Book Information

Corliss by VC Andrews

Publisher: Pocket Star

Publication Date: June 12, 2017

Genre: Romance | Series

Purchase: Kindle

Author Information

Virginia Cleo Andrews was born June 6, 1923 in Portsmouth, Virginia. While a teenager, Virginia suffered a tragic accident, falling down the stairs at her school and incurred severe back injuries. Arthritis and a failed spinal surgical procedure forced her to spend most of her life on crutches or in a wheelchair.

Virginia excelled in school and, at fifteen, won a scholarship for writing a parody of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. In 1972, she completed her first novel, The Gods of the Green Mountain, a science-fantasy story. It was never published. Between 1972 and 1979, she wrote nine novels and twenty short stories, of which only one was published.

Promise gleamed over the horizon for Virginia when she submitted a 290,000-word novel, The Obsessed, to a publishing company. She was told that the story had potential, but needed to be trimmed and spiced up a bit. She drafted a new outline in a single night. The ninety-eight-page revision was re-titled Flowers in the Attic and she was paid a $7,500 advance. Her new-generation Gothic novel reached the best-seller lists a mere two weeks after its 1979 paperback publication by Pocket Books.

Upon Andrew’s death in 1986, two final novels — Garden of Shadows and Fallen Hearts — were published. These two novels were considered the last to bear the “VC Andrews” name and to be almost completely written by Andrews herself.

Author bio condensed from Goodreads

Corliss Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Flowers in the Attic and My Sweet Audrina series, now Lifetime movies, comes a haunting new novella featuring a mysterious, highly intelligent teenaged girl as she struggles to survive high school and understand her place in this complex, sometimes dangerous world.

Corliss is not like other girls at her Los Angeles high school. Incredibly intelligent, shy, and a loner, she has difficulty in fitting in. What’s worse, a clique of girls is out to get her after she refuses to take drugs with them, leading to a violent confrontation. When Corliss is unknowingly drugged, her entire life is turned upside down and no one — not even the handsome valedictorian who had agreed to go out with her – looks at her the same way. Will she be able to return to her high school or is there another path she can take? And where will it take her?

Corliss Review

When I first read the concept for the Girls of Spindrift series I was intrigued. When I learned that the first novel, Corliss by VC Andrews, was available as an early read through a site that I review books through I had to jump on it. I’ve been a VC Andrews fan since I was a teenager so having a new series by her is amazing. However, once I started reading I was greatly disappointed.

Overall Corliss is a good novella to open the Girls of Spindrift series and I hope that Donna, book two, will be even better. My issue with Corliss was actually in Corliss herself, how she is portrayed in the synopsis versus how she is portrayed at the beginning of the book. The synopsis makes one think that Corliss is a smart girl (or “nerd”) and that the popular girls make fun of her for this. However, the book actually comes off with Corliss being antagonistic towards the girls and actually starting them onto her. Does this make what the girls say and then turn around and do right? NO! In no way shape or form does it. However, it also doesn’t make Corliss the completely innocent girl the synopsis makes her out to be either. This is actually a big deal for me, especially when it comes to things like bullying. If a book portrays a character a certain way in the synopsis and the rest of the synopsis leads the reader to think that the character is bullied by no fault of her own and then in actuality that isn’t what happens then people will start to think that way about bullying in real life. “Well Suzy says that these girls bullied her but I’m sure that she probably did something to provoke them, we’re just going to let it go with a warning.” Whether or not the current Ghost Writer for VC Andrews meant for the synopsis and book to be taken that way, I have no idea. Whether or not Pocket Star meant for it to be taken that way, again I have no idea. I do know that is how I took it and it made it rather hard to get into the rest of the book.

If you’re someone that can get past that kind of thing and you’re a V.C. Andrews fan then Corliss might be something you should pick up to try. However, if you’re like me and this kind of thing bugs you then you may want to give this a skip…or wait for your library to have it as a digital lend!