Ray Kurzweil

Advantages: A catchy style of writing
Disadvantages: Bad reviews will have put people off

...is a divorced law professor called Ray Atlee. All of his life, Ray has been overshadowed and intimidated by his father, the affluent Reuben V Atlee, who was a well respected and feared Judge, until he was voted out of office after refusing to campaign for votes. The story starts when Ray receives an impersonal letter from his father to attend a meeting about his estate the following weekend. Ray knows his father is dying, so the request does not really come as a surprise, but as his father had let his house deteriorate into a dreadful state, Ray doubted there would be much to discuss, and as the Atlee name looked like it would end with Ray and Forrest (his younger and more troublesome brother), there was certainly no family other than themselves to consider. The beginning of the book does take a chapter or so to get into it, but the background... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Gripping.
Disadvantages: Disturbing.

...Rebbecca Ray's debut novel paints a deeply disturbing portrait of the life of an adolescent girl growing up in . The humiliations of her first day at high school soon give way to grudging acceptance as Ray's unnamed heroine learns how to "fit in". Letting boys touch her and hanging out with the misfits and trouble-makers makes daily life bearable. Which is just as well as home life is far from bearable. With a brow-beaten, ineffectual mother, whose own feelings of self-worth have long since been ground to a pulp by a bullying, overbearing husband, it comes as no surprise when their 14-year-old daughter starts dating a man old enough to be her father. Sex, drugs, paedophilia and masochism are all shrugged off by our 14-year-old leading lady whose feelings of self-loathing grow deeper, page by gripping page, until they reach a disturbing... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Gripping.
Disadvantages: Disturbing.

...Rebbecca Ray's debut novel paints a deeply disturbing portrait of the life of an adolescent girl growing up in . The humiliations of her first day at high school soon give way to grudging acceptance as Ray's unnamed heroine learns how to "fit in". Letting boys touch her and hanging out with the misfits and trouble-makers makes daily life bearable. Which is just as well as home life is far from bearable. With a brow-beaten, ineffectual mother, whose own feelings of self-worth have long since been ground to a pulp by a bullying, overbearing husband, it comes as no surprise when their 14-year-old daughter starts dating a man old enough to be her father. Sex, drugs, paedophilia and masochism are all shrugged off by our 14-year-old leading lady whose feelings of self-loathing grow deeper, page by gripping page, until they reach a disturbing... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful