V.C. Andrews Trash

FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC ¦ paper flowers never to be colored yellow, never to be seen

some mothers are impossible to love. [ insp. ]

—Twilight Eyes, Dean Koontz

Cathy Dollanganger moodboard

Milton Charles was the accomplished designer and artist behind the cover of Flowers in the Attic. Charles’s idea was to create a die-cut window that would show a single character on the front cover at first glance, and then would reveal a cast of characters behind the ‘house’ when the reader turned the page to what is sometimes called the ‘stepback’. The contrast in the cover between the stark, graphic, almost secessionist-style house – resplendent in foil – and the almost photo-realistic portrait of the family (illustrated by Gillian Hills) is both queasy and intriguing. It also cleverly evokes the narrative without being too explicit – had he shown the whole family in the attic on the cover in the first place, the magic would have been completely lost. The books that followed directly after Flowers employed Charles’s established template – stark imagery with foil and a die-cut revealing photo-realistic illustration of the book’s characters. (x)

i’m mostly pissed off that it’s not called garden of shadows bc… the fuck?…. can lifetime ever do anything right?????

i think i’m gonna go with flowers but my sweet audrina is a very close runner up

At least for me, of course.