Wasted potential *SPOILERS*
There's enough intrigue here to keep a story like t his going but this is too on the nose woke. I've only read the 1st book but:
-Corrine was close to her dad (likely some incestuous tones) and her mom was never warm or loved her, in fact Olivia has always hated Corrine. Here the father daughter bond is nonexistent and Olivia is presented as a loving mother protecting her children from big bad Malcolm. However Olivia never was affectionate or loving towards Corrine. Here they have Corrine poisoning both Malcolm and her brother.
-Here Corrine gets pregnant after gong to 1 ball or party at 15 and gets an abortion, I didn't get that indication from the book. Aside from whatever went on with her father, the only boy she was with was Christopher.
-Corrine was 14 when she meets Christopher who moves in with them at 17. When he moves in, it's because the 2 male heirs, Corrine's 2 older brothers died before. So the 2 brothers should've been dead by her 15th birthday and Christopher should be living with them.
-Olivia is a nuanced character but she was already destroyed and evil by the time Corrine came around. Here they circumvent her evil just to make Malcolm the big baddie evil male patriarch instead of 2 damaged people who collude together in their evil, preying upon others.
-They make 1 of the brothers gay just for the sake of it.
-Alicia and Christopher did not get their share of Foxworth inheritance, Malcolm steals that right from under them. Here it's implied heavily that they got it.
-Olivia is shown as a good woman who comforts Cecilia who is also Malcolm's illegitimate daughter. Lol, Olivia would never have comforted her because she would see her illegitimacy as a sin before God. It would've been more likely for her to poison Cecilia. That's her evil.
-A woman like Olivia born in the 1890s would've had more mettle than some woke 21st century feminist who keeps harping her oppression and how bad it was for women back then.
-Malcolm is shown as a serial rapist and blackmailer of women, Olivia, Nellie, Alicia, his son's fiance, and bout every female that crosses his path. They go way out of their way to make him an over the top mustache twirling James Bond villain.
-When Christopher comes to live at Foxworth at 17, Corrine's brothers are dead and he is treated like a son by Malcolm.
-How come only Malcolm and Mrs Steiner have a southern accent yet nine of the kids do? They all live and grew up in Virginia.
I believe VC Andrews only wrote the 1st 4 books and the 5th book is vague how much she was involved with it at all before her death.