The Wilting Flowers

Nina Cristofori

The Cellar

By Natasha Preston

One night, one place, one moment, Summer Robinson’s life would change. Wandering outside a club by herself, looking for her friend Rachel, Summer got kidnapped by a stocky man who repeatedly called her Lily. Thrown into a white van, and brought to a house in the middle of nowhere, Summer was thrown down the stairs into the cellar. To Summer’s dismay, the cellar was well furnished and there were three other women there. Their names were Violet, Poppy, and Rose, and Summer learned her new name would be Lily. The kidnapper was known as Clover and he made it clear to the girls that, “ We are a family” (19). The women prepared meals and the five of them ate together everyday. Being the sick individual he is, Clover would rape the girls, although he had not yet touched Lily. Clover left the women with no sharp items, so they would not be able to hurt him. All the women had become content with their lives in the cellar, except Violet and Lily. Secretly plotting an attack and escape, Violet planned to stab Clover with scissors she had from sewing clothes, and Lily would swoop in and grab the keys out of his pocket to open the cellar door. When the moment came, Violet tried stabbing Clover and it didn’t work at all. This angered Clover and he pulled a knife out of his pocket and, “There was no hesitation when he shoved the knife into her stomach” (82). Violet was now dead, and Lily was traumatized from seeing it happen right before her eyes, and she felt hopeless that she would ever escape. All Lily wanted to do was be in the arms of her loving boyfriend Lewis, under the safe confinement of her home, with her family.

For those of you who seek thrill and suspense, this book will be the perfect match for you. It is demented but intriguing, and I am thoroughly enjoying the book so far. Natasha Preston does a fantastic job in writing this book, and she uses multiple character perspectives to allow readers to better understand that character and see the story in that character’s eyes. Along with perspectives, Preston implements flashbacks in the book which grab the reader’s attention. I cannot connect to this book personally, but in our society we see kidnapping and sexual assault occur all the time. It is horrific and saddening, but we must not be content with being a victim, and we must speak up and fight back. Although Violet got killed, she could not handle being imprisoned in the cellar and raped anymore, and she was courageous enough to try to free herself and the other women.

Looking at Clover, it is evident that he is psychologically impaired. He has no morale and finds satisfaction in creating the “perfect family” through kidnapping girls, thinking he’s making his deceased mother proud. When speaking about how many girls had been killed, Rose declared, “ Eight since I’ve been here, including Violet”(85). Clover will take whatever means necessary to create his flower family, and he will eliminate any girl if she’s disrupting his family. He has no remorse for eliminating people from his life, but conveys that “loneliness is a terminal disease” (87). I find it ironic how he would say this because although he may physically have girls in his life, it is all an act to try to fill the empty void he has for losing the one person he cared about in his life, his mother.

Everytime I pick up this book and read it, I never want to put it down. You should read this book because the suspense Preston creates leaves you craving for more. As I continue to read the book, I will share my thoughts with you!