Helpful Score: 13
This one is hard to rate. On one hand its a powerful and painful snapshot of what happens when parents suck and a girl has no outlet to create her identity. I really responded to the girls emotional blankness and how she wants everything to be perfect, but keeps herself detached from everything that happens to her. Im also impressed that Ray was sixteen when she started writing it.
Its not the type of book that you can say you liked because so many horrible things happen, but its the type of book that stays with you and gives you the creeps when you think about it, and I think thats the mark of some seriously good writing. It also made me think about how effed up I was at 14 and some of the decisions I made by choosing not to make a decision at all.
Seriously, if you can make an alcoholic pedophile the good character, youve written something really amazing.
Oh, and this is one of those books where the back cover description sucks, sucks, sucks. It's like they tried to describe the book to make it look like it was G Rated when this is a big ole R.
Its not the type of book that you can say you liked because so many horrible things happen, but its the type of book that stays with you and gives you the creeps when you think about it, and I think thats the mark of some seriously good writing. It also made me think about how effed up I was at 14 and some of the decisions I made by choosing not to make a decision at all.
Seriously, if you can make an alcoholic pedophile the good character, youve written something really amazing.
Oh, and this is one of those books where the back cover description sucks, sucks, sucks. It's like they tried to describe the book to make it look like it was G Rated when this is a big ole R.
Helpful Score: 11
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, this is NOT. The style of writing is easy to read, but there is offensive language on every page and there are some really disgusting descriptions of sexual activities; the book should certainly be R-rated. Should I have been warned by the words "shocking immediacy" in the blurb and not have ordered it? At any rate, I could not bear to read any further and ended up throwing it away.
Helpful Score: 10
This book honestly made me nauseous. The sexual relationship between the 14-year-old girl and a 30 year old man, really made me sick. The sexuality was gross, especially concerning the situation. The language was also continually offensive. Overall, a bad book. I wouldn't real it again.
Helpful Score: 6
This is a great book about a young girl who doesn't know what her place is in this world and who tries to fit in at all cost. I loved this book and while some parts of the book are a little too honest. It does not take anything away from this book and only adds to the honesty of the book. The author is an excellent writer and this book is great.
Helpful Score: 4
I liked this book mostly, it was entertaining and page-turning, however it was pretty unrealistic.
Helpful Score: 3
There's not a single likeable character in this book.
Helpful Score: 3
This is one of the best books I have read in awhile! It is about a fourteen year old girl and her surprising quick road to young adulthood.
Helpful Score: 3
Great story told in the eyes of a 14 year old.
Helpful Score: 3
About being FOURTEEN.......... Every Mother and Teen should enjoy it.
Helpful Score: 3
This is a frank and endessly touching book. It is a story of a 14 year-old girl. It is about knowing it all to knowing nothing at all. I loved this book. I gave this book to several of my friends and they all thought it was a great book.
Helpful Score: 3
Really and honestly feels like being a kid again. Although the subject matter is not always carefree, it is rudimentary and compassionate.
Helpful Score: 2
This book was really, really wierd. You never find out the name of the girl telling the story and she's the main character. I didn't realize this fact until I was finished reading the book. But it's basically a tale told by a thirteen year old girl (she turns fourteen in the middle of the book) and her days at highschool and these two guys she hooks up with. It's set in London and things are a bit different there, I learned. LOL There is a lot of vulgar language and vulgar sexual stuff, too. I am not sure how I feel about that and what all happens in there, but overall it was a good read. Things kept happening so I couldn't put it down despite the wierdness. I read it in two days and that's fast for me. Some of the things that happened in the book really bothered me due to the nature of them and the fact that the girl they were happening to was only 14. The ending was really wierd. It kinda leaves you hanging in a way because you have no clue what happens after that. And in a way you kinda want to know...and on the other hand you kinda don't. So...anyways.....that was how I felt about it. =)
Helpful Score: 1
This book is raw. It is unnerving. However, I think it's a valuable (and completely real) commentary on how many young girls feel today. An important book for both mothers and daughters.
ROM THE PUBLISHER
Pure is about fourteen - the age when you know everything, except when you don't know anything. It's about first love and the end of innocence, and realizing your family perhaps isn't as happy or your parents as together as you thought. It's about the cool friend for whom everything seems effortless, and the impossibly embarrassing friend you're nice to when your cool friends can't see. It's about that twenty-seven-year-old man who flirts with you when he sells your dad your overpriced birthday stereo - except he actually calls. And it's about what happens after.
At first, I had no problem with getting into this story. This is not your typical coming of age story. It's about a 14/15 year old girl, who is dealing with family conflict, peer pressure, sexuality...BUT, while on this journey through teendom, she becomes involved with a 31 year old man. She does not keep this relationship a secret, here parents tolerate it...IT's A BIZARRE STORY. Then ending left me flat. There's all this building and you expect something big to happen and then the ending is just there. It's a good book.
Pure is about fourteen - the age when you know everything, except when you don't know anything. It's about first love and the end of innocence, and realizing your family perhaps isn't as happy or your parents as together as you thought. It's about the cool friend for whom everything seems effortless, and the impossibly embarrassing friend you're nice to when your cool friends can't see. It's about that twenty-seven-year-old man who flirts with you when he sells your dad your overpriced birthday stereo - except he actually calls. And it's about what happens after.
At first, I had no problem with getting into this story. This is not your typical coming of age story. It's about a 14/15 year old girl, who is dealing with family conflict, peer pressure, sexuality...BUT, while on this journey through teendom, she becomes involved with a 31 year old man. She does not keep this relationship a secret, here parents tolerate it...IT's A BIZARRE STORY. Then ending left me flat. There's all this building and you expect something big to happen and then the ending is just there. It's a good book.
I don't recommend this book, it wasn't very interesting. Fell very flat for me.
copyright in 1998, that means the characters in this book are now turning 30. May God have mercy on Great Britain. Probably shouldn't be read on a full stomach.
(From the back cover)
An accomplished novel that made its young author a sensation. Pure is about fourteen-the age when you know everything, except when you don't know anything. It's about first love and the end of innocence, and realizing your family perhaps isn't as happy or your parents as together as you thought. It's about the cool friend for whom everything seems effortless, and the impossibly embarrassing friend you're nice to when your cool friends can't see. It's about that twenty-seven-year-old man who flirts with you when he sells your dad your overpriced birthday stereo-except he actually calls. And it's about what happens after.
An accomplished novel that made its young author a sensation. Pure is about fourteen-the age when you know everything, except when you don't know anything. It's about first love and the end of innocence, and realizing your family perhaps isn't as happy or your parents as together as you thought. It's about the cool friend for whom everything seems effortless, and the impossibly embarrassing friend you're nice to when your cool friends can't see. It's about that twenty-seven-year-old man who flirts with you when he sells your dad your overpriced birthday stereo-except he actually calls. And it's about what happens after.
From Amazon.com:
From Library Journal
This raw debut by precocious British 20-year-old Ray deftly chronicles a girl's painful transition to young adulthood. With the brutally frank opening line, "I was about thirteen when I started letting the boys feel me up," it's clear that the narrator lacks both judgment and self-esteem, if not sexual experience. Ray does such an insightful job of showing the descent from embarrassed schoolgirl to confused lover of a much older man that you wonder whether this story is autobiographical--and, if so, how the author lived to tell it with such strength. Particularly poignant are scenes involving a jealous childhood friend, those with the narrator's bitter father, and one about her first experience snorting speed, which leads to terrible self-mutilation with a razor blade. Obscenity-laden and distressing, Pure is not for the easily offended or for those who would rather forget their entire adolescence. It is, however, powerful. Recommended for all libraries.
From Library Journal
This raw debut by precocious British 20-year-old Ray deftly chronicles a girl's painful transition to young adulthood. With the brutally frank opening line, "I was about thirteen when I started letting the boys feel me up," it's clear that the narrator lacks both judgment and self-esteem, if not sexual experience. Ray does such an insightful job of showing the descent from embarrassed schoolgirl to confused lover of a much older man that you wonder whether this story is autobiographical--and, if so, how the author lived to tell it with such strength. Particularly poignant are scenes involving a jealous childhood friend, those with the narrator's bitter father, and one about her first experience snorting speed, which leads to terrible self-mutilation with a razor blade. Obscenity-laden and distressing, Pure is not for the easily offended or for those who would rather forget their entire adolescence. It is, however, powerful. Recommended for all libraries.
