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Heaven
Heaven
Heaven
Audiobook14 hours

Heaven

Written by V.C. Andrews

Narrated by Candace Thaxton

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

From the legendary New York Times bestselling author of Flowers in the Attic and My Sweet Audrina (now Lifetime movies) comes the first book in the Casteel Family series—for fans of Emma Donoghue (Room) and Kay Hooper (Amanda).

Of all the folks on the mountain, the Casteel children are the lowest. Even the families that buy them think so.

Heaven Leigh Casteel may be the prettiest, smartest girl in the backwoods, but her cruel father and weary stepmother work her like a mule. For the sake of her brother Tom and the other little ones, Heaven clings to the hope that someday she can show the world that they are worthy of love and respect.

But when the children’s stepmother can’t take it anymore and abandons the family, Heaven’s father hatches a scheme that will alter her young life forever. Being sold to a strange couple is just the beginning; ripping away the thin veneer of civilization and learning the adult secrets of the world around her means Heaven must abandon someone, too—the child she was, to become the woman her mother never had the chance to be.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 19, 2019
ISBN9781508261032
Author

V.C. Andrews

One of the most popular authors of all time, V.C. Andrews has been a bestselling phenomenon since the publication of Flowers in the Attic, first in the renowned Dollanganger family series, which includes Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows. The family saga continues with Christopher’s Diary: Secrets of Foxworth, Christopher’s Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger, and Secret Brother, as well as Beneath the Attic, Out of the Attic, and Shadows of Foxworth as part of the fortieth anniversary celebration. There are more than ninety V.C. Andrews novels, which have sold over 107 million copies worldwide and have been translated into more than twenty-five foreign languages. Andrews’s life story is told in The Woman Beyond the Attic. Join the conversation about the world of V.C. Andrews at Facebook.com/OfficialVCAndrews.

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Reviews for Heaven

Rating: 3.8515283318777294 out of 5 stars
4/5

458 ratings21 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I first read Heaven in the late '80s maybe early 90s. After recently the seeing the television movies I decided to reread the series. Let me first of all say that in this audio version the narrator was horrible. She did a good job with a couple of the characters who had whiny personalities. But on the "normal people" she was very nasally and unpleasant to the ear. It is very interesting reading the book with 30 years of life experience since the first time. How much bad luck can one person have? I really enjoyed it and look forward to the next one. However, it is narrated by the same person so I will probably download it to my Kindle.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The book is good as always but this reader SUCKS SO BAD!! I hate terrible narrators. They kill the book.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Great book, intriguing start to a new v.c. Andrews series. As always there were gut wrenching parts that made me yell out loud in outrage, in warning and parts that just made me hang my head for the characters.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I have been a big fan of VC Andrews, and read these books in print as a child, along with her other series. So happy to be able to read them again through audio, listening :-) going onto the next book!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It was captivating. Loved this book and its twists and turns
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It was kinda a slow start however it was good
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book, the first of the Casteel Saga, was tragic and poorly written, but for V. C. Andrews, it was relatively tame. It opens with a poor family living in the hill country of West Virginia—a place the author calls the Willies. The protagonist is Heaven Leigh Casteel, a ten-year-old whose birth mother died when she was born. She finds out early that Pa hates her because of it. Step-mom, Sarah, is an enigma. She has raised Heaven, produced and raised four children of her own, takes care of Grandma and Grandpa, and does all this in a run-down cabin, with no heat, little food, and non-stop work all for the love of a man who never comes home then gives her syphilis. She finally leaves—thank you, Jesus. Pa then proceeds to sell off his children. Some of the children wind up better off, but not all, although there are no rapes and no incest. At least, not yet. I can't wait to see what the next book in the series brings. Trashy good!
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This year, I decided to do a 12-book reading challenge. Or, if I'm being more accurate, I decided to buy the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge book log because it was beautiful, and it contained a challenge, so I'm doing it.Anyway ... Challenge #2 is "Read a book you would normally consider a guilty pleasure". This was a problem for me. I don't have guilty pleasures. Philosophically speaking, I don't even believe in the concept except as a manifestation of the many things wrong with our society. If what you're doing isn't harmful to another and you enjoy it, it is simply a pleasure. I'm not embarrassed by the things I love. After some thought, I concluded that the closest I could get to this would be to pick up a book that I had loved in my early teens. Given how much I've changed over the course of a few decades, I was bound to find something to be embarrassed about in a book I loved then. If nothing from your teens gives you cause to blush as an adult, you probably didn't do it right. I settled on Heaven by V.C. Andrews, because I read it when it came out. I was 13, and, oh, how I loved V.C. Andrews. How I loved this book in particular. I tore through all of the books she had written and was genuinely upset when she died in 1986. I thought I might feel mildly embarrassed to have loved such a soap opera as a teen. I suspected the writing might not be that great. I vaguely hoped that I would find it to be good, that I would learn that even if my taste had been somewhat more salacious at that age that I still would find some familiar seed of quality in the book. What I have found is so much worse than I expected.These books are absolute trash. Racist, classist, slut-shaming stereotypical garbage all mixed in with every trope ever to have come out of the unhappy mind of a properly angsty pubescent teen girl and strung together into a borderline magnificently bad story. I DNFed this book at page 58. I'm not sure how most folks feel about DNFing a challenge book, but it's my challenge, and I choose to save my sanity rather than finish this appalling rubbish.Last, and most importantly, I am grateful not to be the girl who adored this book anymore. This aborted reread has utterly validated my belief that human beings are capable of deep and genuine change.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Well written but not my kind of story. Heaven Leigh Casteel undergoes many ordeals (thankfully none too horrific for my squeamish tastes though some came close). The main reason that this isn't my kind of story is that I don't feel that I, the reader, gained anything from this harrowing of my soul that I experienced reading this. And I didn't like the ending which was basically upbeat if you can believe that Pa really had changed his entire character. Kitty's deathbed conversion seems more probable. I did like the way the Rev. Wise was shown in his true colors by Fanny's goodbye visit to Heaven, though my more vengeful side would have liked it if he had been exposed to the whole town. But after all of Heaven's insights into people's character & motivation throughout the book, it offended me that she suddenly lost this ability in the final chapter. I felt that she would have recognized that Cal & Tom were trying to do what was best for her, even if it wasn't exactly what she wanted.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    "Heaven" introduces us to the Casteel family, the lowest of the hillbilly scum in the mountains of West Virginia known as the Willies. Heaven lives with her father's parents, her father and stepmother, and her four half-siblings in a tiny two room shack. She learns at the age of ten that she's not fully related to her brothers and sisters, that she is instead a product of her father's first marriage to a young Bostonian runaway named Leigh (the fact that her younger brother is only 6 months younger than her might have tipped me off, but hey, she *was* only ten when she found out. Of course the really horrifying part is that Luke was fooling around on his wife who was six months pregnant. That gives you a good idea as to how awesome he is). The Casteel family have it pretty rough in their mountain shack, and when Luke, her dad, gets sick and starts spending less time with the family, his wife and Heaven's stepmom Sarah gets pretty irritated and eventually she takes off, leaving the kids to fend for themselves and look after Grandpa after Granny dies. Dad decides to sell his kids rather than, hmmm, I don't know, take care of them. And luckily the two little kids go to a great home and live happily ever after (although their relationship seemed like it might go incestuous, but hey, it's V.C. Andrews, and that's par for the course) but Tom, Fanny, and Heaven aren't so lucky. Heaven ends up in the home of one of Luke's ex-girlfriends, Kitty, whom he knocked up before Leigh (good grief, dude). Kitty gave herself an abortion and ended up barren, so she was excited to be able to buy one of Luke's kids. She basically treats Heaven like a live in slave, making her cook, clean, do the laundry, for hours on end before and after school. And her husband seduces her and takes advantage of her.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book got me into reading as a kid. I love the entire series.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    A different series than Flowers In The Attic, which I hated. However this was almost as bad. I won't read another one.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was my first V.C. book and I gave it 5 stars because no book besides Flowers in the attic can measure up to it. The story of Heaven Leigh was a tragic one and I cried at certain parts of the book. I decided to name my daughter Heaven Leigh after the book and it will always have a special place in my heart.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I feel so ashamed to allocate four stars to this trashy, completely unrealistic, and occasionally disturbing novel. However, if I didn't, I'd just be lying to myself.

    V.C Andrews is the absolute Queen of Trash, Queen of Ethereal-Beauties-Who-are-Constantly-in-Fear-of-Getting-Raped, Queen of Handsome-Evil-Rich Men, and Queen of What-the-Hell! I've never read (or even heard) of another author mass-producing such drivel for the eagerly waiting masses to lap up. If another such author exists - please, let me know!

    Heaven is a young girl who lives in the hills of West Virginia with her bad ol' Pa, who hates her because she killed his one true love being born - Angel. Her and her siblings are sold off one by one. Heaven to a psychopathically unstable woman who clearly needs to get over her past. Cue dalliances with nutters husband. Anguish ensues.

    Essentially, Heaven is Cinderella-porn at it's best (worst?), set among a backdrop of hillbilly shin-digs, mean and nasty townspeople, evil step-mothers, severe abuse, and shining heros without horses.

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Reading this for a book club. One of the worst books I've ever read! So bad it's almost funny.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Heaven is one of V.C. Andrews' original works (as opposed to the later work done by her ghostwriter). It tells the story of Heaven Casteel, a young girl living in the mountains of West Virginia, who is decidedly smarter than the other hill folk who live there. In typical Andrews fashion, Heaven uncovers secrets about how long-dead mother, is uprooted from her family, and moved to Atlanta with a new adoptive family, along the way pursuing her dreams and uncovering dark family secrets. This is the first in a series of five books.Although this isn't my favorite series (since it was later finished by the Ghostwriter), Heaven does stand out in the Casteel series and is an interesting book since it takes place in several different locations.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A twisted story, but good. The best of this series.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    this is my all time favorite story from the author. i read it first when i was 13 and it remains to intrigue me, years later
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, but it brings back such fun memories! I was about 14 when I first read this book, giggling with my girlfriends over all the dirty parts. Re-reading it as a "grown-up" cemented my love for the book - it's horrible, tasteless, trashy and loads of fun!I see it as a poor man's Little House on the Prairie (if they had lived in West Virginia) You've got Ma, Pa and a bunch of unkempt children sharing a one bedroom house. Of course, there are a few parts that are different. In this book, Pa gets an STD and sells all his kids at $500 a pop. Plus, some of the brothers and sisters aren't exactly appropriate with each other. And at one point, the kids contemplate eating the family dog because they're hungry. But other than that, it's EXACTLY the same...
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The story of a poor hillbilly girl sold by her own family. Not one of my favorite Andrew's books, but still an interesting read if you aren't expecting too much. A bit of reality suspending is necessary when reading about the trials of Heaven.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a page turner for me. I couldn't put it down! What a great story, to follow Heaven from when she was little to the end when she was a teenager and all of the pitfalls that happened in her life at that time. I cannot wait to start Dark Angel.