The Tutor

Rating:
Summary: Forget about the babysitter, worry about THE TUTOR!!!!!!!!
Review: Have you ever hired help who become part of your lives and then they never leave. Remember the painter Eldin from Murphy Brown or more recently the general contractor from the delightful book Step - Ball Change who comes to renovate a screened porch and becomes a member of the family? Or perhaps, most famous, is the hired servant who becomes the master in Harold Pinter's play The Servant. Now author Peter Abrahams, in his most recent book, The Tutor, introduces us to Julian Sawyer the mild mannered tutor. But is Julian really a helpful tutor or an evil person, stay tuned to find out.

Linda and Scott Gardner are living the American dream. Or so they'd like to think. In a typical suburban tree lined community, they work hard at their jobs and hard at raising their two children. They are busy people, adjusting schedules to allow for their children's tennis lessons, soccer games, car pools to events and music classes. And all they while they feel extreme competition and tension from their neighbors and families children as compared to their son and daughter. Because as many people think, the seeds of suceeding begin very early on. Ruby, the Gardners 11 year old daughter, is precocious and wise beyond her years. Although seemingly well adjusted she harbors some rather odd ideas about life and senses that something is not right in her home. But Ruby isn't the Gardners focus at this time. It is their high school aged son whose less than sterling grades concern them more and more. And with each report card it seems that Brandon is headed for less than an prestigious college. Even talking to their son about his future has done little to motivate him and they are increasingly worried that the only school he will be able to attend is the local community college. Not that there's anything wrong with a community college but after all the time effort and money they've puit into their son's life it's not what they had in mind. Then Scott learns that his brother's son, a star athlete, received almost a perfect score on the SAT'S and will surely be a top applicant at one of the most prestigious colleges in the country. Suddenly the Gardner's visions of their son's present and future failures loom in front of them and consider the hiring of a tutor the possible answer to their problem. The seacrh is on and using an educational consultant finds one Julian Sawyer hired as the answer to their prayers. Unfortunately, though hiring Julian Sawyer is not hiring your typical tutor and over the weeks, while he presumably works with Brandon, Julian has his own agenda in mind. As Julian works on his own plans, he becomes an important confidant of the family. He begins to suggest changes and strategies to the Gardners and at first all seems well and Brandon's grades improve, Ruby is doing better at winning in tennis, Linda clinches a difficult deal and Scott takes a big chance concerning his business which Julian assures him will work out just fine. Somehow, though, as the pages turn we as readers know something is quite rotten and you just have to read this book to find out what happens next.

While this was an exciting plot at first, it was far more predictable than other books by Abrahams. I kept waiting for that twist which I associate with Abrahams's titles, but unfortunately it never came. The end most of all fizzled and I even found myself a bit bored. Bottom line - The Tutor is a fast, ok read but if you want to see Peter Abraham at his best, read The Fury of Rachel Monette, Tongues of Fire or Revolution #9, some of his best books in my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: The Tutor
Review: I think I shall rave about this book for a little while--at least long enough to assuage the guilt over not simply giving it a five-star nod. I mean, how do you actually rate a novel that is a traditional thriller, but dares to remain understated, dares to avoid glitz, most of the way through? Ultimately, I think the author could have worked in a few more scenes of real mayhem and yet not degenerated to shlock, but since he didn't--since The Tutor is restrained, creeping terror without splatter til the late-going--I'm left trying to say it like this: for restrained, creeping terror in a domestic setting, I award the full five starrinos, but for not finding a way to work in a bit more splatter, I deduct one star, leaving a sort of phantom or ghost star.

Which means it's still well worth reading. Fans of Ramsey Campbell's Nazareth Hill should stop here, to meet another plucky adolescent girl who may be the only one clever enough to notice danger as it slowly infects her home (of course any brave child remotely resembling the heroine in Nazareth Hill, and finding herself in similar--but not supernatural--dire straits, is likely to win me over big-time). Fans of Stephen King's Misery should probably meet The Tutor; Peter Abrahams seems to have King's ability to create characters and situations presented in a style that compels you to read on and on and on until the book is suddenly finished (and they both do psychopaths very well, thank you). Fans of...well, heck, either Conan Doyle's "The Speckled Band", or Alan Scholefield's forgotten novel Venom (also a forgotten film!), should read The Tutor, if snakes don't actually make you shiver too much, that is. And most of all, fans of something like A Judgement In Stone, by Ruth Rendell, should read this, because Rendell had already proved that you don't need violence in every chapter of a thriller to generate palpable chills.

Iago fans are also invited, to come appreciate Abraham's terrible, tutoring, two-faced villain. Columbo fans...hey, drop in also, to watch eleven-year-old Ruby start to collect the clues that say her family has invited evil into their home. Now that I've invited everyone, I'll stop. But read this book, thriller fans!

Rating:
Summary: Blown potential
Review: I'm not a big fan of books you can pick up at the train station, but this one drew me in with its quasi-literary style, as far as paperbacks go.

I have to agree that the characters in the family are mostly pretty flat, but the character of Julian was precisely the sort of misunderstood villain I like to read about. The story started off well, and like a good comic book, I found myself rooting for the bad guy, which is a good sign that either he's not a completely unrealistic bad guy, or the family is just so dull and unlikeable you actually prefer to be in the company of the villain.

After being swept into reading this book at any spare moment, I was tremendously disappointed by the ending. It seemed to me like Abrahams was on his way to writing a story that actually treats its villain with humanity for a change, but the editor got mad at the anti-heroic vagueries of such a plot, and instead ordered him to tack on a generic and uncharacteristic ending straight out of bad Hollywood where the bad guy goes crazy and the dull "innocent" family is only justified in getting rid of him.

On the positive side, the bad writing and underlying themes that even the author apparently did not catch on to served as great inspiration for my own writing, because reading this book couldn't help but make me think that audiences deserve better.

Rating:
Summary: Only slightly sinister
Review: Linda and Scott Gardner have hired an instructer from a tutoring service, Julian Sawyer, to privately tutor their son, Brandon, and help him improve his SAT scores. Brandon is all set to dislike Julian right from the get-go but never gets the chance. Hey, this guy is cool! Linda and Scott fall for the tutor's charm next, relying on him for car rides, business and financial advice, and tennis tips. Brandon's little sister, Ruby, age eleven, an outgoing little Sherlock fan, shares Brandon's feelings as well. But she's also brighter than her brother (or parents) and soon deduces that Julian is not everything he appears. While the rest of her family is cuddled in Julian's palm like a sparrow in the hand of the neighborhood bully, Ruby is sniffing along for clues in a manner even Sherlock Holmes couldn't knock.

THE TUTOR starts out strong. The pace is fast, the details interesting, the characters memorable. The middle isn't so bad either. But the ending bombs inexcusably -- perhaps because as the story progresses it becomes more and more out of this world. Peter Abrahams has created here a portfolio of surreal characters, more caricatures than flesh and blood people. Each one represents a certain weakness which Julian exploits to the hilt, although Julian himself has weaknesses, as every good villain must. There's a blurb on this book's jacket from Stephen King praising the author, and while Abrahams's style may briefly remind you of King's in the way it comes across as not quite on the level, Abrahams doesn't hold a candle to King's way with words. THE TUTOR is reasonably well written and contains some excellent descriptions, but most books are reasonably well written. Little here stands out.

Horror fans, be warned. You may not be horrified (unless snakes deeply upset you). But THE TUTOR is a stylishly crafted if skewed nailbiter tale, and as such should have a case with suspense fans.

Rating:
Summary: Very exciting, the daughter is a great character
Review: Peter Abrahams must be a scary,scary man. "Crying Wolf" was a brilliant, intense suspense thriller in a class of its own. Now he's given us "The Tutor", outdoing himself by far, notching up the intensity to the n-th degree, creating a page-turner to beat all page-turners!

The Gardners are a typical upper middle class family, striving to be better. Husband and father Scott Gardner is jealous of his brother, who seems to have everything Scott doesn't. Scott pushes his family to excel and succeed...but is hampered by the memory of his dead son, Adam. Brandon Gardner, Scott's next-oldest son and still living, must survive with the pressure of Adam's ghost hovering over his world all the time. Scott is certain that Adam would've grown up to become the perfect uber-son, had he not succumbed to leukemia at a relatively young age. And now Brandon is beginning to show signs of failure.
Enter Julian Sawyer, an opportunistic man hired as tutor to Brandon Gardner. Think Norman Bates here. The tutor is a skillful sociopath with evil intent on his mind.
Throw into the mix a precocious young daughter who idolizes Sherlock Holmes, and you have a brilliant thriller that makes ones pulse pound to the very end.

Abrahams has written an intelligent, wonderful novel in "The Tutor". Well-portrayed characters, and a believable plot make this a must-read book!

Rating:
Summary: Unlikeable Characters and a Bewildering Ending
Review: The Tutor is a suspenseful and scary book that was quite entertaining. Unfortunately I must admit that instead of feeling satisfied by it I can't help but be disappointed that a great plot was not developed and fleshed out with nicer characters and a more cohesive sequence of events.

In my view the characters were unlikeable, except for the charming 11-year-old Ruby. This girl basically looks after herself in every way; she cooks her own meals, locks the house up after her, travels alone on her bicycle, etc. This is completely unbelievable and makes her parents look neglectful. They regularly returned home at seven or eight in the evening without checking to make sure she'd got home from school all right or anything! Then there's Brandon, the teenage jerk who needs a tutor because he failed his SAT. To be honest I thought that Brandon was an awful parody of a teenager - he drank, smoked, did crack, skipped school, flunked his exams, had meaningless sex, listened to rap, swore constantly. After all this are we really supposed to sympathize with him? A lot of the families bad behaviour could be justified by the death of the eldest son Adam years ago, and although of course this is a terrible event, I just did not buy that the family could become so dysfunctional just because he had died.

The best bit about the story was Julian - the villain. I liked the parts of the story about him, as he was truly vile and unfeeling. The parts of the book from Ruby's point of view were great as well and very funny in places. It was these moments that kept me reading on avidly despite my vague dislike for Linda, Scott and Brandon.<P

Overall The Tutor kept me in suspense but I have no inclination to read it again (as I do with books that I like) and it leaves me with more questions than answers. My advice is read The Perfect Crime also by Peter Abrahams, which I think is a much better thriller with a great plot.

JoAnne

Rating:
Summary: Unlikeable Characters and a Bewildering Ending
Review: The Tutor is a suspenseful and scary book that was quite entertaining. Unfortunately I must admit that instead of feeling satisfied by it I can't help but be disappointed that a great plot was not developed and fleshed out with nicer characters and a more cohesive sequence of events.

In my view the characters were unlikeable, except for the charming 11-year-old Ruby. This girl basically looks after herself in every way; she cooks her own meals, locks the house up after her, travels alone on her bicycle, etc. This is completely unbelievable and makes her parents look neglectful. They regularly returned home at seven or eight in the evening without checking to make sure she'd got home from school all right or anything! Then there's Brandon, the teenage jerk who needs a tutor because he failed his SAT. To be honest I thought that Brandon was an awful parody of a teenager - he drank, smoked, did crack, skipped school, flunked his exams, had meaningless sex, listened to rap, swore constantly. After all this are we really supposed to sympathize with him? A lot of the families bad behaviour could be justified by the death of the eldest son Adam years ago, and although of course this is a terrible event, I just did not buy that the family could become so dysfunctional just because he had died.

The best bit about the story was Julian - the villain. I liked the parts of the story about him, as he was truly vile and unfeeling. The parts of the book from Ruby's point of view were great as well and very funny in places. It was these moments that kept me reading on avidly despite my vague dislike for Linda, Scott and Brandon.

Overall The Tutor kept me in suspense but I have no inclination to read it again (as I do with books that I like) and it leaves me with more questions than answers. My advice is read The Perfect Crime also by Peter Abrahams, which I think is a much better thriller with a great plot.

JoAnne

Rating:
Summary: Unexciting
Review: This book, for me, did not live up to even its mediocre 3 ½ -star average rating. The writing style is sophomoric, literally as though written by a high school student. The characters are unappealing: their personalities are less than engrossing, or just plain melodramatic and laughable. The plot is dull and utterly predicable, reminding me of a bad made-for-TV movie. I found it extremely difficult to remain interested in the story right from the beginning. I had to force myself to continue reading, hoping that it might improve as it went along, perhaps become more complex. It didn't. This book is rather tedious to say the least, but I slogged through, hoping for some engaging twist which never materialized.

Rating:
Summary: A page-turner
Review: This is my first Peter Abrahams book, so don't know how it compares to his others. But it's definitely a page-turner and has decent characters, most of whom are not supposed to be the least bit lovable. Yes, there is swearing, but the author knows how to make a reader use a dictionary occasionally as well. A nice combination of light humor mixed with the dark character of the tutor-from-...! A nice change from detective/crime/lawyer novels when you're not busy reading Tolstoy.

Rating:
Summary: Needs an editor badly
Review: While this book started out well, it didn't last. The characters were one-dimensional (except for Ruby) and the plot had some major errors in it. Spoiler--how the heck does the bad guy, the tutor obviously, end up being on the receiving end of a blow to the head given to him by the wife, only to end up in the next scene taking two grown adults into an attic through a small hole, wrapping them up like mummies, so that he can unleash the snake on Ruby? And why do it in the first place when everything else has gone wrong? You would think he would have taken the the first road out of Dodge. And where in the heck do 11 year old girls go home to empty homes, make their own dinners, ride their bikes miles to school, etc. etc. Not MY 11-year old! Ruby's final mission to find out what the heck is going on with the tutor leaves you shaking your head. Not very realistic or even imaginable in my mind. I can usually accept just about anything when it comes to plot, but not when it it hangs together so poorly. Don't waste your time on this poorly edited book.