I read both at the age of twelve. I "borrowed" them from my grandmother, and when I confessed she said I may as well have just asked.
They provided such an atmosphere in my mind, so vivid and disturbing. I always felt like I was right there, in the attic, and in their hotel-style bedroom below the attic. I actually would recommend these books to twelve-year-olds, as weird as that sounds. (Albeit there are no twelve-year-olds in my family to recommend these books to...) I think they're fine because kids that age need to learn about deep emotions, and these books even provide an outlet for said emotions, somehow. I have reread both of them many times, although not recently. The author is amazingly good at capturing emotion and creating a scene and creating an environment. In my mind, I always hear Pavane by Gabriel Faure when Catherine dances in the attic. VC Andrews has been one of my major influences as a writer. The movies are horrible. They don't capture that emotional content. They just make it factual. (I don't recall the original movie very well, so I'm mainly referring to the recent Lifetime one.) It's the emotional content that needs to be captured--how loyal they were to each other, the passion behind Catherine's dancing, etc. I know the book goes kind of taboo with Catherine and Christopher, but in the circumstances it makes sense. What other author could even come close to pulling that off?
