Rating: 
Summary: Sophomores will like this...
Review: ...if they are still in high school, that is, but h.s. juniors will laugh out loud at how naive and pretentious this book is. Too bad; it had a strong finish, the fell apart rapidly. Only gets two stars because it is well written in parts and moves smartly along. Far too many coincidences, a cariacature philosophy professor (reads like a bad term paper on Nietzche in places) and a cliche-riden middle-aged leftover hippie townie, full of a nice middle-class boy's wholly imaginary idea of how rich people live (buy a copy of "Town and Country" if you really want to know). A silly book, much worse than his earlier "The Fan" which was great. A major disappointment. Omit.
Rating: 
Summary: Nietzche and college..
Review: Abrahams's "Crying Wolf" is the story of a college student with a feminine name who is just trying to be somebody. Life interferes, and he finds he has to make a few choices, fraught with folly. To help him are his friends, two sisters who are identical twins. The plan: fake a kidnapping, so the hero can stay in school. It was a noble plan, but someone decides to make it real to achieve his own ends. The villian is unusual, a dumb poolboy named after Nietzsche whose father never knew of his existence. Interesting themes, and operatic in tradegy.
Rating: 
Summary: You will be crying if you lose this before finishing it
Review: Although parts of this book are predictable it is still an extremely enjoyable read. I will definitely look for more books by Abrahams in the future. The characters are very likable and interesting although Nat could have been given a male's name to avoid confusion at times. Buy this! Nat, male even though has a girl's name, is the pride of his small town, raised by his financially battling mother he obtains a partial scholarship to Inverness College but will have to work every spare minute of his time to be able to stay there. Not being able to afford to return home for Christmas, on route to campus security to report his dorm mate's stolen TV he witnesses two hot girls drop a fish tank. Lorenzo the Great's life is about to be cut short but Nat saves the day at the expense of some science lab brown fish. The two beautiful girls Izzie and Grace invite him to New York where he learns they are not only attractive but extremely wealthy as well. Meanwhile Freedy with the IQ of a rock is cleaning pools in California and thinks every woman he meets wants to sleep with him. He narrowly escapes a rape charge by fleeing back to his home town Inverness. Nat and the girls discover tunnels under the university with a hidden ballroom type place with a bed. There they plot a plan to make Nat's money problems go away but someone is watching who wants to start a pool company in Florida and sleep with Izzie and Grace.
Rating:
Summary: You will be crying if you lose this before finishing it
Review: Although parts of this book are predictable it is still an extremely enjoyable read. I will definitely look for more books by Abrahams in the future. The characters are very likable and interesting although Nat could have been given a male's name to avoid confusion at times. Buy this! Nat, male even though has a girl's name, is the pride of his small town, raised by his financially battling mother he obtains a partial scholarship to Inverness College but will have to work every spare minute of his time to be able to stay there. Not being able to afford to return home for Christmas, on route to campus security to report his dorm mate's stolen TV he witnesses two hot girls drop a fish tank. Lorenzo the Great's life is about to be cut short but Nat saves the day at the expense of some science lab brown fish. The two beautiful girls Izzie and Grace invite him to New York where he learns they are not only attractive but extremely wealthy as well. Meanwhile Freedy with the IQ of a rock is cleaning pools in California and thinks every woman he meets wants to sleep with him. He narrowly escapes a rape charge by fleeing back to his home town Inverness. Nat and the girls discover tunnels under the university with a hidden ballroom type place with a bed. There they plot a plan to make Nat's money problems go away but someone is watching who wants to start a pool company in Florida and sleep with Izzie and Grace.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent! Well... except for the end.
Review: As an alum of Inverness (well...Williams College) this bookmade my think wistfully back to all the opportunities I had, andshould have taken, to explore the subterranean world beneath the school. This book is exceptional. Nat's struggle against the seduction of wealth, mystery and glamor is told exceptionally well against the backgrounds of NYC, the Carribean, and a beautiful college town (situated on Rte's 7 and 2 in the NW corner of MASS...hmm...I wonder what school that might be...) Half way through the book I was checking to see if Abrahams had written anything else that I might buy. However, as a passed the 3/4 mark I knew that something was wrong... The style began to feel rushed, lacking the depth that characterized the early sections. Finally, at the end I discovered that the most exceptional thing about the book was its ending.... Indeed, this book has the WORST conclusion of any book I have ever read.... Perhaps Abrahams thinks his readers are stupid, requiring clues to be force fed to them over and over, one more obvious than the next, leading finally to an ending that has become so predictable you wonder if perhaps the whole book is a farce. Or maybe he felt that, despite his glowing praise of the protaganist's intelligence, Nat was really just an absolute moron. And finally to top off the most anti-climactic climax ever, Abraham decides to wrap up the story in the most unbelievable, illogical, and well...laziest way possible. Stephen King should be ashamed! And shame on Abrahams for letting such an incredible beginning go to such horrible waste. Suspenseful? About as suspenseful as Green Eggs and Ham -- I didn't not like it Sam-I-Am.
Rating:
Summary: Crying Wolf
Review: Body>This book is a victim of the author's previous works. Once you've read other offerings, you come to expect dynamic chacterization, a rock-'em-sock-'em pace along with a surprises thrown in. Crying Wolf doesn't quite cut it in all areas. The characterization is there. First we meet Freedy, a swimming pool cleaner who just doesn't get it, an Abrahams' trademark. Freedy thinks he's smarter than he is; he thinks he's sexier than he is and in demand, and he doesn't understanding what the woman's (whose pool he's cleaning) problem is when he tries to have sex with her. On the other end of the spectum is Nat, the mid-west son of a single parent, basketball playing high school kid whose intelligence and essay wins him enough money to go to Inverness. While Freedy momentarily fades from the picture, Nat goes off to college. Because he can't afford to go home for Christmas, he must spend holiday on campus--until he meets the twins, Grace and Izzy. The twins, who are filthy rich, introduce Nat to a seductive new world he could not even begin to imagine. They take a jaunt to the Carribeans on the twins' family jet where Nat meets Leo Uzig, a philosophy professor at Inverness. From there, the plot thickens and the pace, which has faltered up to this point, picks up consideraly. Under the guidance of the professor, the twins and Nat become involved in a "harmless" plot that turns deadly very quickly.
Rating:
Summary: Feels rushed
Review: Have you ever seen a movie that felt like something was missing? Where you got the distinct feeling that something crucial was left on the cutting room floor? You may well get that same feeling with "Crying Wolf." The setup is fine; but everything comes together so quickly, it almost feels like Peter Abrahams was over budget and under pressure from a film studio to get this one in the can. Perhaps he was trying to create unrelenting suspense, which is an admirable tactic--but the end result just feels slightly unfinished and hurried as a result, as if his heart isn't really in it. "Crying Wolf" was OK, and it held my attention, but it left me feeling naggingly unsatisfied.
Rating:
Summary: Feels rushed
Review: Have you ever seen a movie that felt like something was missing? Where you got the distinct feeling that something crucial was left on the cutting room floor? You may well get that same feeling with "Crying Wolf." The setup is fine; but everything comes together so quickly, it almost feels like Peter Abrahams was over budget and under pressure from a film studio to get this one in the can. Perhaps he was trying to create unrelenting suspense, which is an admirable tactic--but the end result just feels slightly unfinished and hurried as a result, as if his heart isn't really in it. "Crying Wolf" was OK, and it held my attention, but it left me feeling naggingly unsatisfied.
Rating:
Summary: DID NOT JIBE
Review: Here we have 3 smart kids (nat, izzie & grace), The twins, Izzie and Grace are stratospherically wealthy. Nat is poor. When Nat's mother loses her job ending Nat's collage edu., the twins come up with a plan to pull a kidnapping on themselves? Yeah right, I don't think so. Given the two wealthy girls prior generous and forward behavior with money and people they would have just gone and paid Nat's (and his mothers!) bills whether he/she liked it or not. So for me the story ended on page 221 with this way-out of character kidnapping scheme. I did read the rest regardless tho because I sometimes like the way Mr. Abrahams weaves his stories and characters. But right away comes another glaring out of characterization. Nat, who has fallen in love with Izzie and can tell her apart from her twin sister -easily- suddenly fails in recognizing Grace when the girls switch places at the last minute (Izzie becoming the kidnapped instead of Grace). I think Mr. Abrahams would of done this story a favor if he'd of toned down Freedy (the bad guy) with his Andro/speed/bodybuilding obsession and gone into and expanded on the Freedy and Professor Uzig connection. Professor Uzig being Freedy's "Father: Unknown". Also, why would Nat be prosecuted for attempted extortion? The kidnapping wasn't his idea! He came down against it but the twins had acted before he saw them again. Why didn't Izzie come to his defense? All 'n all this reads like an unfinished draft. I don't see how something like this could of made it past anyone! especially anyone in the business. Too many discrepancies. Too many
avenues left unexplored.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Bother!
Review: I have been a fan of Peter Abrahams since his first book, The Fury of Rachel Monette, and for the most part have enjoyed all of his books. Unfortunately I am sorry that I spent time reading his newest title, Crying Wolf. By the middle of this book, I was tired of the innocence of the freshman and left cold by the twins. I found myself seriously skimming to get to the end and be finished with it. If you still are interested in reading a good novel set on a college campus which is a good psychological thriller, then pick up Paullina Simons title from a few years ago called Red Leaves.
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