Gates of Paradise

My friend wanted to read this book on her Kindle, but was not allowed to download it, (copyright laws as living in Cyprus). I purchased this book for her Christmas present and she was delighted with it. As an added bonus it arrived, roughly the time they said it would.

VERY REPETITIVE.. Read it because I am a sucker for MFM book suggestions. So being part of side bar book club is pretty sweet. This book repeats a lot & for something that I would have adored in middle school or early highschool. Hopefully the next book in the MFM book suggestions side bar club will have a better one :)

I really love VC Andrews, and the earlier novels especially. My Sweet Audrina is filled with the same suspense and enthralling qualities as Andrew's other novels, with added twists and turns along the way.

I adore VC Andrews and read everything that is put out. This book kept me guessing until the very end. The characters are well defined and how they interact with others really shows the personality.

From beginning to end this book is just strange. Audrina is an extremely mature girl of 7 years old who can't remember anything leading up to the day the story begins. Her 'Papa' puts forces her to rock in a rocking chair so she can experience some sort of supernatural healing process. Her mother and Aunt have weekly teatimes with their dead best friend Mercy Marie who's photo sits on the piano while her mother and Aunt exchange bitter barbs between them. This story also has many echoes of characters and themes from other VC Andrews books: the bitter and violently jealous sister, the childhood puppy love that turns into an early marriage, family secrets, old money, a large and gloomy mansion. The book will keep you guessing but mainly I tossed around a few explanations for the secret behind the First and Best Audrina, knowing that more than likely one of them would be correct. Its not a bad book but Audrina becomes tiresome by the end of the book and the recurrence of 'accidents' in the home becomes a bit too much to be believable. I also thought there were a few loose ends that weren't quite tied up and the ending is BAD. Just awful. It ends in a hurry as if VC Andrews just wanted to be done with it already and couldn't figure out how to make Audrina go out with a bang.