Rating: 
Summary: How far would you go to increase your child's IQ?
Review: I just finished Gray Matter by Gary Braver, paperback, currently in its first printing. I was in the mood for a PrestonChild novel, but I have read all of them and wanted something new.
Gray Matter is considered a thriller, but as a parent, it gave a different perspective.
Premise: What if your child was slow or learning disabled, maybe it could even be your fault from experimenting with drugs when you were a teen ... how far would you go to take your child from a low IQ to a high one? How important is that IQ compared to the personality of your child? Would you risk it?
Meanwhile, there are children being kidnapped, maybe murdered. There is a cop, a widower, that can't let go of a Cold case that has only a child's oddly damaged skull found washed up on the beach, but no missing child report.
How important is IQ to the quality of life we all want for our children? Obviously a person has to have a decent IQ to make it in the real world; I'm not talking prepackaged boy bands or former Mouseketeers here, I mean regular people trying to make a decent life for their child.
When our children are still young, say less than ten years old, they are quite different from their teen years or as adults. As parents we try to plan ahead for the very best for them. Naturally parents want their children to do better than they themselves have ... we want the best for them. Deep down, every parents suspects that their child or children, is actually amazing, wonderful, and has potential that may not be obvious to the world at large ... but *we* know it to be true.
The question remains: how far would you go to increase your child's IQ, so that they can have the best life possible? Does IQ count more than anything else?
The blurb reads:
Rachel Williams and her husband have everything; a big new house in a fancy Boston suburb, all the brand-name toys that go along with wealth, and best of all, a gorgeous, sweet little six-year old son named Dylan.
But Dylan has learning disabilies. Although intelligence isn't everything, Rachel fears her son will grow up never fully appreciating the wonders of life. Tortured by the idea that something she did in her past caused Dylan's problems, Rachel becomes obsessed with a secret - and expensive - medical procedure that claims to turn slow children into geniuses.
Should she and her husband sacrifice their new fortune on the risky, experimental procedure for the sake of their son's happiness? Unaware of the real consequences of the brain enhancement procedure, Rachel can't know that the costs of the operation are far more than finanical.
Having raised my own, as well as fostering a few children with ADD or ADHD, I know how frustrating it can be to try to get through to our children the importance of their educiation. The meds only work if the child works with them. And when they are so young, they cannot really grasp the concept that what they are learning is more than just how to fit in, and all of the school politics. A personal sacrifice, for instance, giving up my own dreams of freelance writing and photography, to be a full-time wife and mother was a fairly easy choice. Losing my vision took the photography part out of my hands anyway, although I didn't know it at the time.
But a greater sacrifice, say of one family member over another, is quite a different matter.
Personally, I woud rate the book around four stars.
The concept, and the thought behind it, I would rate higher. I recommend this book, and ask my fellow parents ... how far would you go, if you had a slow, or MBD, or LD child, to give her or him a genius IQ? Or even average?
The font is easy on the eyes, not a fine print novel that causes eye-strain; important to anyone that is visually impaired.
Please forgive my punctuation here; quotation marks or parentheses add a bit of a garbled mess into the text, so I have removed them.
Thank you.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting.. but where are the fire works?
Review: I read it because of the 5 star rating this book received from the Amazon reviewers. Rarely, I find Amazon 5 star rated books not living up to its "5 star" status but this one was a bit of disappointment. Not that this book is terrible, I just didn't see it as a "5 star" book.
I will not go into summary of the book but if you have a problem reading about rich people having rich people's problem, this book is not for you. As for me, I like the average Joe going against insurmountable odds and this book isn't it.
After reading the book summary and the title, I thought this book would a twisted human version of Dean Koontz's "Watcher" (if you have read it, you will know what I mean) but it wasn't. It was a light read without the BANG! one would expect from a 5 star book.
If you are interested in twisted or.... messed up "GRAY MATTER" with some nice juicy story and good characters, start with the "FIRE STARTER" by Stephen King.
Rating: 
Summary: A RIVETING BOOK!!!!!
Review: If you are looking for a book that will capture your imagination and keep you reading non-stop GRAY MATTER is the book for you. Without giving away too much information so that you may enjoy it as much as I did it explores what lenghths a parent would go to when faced with a child who does not live up to an intellectual standard. Gary Braver does a fine job of developing characters that are so real that you feel like you know them and wonder about them long after you have finished reading. This book should not be missed by those who like a good thriller with lots of twists and turns that will keep you guessing and surprised right up to the end. Get this book,find a beach and be prepared to sizzle inside and out!
Rating:
Summary: A thrilling story equal to Crichton, Preston and Childs
Review: In an age when biotechnology seems to be on the verge of offering prospective parents every possible option, Gary Braver (pen name for Northeastern University English Professor Gary Goshgarian) has written a novel about the aftermath of choice. Like its predecessor, ELIXIR, GRAY MATTER treads on ground fraught with ethical dilemma in the face of overwhelming temptation.Rachel Whitman and her husband live in a tony suburb of Boston. Thanks to Mr. Whitman's success and business acumen, they appear to have it all, including a beautiful little boy named Dylan who sings like an angel. Living in a town where the expression "keeping up with the Joneses" was born, Rachel wants the best for her family. Affluence can often breed a sense of entitlement, and GRAY MATTER more than subtly touches on this cause and effect. Daily, she sees her son, who has slight learning disabilities, struggling with the smallest of tasks in comparison to the genius children he is surrounded by in his exclusive computer science camp and private school. Plagued by decisions she made as a youth to experiment with a popular sex drug, she fears that she is the cause of her son's inferior capabilities and, like any parent who would do all for a child, she seeks alternatives to improve his brain power. A kindly neighbor --- and mother of a genius child --- hints at a procedure that could help slow, innocent Dylan, and Rachel becomes hooked on learning more. She and her husband embroil themselves in a quest to find out about the "enhancement" that can double their child's IQ for a small fortune. There's something troubling --- mysterious --- about the good doctor who professes to have the miracle key to unlock Dylan's potential, and something equally troubling about the legions of brainiacs he has created, but Rachel can't quite put her finger on it. When detective Greg Zakarian, obsessed with the past murder of a young boy, starts to investigate the recent disappearances of several bright but poor children, the town's secret unfolds quickly and with gruesome, unimaginable consequences. GRAY MATTER trespasses into the frightening arena of possibility, made all the more frightening by the element of realism brought to the story by Braver's expert research and use of blood-curdling medical details. We live in a world of ever-increasingly complex and tempting options. Cloning, stem cell research, the human genome project --- these and other scientific breakthroughs open up a whole new world of possibilities, controversial possibilities that were once solely the realm of science fiction. Braver takes a fictional look at the dark side of scientific advancement and asks if the tremendous cost is truly worth the coveted prize for merely a select few. Along the way, Braver gives us a thrilling story equal to the best work of Michael Crichton or Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs. --- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara for Bookreporter.com
Rating:
Summary: Super read!!
Review: Why have I never heard of this author before? This is one of the most gripping medical thrillers I have read...beter than Cook, Chrichton, Gerritsen!!. I have ordered his Elixir. , also Rough Beast under his other name. Read and enjoy!!
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