Rating: 
Summary: Mary is a pedophile
Review: I am amazed at times at the ability of writers to be neutrally compasionate about their subjects, as is Mr. Olsen. However, as the mother of a fourteen year old boy, I know Mary is a pedophile. I wonder if Mary will now find another young boy to focus on since Vili is older.
Almost as offensive as the crimes she committed is the fact that there is some sympathy for her situation. Why? Because she is a female pedophile? She is no different from any male teacher that sexually abuses a young female student. As a society we should be offended at this double standard.
I do not understand how or why anyone has sympathy for this pedophile rapist.
Rating:
Summary: Good coverage of the facts, but you have to dig for them!
Review: I am surprised by the reviews that mention this as a well-written book. It contains sufficient editorial errors (names spelled differently throughout the text, for example) to lose credibility in my eyes. It is also extremely verbose in ways that do not add to the imagery or story in any way. Makes me wonder if the author got paid by the word. That said, the book contains a great deal of information about the Mary Kay phenomenon and I feel as though I got what I wanted to get out of reading this book.
Rating: 
Summary: If loving you is wrong
Review: I just finished reading "If loving you is wrong". Gregg Olsen does a good job of pulling back the layers of Mary K, to expose the raw nerves. She is not dealing with real life, just fairy tales. I find it hard to believe she would throw away her first 4 kids to have kids with a kid! There are many victims in this story, and as far as I'm concerned, Mary K is not one of them!
Rating: 
Summary: If loving you is wrong
Review: I thought this book was wonderful! not just the information given to us that the media had left out, but it was able to give me my own informed opinion and not just one the media gave me. I felt after reading this book that although I would never do such a thing I believe they really did love each other at the time, as much as a 13 yr old could and that she was no more sick than a 70 yr old man with a 50 yr old woman. Before I had read this I had the opposite idea. I would recomend this book highly as an unbiased representation of the facts. A very good, cant put this book down read!
Rating:
Summary: Can't Get Enough!
Review: I'm enjoying reading about this woman...I guess I never realized how much there was to this story. Great book. Great detail.
Rating:
Summary: Also read Mass With Mary by Christina Dress
Review: If you liked this book, you'll also like "Mass With Mary-The Prison Years" by Christina Dress. Her book picks up where Mr. Olsen's book ends - Mary Letourneau in prison and what happened over the next several years. Her book will make you laugh, cry, and at times, both.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, bad photos....
Review: Its obvious that Gregg Olsen tried his darndest to cover the story from every single angle imaginable. The book is well researched and written, well organized, and good readable "rainy saturday brain trash". And I'm sure he's right when he says that everyone has an opinion, and it's sad that a human being becomes a commodity, no matter how wrong/stupid/sick she is. But the "Shocking Photos"! What a joke! It looks like a real esatate catalog! Here's the house she grew up in. Here's the trailer park where her dad lived. Here's the house she lived in. Oh look! It's a SCHOOL! There's what, ONE picture of Vili, and two of Mary? And half a dozen photos of what I would categorize as "Mary Kay Remoras", her lawyer, her hangers-on. Plus, we get pictures of....magazines?? Im sure he could have done a lot better....heck, the GLOBE, People, and every other magazine on the continenet did better. One other thing I would have added was a timeline...at parts, it becomes confusing as to what happened where and what was doing what at which time. Was the Marina incident before or after her husband had a kid with some other woman? And what was up with this Alaska trip with Vili? When was that? How long did thier sexual realtionship go on until "Secret Squirrel" called the police? (I had to get paper and pen to figure THAT one out.) In any case,despite the detailed case study, you come away from this with more questions than anwers...and I think that's the hallmark of a good true crime book.
Rating:
Summary: If Loving You is Wrong, what is right for 2 people in Love ?
Review: Living near Seattle, we had a good dose of information overload about Mary Kay Letourneau and so many "expert reviews" about her and Villi,it left many people having no idea of what the "real" Mary Kay was. Many painted her as a monster forcing a Innocent 13 year old into a world he was far to young to know right from wrong. Then she was called a "nutcase" as she was Bipoler. And then the reports from her friends and students who talked about her inner (and outer) beauty, a very strong in some ways, but unsure of herself, sometimes seeming very lost but also a person that was very honest and had a huge warm heart. But one small probem, Villi was 13 at the time and Mary Kay was 34, almost 3 times as old as Villi. Yet today she was released (4 Aug. 2004) as has registered already with the King County Court House as a registed sex offender #2 and tonight will be spending her first night as a free person in the house she rented south of Seattle. She is now 42, while Villa is 21 and no longer almost 3x older, but only 2x older which does not sound so bad as a 20 year difference with normally the male as the older person is hardly looked at today.
Greg Olsen is a brilliant writer, able to break down this extremely difficult relation without really taking one side or the other. If you thought you knew the "whole story on Mary Kay and Villa, this book will open tons of details that before were not published. Many parts of this book has a bit of a roller coaster ride ranging from a "forbidden relation" to one that is very romantic. In some ways one can almost compare this to the love of Romeo and Juliet, 2 lovers coming from very different backgrounds and not worrying about it, but followed their hearts. If you look at just the facts, the relation was wrong in all ways, a 13 yr old with a 34 year old woman that was married (but very unhappy with the marriage) and 4 children. Then the conflict of interest of a teacher getting involved with one of her students. A "forbidden" thing to do, but has happened to many.
However there is the overlooked side that both fell in love with each other in what seems like true love direct from the heart. However who can define what love really is or what "rules" need to be followed ? Mary Kay who was acting younger then her actual age and Villi acting older then many his age acted. After reading Gregg's excellent book, one is left with the "raw" facts, but also the very human side of this relation. After reading "If Loving You is Wrong" it reinforced my feeling that Mary Kay is not a bad or evil person as she has been referred to so many times, but instead a very lonely and unhappy women that was feeling lost at that point. How many people out there fall in love sometimes not at a good time ? (ie a rebound relation)
Greggs book is fantastic and he has a neat writing style that makes his book hard to put down. I do hope that Mary Kay can get her life and be able to follow her dream's.
Tedd Riggs
Redmond, WA
Rating:
Summary: True crime at its best!
Review: Mary Kay is, indeed, news again! She gets out of prison within weeks. If you want a book about her that is, at once, written from an insider's point of view, IF LOVING YOU IS WRONG is your book. Gregg Olsen isn't content in rehashing old news stories about the Letourneau case or, like many true-crime writers today, repackaging newspaper articles and slapping a book together; he digs deep, finds the hidden story, and gets those exclusive interviews other reporters can only dream of. I particularly liked how Olsen didn't take sides in Mary Kay's story. He simply let us, his readers, decide for ourselves who was victim and villain. I just read an article in PEOPLE magazine about Mary Kay, in which Gregg Olsen was quoted at length. The gist of what he said is that Mary Kay and Villi really don't know each other, so how can they possibly think that what they had was/is love? I agree-and IF LOVING YOU IS WRONG, Olsen's brilliant book, the only true "authorized" version of Mary Kay and Villi's relationship, is the only true, in-depth account of Mary Kay's life. To prove this, I encourage anyone to read the first two chapters. You will find exclusive information about Mary Kay like that nowhere else! I wouldn't even consider another book about Mary Kay; IF LOVING YOU IS WRONG, for me, is the only official biography, and Gregg Olsen certainly the only authority on the subject besides Mary Kay herself.
Rating: 
Summary: Taken from News Documentaries
Review: Save your money on this one - it reads like a tv news report. Why read what you've already seen on your local news station. Whatever.
|
