Lori by John Benton

From the back cover:

To Lori Hutton it seemed as if the world was against her.  She ran away from home to escape cruel parents, but found life on the streets even more cruel.  She turned in desperation to others, only to be deceived by her new "friends."

She was determined to find freedom; instead she found herself enslaved to the disgrace of prostitution.  Hopelessly entangled in the worst kind of human hurt, Lori felt that life was no longer worth living... Then Lori met Rich, a young man who gave her reason for hope and pointed the way to freedom.  In an ultimate expression of friendship, Rich risked his own life to help Lori escape from danger and leave her old life behind—forever.

Content:  physical abuse, streaking, shoplifting, four suicide attempts (pills, slashed wrists, hanging, jumping into the river), prostitution, abduction, violent rape

This book contains one of the funniest passages I have ever read in a book.  I posted it on Facebook while I was reading the book.

I wrote:

Lori is a troubled teenager who wants some painkillers.  She plans to have her younger sister, Peggy, steal the painkillers for her.  But Lori needs to create a distraction.

Lori strips off her clothes and runs around inside the drugstore while Peggy steals the painkillers!  I could hardly read due to how hard I was laughing!

This image shows that part of the book.  Click on the image in order to see it better.

Lori spends a weekend at a millionaire's house.  Lori has been hired to seduce the man's religious nephew.  On page 124, Lori and the nephew settle down to watch a television that has a six-foot screen. 

Okay, wait a minute.  That's impossible unless the image was projected onto a screen.  An actual television set could not have had such a large screen in 1980.  At that time, all televisions had picture tubes.  They were large and very heavy.  A six-foot screen?  Do you know how heavy that would be?

I searched online for information on the largest screen size ever made for cathode ray tube televisions or monitors.  The largest I found was a 43-inch screen set that weighed over 400 pounds.  If a 72-inch screen were to exist, it would have to weigh up towards 1000 pounds.  

This book is interesting in that Lori's conversion occurs gradually during the last one-third of the story.

I greatly enjoyed this book.