INSIDE THE MIND OF GIDEON RAYBURN

On his first day at an elite New England boarding school, Gideon Rayburn doesn’t know about the mysterious female visitor inexplicably tucked inside his head listening to and commenting on his most intimate thoughts ranging from cafeteria food to losing his virginity. So through an often confusing jumble of Gideon’s own thoughts and the quasi-omnipotent female’s observations, readers watch from two vantage points as Gideon shakes off his working-class roots and tries to fit in with his wealthy and generally vapid classmates. Attempting to assimilate, Gideon bets his roommates that he will bed his classmate Molly McGarry. Unsurprisingly, Gideon falls for Molly and faces a moral conflict, which he solves in a way that slightly and possibly unrealistically panders to a female audience. A typical prep-school tale complete with excess, drugs and sex, but with a failed twist that is frequently awkward and quickly grows predictable. (Fiction. YA)