the ghost writer has never done this before.
I haven't read Phoebe's story yet, but it looks like quite a whopper from the excerpt in the beginning of the book.
This book is pretty entertaining and frequently amusing. So far I like it. The ghostwriter is divine for long flights and car trips when you want to just chill.
But---if these girls end up burying anyone, related to them or not in the backyard in the sequel (or in this book) I swear I will never read another VC Andrew's book again.
Well except for the real ones, when VC Andrews was an author instead of a genre.

I haven't read a novel by V. C. Andrews since the series that began with "Flowers in the Attic", but that was a long time ago, and I should have expected something different. I was still somewhat disappointed that this one wasn't in the same genre, and more in Young Adult territory, but it was entertaining all the same. This is the story of three teenagers from different walks of life, but each firmly on the path to self-destruction.

Robin is from a broken home, doesn't know who her father is (neither does her mother) and has been forced to move to Nashville with her mother, who is pursuing a singing career. She constantly gets herself into trouble, until she meets a boy with even worse problems, when everything finally falls apart.

Teal has everything a girl could dream of, except the love of her parents. She was born after her parents had passed the point of wanting children, and never felt like a part of the family. To get the attention she craves, she keeps pulling wilder and more dangerous stunts, and when she meets a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, she stretches way too far on her already insecure limb.

Phoebe was born into problems, with an irresponsible mother and a weak-natured father, and when her mother takes off for parts unknown, her father leaves her in the care of her aunt and uncle, who are strict disciplinarians. Unable to stay out of trouble, she meets a wealthy young man who has selfish motives of his own.

This is where the story leaves us high and dry, and you need to get the sequel "Midnight Flight" to see what happens to the three in the end. The story of the troubled teenagers is a "to be continued"


Amanda Richards, January 21, 2006

I think readers will enjoy this story of three struggling adolescent girls. The three girls are all sensitive, attractive, and intelligent, but they are all struggling with difficult home situations. It is not tremendously surprising, under these circumstances, that all three get themselves in trouble as a result. This book must be read with its sequel becuase that book shows how the lives of these very different girls intersect and how they all become close friends. I was surprised by how touched I ultimately was at the conclusion of their story. You will be too.