Tenderness

Rating:
Summary: Realistically disturbing!
Review: In this psychological thriller, Cormier takes us on a journey with two young adults seeking "Tenderness" in their own ways. For Lori Cranston, it is the search for unconditional love, security, & respect--concepts she only dreams of as her dysfunctional mother drags her from town to town and from abusive boyfriend to abusive boyfriend. For Eric Poole, the eighteen year old who serial killer who has murdered his mother and step-father under the guise that he has been abused, as well as killing 3 teenage girls for pleasure, " tenderness" becomes the obsession of control that he has over a human life just before he kills. When these two characters come together, Cormier weaves a tale of suspense with an ironic ending neither expected or even hoped for. Although neither character is very likable in the beginning, by the end of the novel, both Lori and Eric are somewhat sympathetic as Cormier subtlely reveals more and more exposition of the character's backgrounds. What is so disturbing about this book is the knowledge that in the real world, there are probably real people who are just as chilling as these two characters. In Tenderness, it's the realism that is so repugnant.

Rating:
Summary: My Opinion
Review: I thought this book was excellently written. It described his feelings off emptiness and how he could try and make himself feel whole if only for one second by sweaping in the tenderness of another object by squeezing it right out of it. It's a compelling, page-turning, yet saddening novel.

Rating:
Summary: Good psycological thriller
Review: This book is pretty good as a whole. It keeps you in suspense and is almost always exciting. A few events in the story are very unbelveable, like when the main character goes to fulfill her little obsessions, (like frenching a rock star). There are one or two more instances where the reader says to himself "Yeah, right. There's about a one in a million chance that this would ever happen." The main characters are also a little hard to like. The girl is kind of slutty, she uses her sexuality to get what she wants. It's kind of hard to sympathize with her at first because she creates a lot of her own problems, but later I think that one really starts to care for her. This story is a great character study of the girl because it constantly explores her deepest thoughts. It is dissapointing that she lives life as a whore because she is really smart and has a lot of potential. The boy is a serial killer and it's also hard to feel sorry for him, but there is a kind of eerie feeling of wanting to get to know him better. The story gets really good after a chapter or two. When the boy and the girl meet, the reader feels a cloud of doom hanging over their relationship from the start. I really do reccomend this book. I couldn't put it down and finished it in about a day. It is really good and I think that it will be popular among teens. I also think it would make a good movie.

Rating:
Summary: Absolute Genius.
Review: I'm a 15 year old girl and I read this book about a year agoand I found it increadibly insightful and interesting. After onlyreading the first few pages, I was hooked. Afterwards I read Cormier's Fade and I Am The Cheese, both were okay but neither were in the same league as Tenderness. This book should be on my school's syllabus reading list.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've ever read...
Review: This is my favourite novel right now! It's mysterious at the beginning and exciting at the climax. The ending was...well, it almost made me cry. And I don't cry often at all. I read this at quite a young age, and, well, I don't recommend anyone to read this under the age of, let's say, 15, unless u usually read more mature books.

Rating:
Summary: Psychological Masterpiece
Review: I reviewed this book here online and then checked it out at my local library to see if it was all it was cracked up to be. It was. I couldn't set this book down. Robert Cormier's unique touch set this book into a talespin into my heart. The characters are well defined and creep slowly into you long after you've sat the book down. The psychological aspects of this book are mind-boggling. Eric and Lori both have their 'crazy' moments, but towards the end of the book you can without a doubt see how they complememt each other in drastic ways. There should be more books out there like this one.

Rating:
Summary: Sexist, boring, repugnant, poor characters
Review: The poor presentation of these characters was beyond belief. The author wants us to sympathize with Eric, a smug, manipulative, unrepentant murderer. And even more impossible, he probably expected us to take Lori seriously. How? She was a brainless, laughably puerile barbie doll. Drab sentences don't compensate for such violent, sexist material. Eric murders teenage girls to perform necrophilia on their remains, and Lori uses her sexuality to get what she wants. This book is cheap in that it relies completely on meaningless, shocking ideas. Who needs real characters, plot, or dialogue if you can make people gasp? Dull, offensive and pointless. I found it on my summer reading list which is ridiculous. It isn't for young teenagers who are already anesthetized to sexism and violence.

Rating:
Summary: Kinda weird, bittersweet, hard to describe
Review: It's the kind of book that will make your skin crawl. It's a bit disturbing, yet kind of sweet in a weird way. The characters are all obssessed people with sick minds and stuff, but you somehow end up feeling sorry for them, in a way. I would recommend it probably only to people who can stomach some pretty, well, disturbing stuff. It's not exactly a happy story, but it's good.

Rating:
Summary: It's Pretty Good/Weird
Review: I liked this book overall, as I do of most Robert Cormier books. It gets very strange in certain spots, (ie; the hitchhiking and the rock star obssesion) but the writing is good, the characters are well developed, and the story is creative, unlike a lot of books I have read lately. I will remember this book because of it's strangeness and journey into a psychopath's mind.

Rating:
Summary: The subject in this novel is too mature for young readers.
Review: I personally enjoyed this book. It is well written and has excellent characters. It is not, however, a novel for readers under the age of 16. Parents, please beware. This is an adult novel with young adult characters.