Chris Dollanganger; some fans love him and see him as a romantic character, others find him to be a creep and haven't forgotten him raping his own sister.
Bart Jr; he's either an unfortunate character who didn't get the help he desperately needed until it was far too late, or he's nothing but a self-centered Jerkass who rules his family with an iron fist and makes everyone around him miserable unless he gets his way.
Best Known For The Fan Service: Here's a game: ask a casual reader what they know about the series (or really, Flowers in the Attic). Chances are, the only thing they'll come up with is the Brother–Sister Incest angle.
Contested Sequel: Everything after Flowers in the Attic is contested, with usually If There Be Thorns and Seeds of Yesterday being the most inferior books in the series.
Diagnosed by the Audience: While there's never a named diagnosis given, Bart is canonically said to have serious mental health troubles. This is shown to be debilitating, both for him personally and for his family. His parents and brother want to help but don't know how. More specific fan interpretations include:
Bart has very obvious shades of borderline personality disorder (BPD) or avoidant personality disorder (AvPD), blacks out fairly often and is often terrified by his own intensely violent urges.
Harsher in Hindsight: Chris Sr.'s mother, Alicia, died of breast cancer. Not even ten years after Flowers was published, so did Andrews.
Misaimed Fandom: The series does not actually portray incest in a favorable light, yet it's frustratingly common to see it cited as an introduction to incest kink.
Bart Jr, in particular, becomes much more sympathetic if you have experience with mental illness. Its probably one of the few fictional instances where a character being institutionalized would help rather than harm them, Bart's never helped beyond lukewarm therapy, and grows up with a skewed sense of love, family, and intimacy as a result.
Ghostwritten books
Contested Sequel: The Diary series has a lot of it. Secret Brother is a big example: Most readers hated it for not answering any questions and generally being pointless, but a few found that it was a decent-to-good story if taken as a stand alone novel and not some sort of Grand Finale it was advertised to be. Some people would also suggest that the way to make the Diary series better is to regard the two POV characters as delusional and ignore the whole thing.
Fanon Discontinuity: The Diary series, full stop. Doesn't help that the ghostwriter brought Cory back to life.
