Ah, Virginia Clark Andrews. She was soooo bad, she made Jackie Susann look like Nabokov. To paraphrase Stephen King (writing about another unspeakable writer), "She wouldn't know a balanced line of prose from a poo-and-anchovy pizza." I picked up the first of her Dollanganger novels when I was thirteen. It gave me hope: I realized that if this V.C. Andrews person could write so dreadfully and still get her piece of dreck published, maybe, just maybe, I could someday do the same.

Still, I admit that her first two books were addictive reading. By this one, book three, it's time to say, "Joke's over." Nothing in any of the books is even remotely believable: Corinne Foxworth is one of the world's most famous heiresses, constantly photographed and written about, but NOT ONE of her former acquaintances from Gladstone, Pennsylvania ever sees a photo of her and contacts a tabloid with the news that Mrs. Foxworth used to be Mrs. Dollanganger, suburban Momma of four? The kids' late father somehow avoiding military service in WWII? (Even my dad-in-law, married with a child and 35 years old, was drafted in 1944!) Cathy is a ballet dancer in New York, surrounded by heterosexual male dancers! OK, OK, on to "Thorns". Here's the scoop!

Cathy and Chris, our incestuous lovers, are now living as man and wife somewhere in California. They had a ranch house built with an attic large enough to put beds in and to go dancing in. Yeah, right. They live with Jory (what a name), her son with her late husband Julian (a very perverted creep) and Bart (NOBODY names their kid Bart anymore), her son with her late stepfather Bart Senior. Jory is another straight ballet dancer. None of the kids at school give him a hard time about being a ballet dancer (and this was set in the early 1980s.) Bart is a psychotic little dork who is enough to make you wish that the Grandmother was still around to dish out some tar and two-week starvations. Well, old crazy Cathy is starting to lose it, so Chris advises her to write a book about their hellish life in the attic. Blah, blah, blah. Cathy promptly begins to write the book. Which brings up the issue that made me throw this idiotic novel at the wall:

Why does Cathy freak out when her former mother-in-law, Julian's mother, threatens to 'out' her and Chris as the sibling-bumpers that they are? CATHY IS WRITING A BOOK ABOUT THE SUBJECT AND WANTS TO GET THE THING PUBLISHED!

It makes no sense, and it amazes me that neither Andrews, nor her editor (did she have one?) realized this.

The first thing you need to know about If There Be Thorns is that it picks up where the second one left off but not from Cathy's point of view. The third book in the Dollanganger series shifts between the points of view of Cathy's two sons---Jory and Bart. Some will find this exceedingly annoying. Those who have gotten used to Cathy's narration might very well want to stay in her head. However, I will say this. If you are at all interested in reading on with the series (and you probably are if you are even bothering to read this review), why not give her sons a try?
I will admit that goody two shoes Jory is kinda boring and not really a dynamic character. All we really get from his chapters is that he's such a good boy and that he can't understand how anyone could be as awful as his brother Bart. Oh yeah, and how confusing the world is, his parents' relationship especially. I admit, it's interesting to see the world this way, through the eyes of innocence, but it doesn`t take long for his goody two shoes act to get old. The character of Jory is far too passive.
Bart, on the other hand, really comes alive on the page. I thought that Bart's chapters were actually kinda funny, in a disturbing sort of way. It was very interesting to read about the thoughts that went through his head. V.C. Andrews did a great job creating two distinct narratives, one for each brother.
That being said, you're probably still thinking, "Well yeah, but do I really need to read the third book in the series? Is there really anything left to tell?" If you're a die-hard fan, you've probably already rushed out to buy it and are reading it right now as we speak. But maybe you're more hesitant and are looking for more of a clue as to whether or not you will like it before you invest the time and money. If so, keep reading.
Really, what is there left to say about Cathy and Chris? We know that they got "married" at the end of the second book and so maybe you`re curious about how such an arrangement would work out for them, given that it`s, well, incest. We know that their mother was sent away to a mental institution and that Chris still visits her. We know that the second book ended with the question, Will Cathy turn into her mother? These are the threads that were left dangling at the end of Petals on the Wind, the threads that we expect the third book will pick up and continue to weave together into a rich and colorful story.
The book does show us the trials and triumphs that Cathy and Chris go through together as "husband" and "wife" and we are shown this through the eyes of their sons. Jory is the one who analyzes their relationship the most, whereas Bart kind of dismisses it at first. But when we see their relationship through Jory's eyes, we see it through the innocent (and ignorant), and romanticized, eyes of a child, and yet also through the eyes of a fearful young kid who doesn't quite know what is going on. He doesn't know that it's incest. All he knows is that there's something about it that seems so beautiful, and yet also, so frightening. I wish I could say this gives their relationship a new dimension for the reader to explore, but it doesn't really. It pretty much takes us back to FitA, and the growing feelings that Cathy did not quite understand when she was 12, 13 and even 14. It takes us back to Cathy watching her mother and father and thinking their love was so beautiful and then finding out that it wasn't as perfect as she thought. There's shades of that in this third installment, though Jory is more afraid when watching his parents interact than Cathy ever was as a small child (before the attic). The book certainly shows the danger of their relationship and the way they, as well as their children, are all just standing on the edge of a precipice, ready to fall off.
As for the mother and the mental institution thread, Corrine makes a reappearance in this book as a woman in black who moves in next door with her creepy butler. Corrine tries to get close to Bart Jr. by bribing him with sweets and hugs. Bart feels a bit left out at home because Jory's so perfect and his mother has just adopted a little 2 year old Carrie look-alike named Cindy. So he eagerly accepts the lady's affection. However, the butler, on the other hand, has more sinister plans for the little boy who he hopes to turn into a miniature Malcolm clone. He does this by revealing secrets about Malcolm's history, as well as about Cathy's and Chris's.
And as for the "Will Cathy turn into her mother" thread, this is not really addressed in the book. Yes, Cathy has her witchy moments. At times, she seems quite nutty. For example, at the beginning of the book, Chris finds her in the attic with two beds up there and a picnic basket. But nothing ever comes of those two beds and that picnic basket. It was something that V.C.A. left us dangling with at the end of Petals and, perhaps, she felt obligated to address at the beginning of the third book. Yes, it kind of leaves you with this foreboding feeling, but no, it doesn't result in Cathy locking up her family like you worry she will. So anyway, if you're reading this book to see if Cathy will literally turn into her mother, don't bother. In some ways, she is as crazy as her mother, but we already knew that just from reading the second book, right?

So anyway, yeah, the second book left you with a few questions, and in some ways, the third book answers those questions. But, for the most part, the story was already as over as it would ever be and V.C.A. really had to invent new conflicts for the characters to endure to keep the series going. As a result, it felt like we were back at the beginning and re-living the same story over again, but through the eyes of the next generation. This fits in with the "sins of the fathers" theme, but we already got a sense that this family was doomed to repeat past mistakes over and over again just from reading the first two books. Sometimes, a little mystery is good. No story will ever be completely over until the main characters die, and even then, there's the next generation and the next and the next. We don't need to be told everything. We just need to be told about a particular defining event in the protagonist's life, how that worked itself out, and then assume that that is something that will affect her for the rest of her life---whether that's in a small way or a very big way. So if you're a die-hard Cathy and Chris fan, you'll probably want to continue reading, just because you do want to know about every little thing that happens in their lives. If you're only reading this series for the plotline, the story really came to a halt at the end of Petals. There's really nothing that happens in the rest of the series that isn't a rehash of what went on before. Or maybe you just like to finish what you start, in which case, nothing I say will deter you from reading this.
But like I said in the beginning, I found Bart to be quite the interesting character. And so I did not find this book to be a waste of my time at all, for that very reason alone. That's just my opinion, though. Many will find him to be so cruel that it's off-putting. But, for some reason, I sometimes find the cruelest characters to be the most fascinating ones. It's interesting to see what goes on in their minds, even if I can't fully sympathize with them.

I liked the first book in this series, and the second one was okay. This book, however, was too disturbing for me. I decided to give up the series after being left with an unsettled feeling after reading this book. Bart, age nine, was so disturbed, it was difficult for me to read his morbid and twisted thoughts. Definitely need something a lot lighter to read after this book. I can only guess at how the others will unwind, and at this point, I just don't want to know.

This book seems out of place with the other Dollanger books because of giant gaps of time between the first and third book. Don't need to read the book to understand the whole series. Told from the view of children so nothing risky about the content. Good read if you like to know everything about the characters.

I think the review by kathrynlively on December 3, 2000 says it best. This was the worst book of the lot.

Telling the story this time is Cathy's two sons. Jory is the son every parent would want which is great except not exciting for a book. Bart is just plain loony and weird.

I found it annoying to read the chapters that were in Bart's words. I understand he, as a character, had poor english skills but even more bothersome was the way sentences would start out normal then lead into talk of being on safari or some other place where he had to hide, slither around and be ready to shoot or pounce on prey. It seemed all of that was just to fill the pages as it had no impact on the story.
Bart is given a journal that belonged to Malcolm Foxworth and he begins to read it. The journal pages included in the story started out interesting and gave explanation to many things. However, there was not as much of the journal put into the story as I thought there should be for as many references to it as there was.

I kept putting the book down then having to will myself to pick it up and finish. The most exciting thing about this book is that I was able to skim past pages with only a glance and still keep up with the plot.
Because of this book I have moved on and doubt I will ever read the other 2 books of the series.