Baker's Dozen

Hey everyone, so I decided to do a series of reviews that I'm going to call Baker's Dozen where I'm going to talk about my favorite 13 books that I have read.  Now while I have read a lot of books there are those books that I always find myself gravitating towards to re-read over and over again.  So let's start this off.

P.S. these books are not in any particular order in which are my favorite.  I can't number them.

Baker's Dozen 1: My Sweet Audrina by V.C. Andrews

My Sweet Audrina by V.C. Andrews is considered a Gothic novel.  Now V.C. Andrews was one of the first author's that I started to read at a very young age.  I remember in middle school, I would eat lunch away from the cafeteria just so I could read these books in peace before I had to go to band class.  Out of all of the V.C. Andrew books that I have read, My Sweet Audrina is special.  Out of all of Andrew's books, this is her only stand-alone book, all of Andrews other books are a part of a series.  Also this is actually one of the few books that Andrews actually wrote and completed while she was alive.

The author V.C. Andrews died in 1986, and after her death, members of her family saw all of the story ideas, plot and partial ideas she had and decided to hire a ghost writer, Andrew Neiderman, to finish the novels.

My Sweet Audrina follows the character Audrina Adair from the age of nine into her adulthood.  Her whole life is basically based on a lie where she is told she was named after her older sister, whom she shares her name with, and is living in her shadow.  The "better" Audrina died at the tender age of nine, as a result of a brutal rape by a group of boys she went to school with.  Because Audrina grows up with the constant fear of boys and is sheltered by her father from the outside world, she lacks certain growth and development that a normal child would have (this is a constant theme with many of Andrews books, where the main characters have something traumatic in their life that is a road block.)  Also the character goes through many tragedies, the loss of a mother, finding out that her father isn't who she thought he was and taking care of a young sister with down-syndrome.

As an adult, Audrina marries and tries to find normalcy with being an adult but finds that too much of her past blocks her from blossoming as a women.  And let me tell you, there is a lot of drama and twists and turns in this book.

I first read this book when I was 14-years-old and find myself re-reading it.  As an adult I find different facts and details that as a teenager I frankly didn't pick up upon.  Now as I've gotten older and I have to be honest, I haven't read a V.C. Andrews book for almost 5 years.  To me the newer books have lost their magic, I don't know if maybe the details on how Andrews wanted to write the books aren't as in depth since she died 26 years ago, so their are more of what the ghost writer wants.  If you ever pick up a V.C. Andrews book, My Sweet Audrina is the one that I would suggest, it's classic Andrews writing with the Gothic tones throughout the book.  Plus because this isn't in a series you don't have to worry about being lost in the book.  While there are several V.C. Andrews books that I love this is my ultimate favorite and that is why this is part of my Baker's Dozen list.



So what do you guys think?  Do you like the idea of me revisiting my favorite books of all time?  Do you have your own baker's dozen?  Plus I will be giving each book in the baker's dozen post their own post so it will not be a gigantic mess of words.

p.s. I'm thinking of doing a Book VS Movie series, what do you guys think?  Please comment and let me know.