Nothing happens in the town of Long Thorpe. One night, sixteen-year-old Summer is kidnapped by a man named Clover. She is taken to his cellar where she is forced to live with his four other flowers: Violet, Poppy, and Rose. She is his Lily. At first, all she can think of is escaping. She thinks that if all the girls come together that they will be able to overpower Clover. However, Poppy and Rose seem resigned to their positions. Violet is the only one with some fight left in her, and soon even that is taken away. Now, Summer must either accept her fate or wait until the time comes to fight back.
Lewis is Summer’s boyfriend, and he knows that she wouldn’t simply run away. He is determined to find her and bring her home.
I usually don’t read horror, but I really enjoyed this novel. Clover was an interesting villain, and I enjoyed seeing his reasoning throughout the novel. He truly showed the danger of society’s labeling of some women as “whores” and others as “pure”. Even though I doubt anyone like him would go to that extreme in real life, it was still an interesting thought to think. I also enjoyed seeing Lewis’ side of the story and how he felt when he lost his beloved girlfriend and couldn’t find a way to get back to her, feeling as if everyone around him was simply giving up.
My biggest issue with this book was the fact that the other girls simply gave up. Of course, in their positions, it might seem easy to give up, especially if they were the ones who stayed when the ones who didn’t fit were simply killed off. Nevertheless, I doubt that in a situation like theirs that 4 girls who were always together and not locked up separately would simply give up. Even if they didn’t have any weapons, Clover didn’t have a gun that they knew about. I doubt that it would have been that hard to hurt him. Also, they had to cook food so they could have figured out a way to melt something down and burn him.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed this story, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a semi-realistic horror story.
Overall Rating: 3.5/5
