The crazy stuff that happened is so hard to listen to. Use discretion

I really wanted to learn more about the story but the poor narration, overdone sound effects and poor voice acting made it unlistenable. I got through one and a half episodes and had to unfollow.

This could have been interesting and the first episode was good but I couldn’t finish the second one- it got increasingly graphic. That was overkill.

So but potential; the storytelling, narration, and terrible acting ruined this one :(

Super boring presentation. The audio is annoying. It sounds like every couple of minutes she is far away from the microphone like she’s moving around

Bit too perverse for my taste, didn’t finish

Fell asleep

Can y’all get Ashley flowers to narrate and tell this story. The narrator’s voice is awful, makes the story really hard to get through episodes. The person that voices Claudia sounds so scripted, fake and not a good reenactment. They’ll play real audio evidence but won’t clarify what was said. The ads occur suddenly and without notice and will blare through your audio. It’s a good story, but someone like Ashley flowers or Delia Diambra need to tell it. Don’t bother with this one. Just google and read about it

The cheese of the voice actors making things unintentionally funny was too high to hurdle. Couldn’t finish. Seemed like interesting subject matter so pretty bummed.

Good grief. Such an important story to be told and you’ve turned off yet another listener. I suppose I could save this for the nights I can’t fall asleep - I’m sure the monotonous, drab voice of the narrator would help quite a lot. I have to wonder if this was written by AI?

Interested in the subject matter but I can’t get past the super monotone narrator and repetitiveness- it sounds like it was written by AI.

Good subject but podcast is un-exciting. Repeated same storyline over and over. Dragged on and felt abusive. I finally skipped all episodes after 3 to get to ‘Justice’ and I didn’t even finish that. Why? Bcz it was repetitive and boring and anti climactic.

How does someone present this information and it’s boring? Boring, boring, boring

The storytelling is really poor. Reading transcripts with actors is not storytelling. And the inclusion of the audio of someone self harming in order to torture and manipulate a family member was gross and gratuitous. At least for how long they let it carry on. There’s no need to listen to that for as long as it was included. Shame on the producers.

Bet it’s a good story but you can’t tell

Nice work, loved it!

I tried listening to this, but it’s terribly boring, monotone narrator, and bad actors.

I made it through 1.5 episodes before having the pull the plug. The production quality is poor, the script boring and painful to listen to, and the volume of the advertisements is ridiculous. Not sure how these poor kids were enticed to behave like this, but this depiction just re-victimizes them with this humiliating portrayal. I’m sure there is a more compelling, higher quality version of this story out there.

So interested in this, however I am so bored. So monotone. Not great

As if the victims weren't victimized enough, it's humiliating

This podcast is awful. So incredibly boring and poorly edited.

Reading this story in the story “ The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence” is more informative and more professional telling of the story of Larry Ray and the cult he developed at Sarah Lawrence College. This podcast production is terrible from start to finish, on virtually every level. 

Technical issues: The audio is very faint, yet the commercials are obnoxiously loud. 

Writing: This is one of the top 3 worst-edited podcasts I’ve heard. The writing reads like it was written as a Lifetime movie of the week. It will be hard to follow the story because of the poor editing and forcing so many details - often unnecessary for the storyline. There are disjointed plot points and missing context points. 

Narration: I like Elisabeth Röhm’s voice, but her delivery is the same flat performance in any medium. I was constantly thinking, “She’s really not a good storyteller.” She’s trying to project as a lone performer in an audition for an acting scene. It’s just terrible. I could think of dozens of other actresses whose intonation and timing would be superior to that of Ms. Röhm. Unfortunately, she picked herself to narrate because she’s the producer. Ultimately, she’s failed on both levels, though she was the main reason I tried to listen to the story, despite being very familiar with the details. I fell into the trap of thinking that she’d get better as a performer, but this was a huge missed opportunity. The use of voice actors was weird and annoying, almost cringy. 

I made it through three and a half episodes before I just couldn’t listen to this poorly told story any longer. There are so many other platforms that tell this story much better.

Having already watched the documentary “Stolen Youth”, I was loosely familiar with this story. Listening to this podcast has me asking the same question, “how?”

How did they manage to make this literally unlistenable? The actors were painful to listen to. Idk if they thought a lot of screaming would make it more dramatic but it just makes it harder to listen to. This is such good material, but this podcast butchered it.

I have empathy for the victims in this case, but having their testimonies read by actors made them unsympathetic. Also it sounds like the narrator on this series is trying really hard to impersonate what a Serious Journalist might sound like. I couldn’t listen past episode 4. What a shame because it would help society if more people understood how cults work.

Interesting content but the narration and “acting” were terrible. Did a search and found better content on this story.

Had to turn it off after 10 minutes. Terrible narration and acting.

This was so unbelievable and while I realize this is a true story, this is just stupid. I feel no empathy for the complete stupidity and lack of reasoning every one of these college kids demonstrated to get here. I’m no world would I have even entertained the thought of a parent moving in while in college let alone this. This is easily the worst podcast I’ve ever listened to. Wondery should do better. Will never be subscribing to wondery + when this is the type of content they’re peddling.

I don’t know if this is the whole podcast, but the first part is one woman speaking in monotone non stop. I listen to podcasts to go to sleep, but the sound was too disturbing.

Best host, best voice actors. Lol moments such as “He made us get up real early … like 9 or 10!” 😂 The woman playing the insufferable pickme should get a Podcast 🏆for Best Milennial Vocal Fry (she’d beat out the Morbid women!) This story is just incredible. It’s hard to believe people could be this stupid. It’s hard to blame Ray for taking these rich dingdong’s money. Hard to blame him for punching them, they’re so punchable. How difficult is it to get millennial women to have sex on camera? Not difficult at all! Also referring to them as “vulnerable young people” is hilarious— they were 30 at the end and the Harvard grad must have been pushing 40! Should be made into a film like Larry Clark’s “Bully”

This sounded like an interesting story, but the narration is monotonous and irritating and the acting is ridiculous. It’s hard to believe a group of people could be so dense. If a college roommate had said to me, “hey, my dad is moving into our dorm for awhile”, I would have moved out immediately. That’s so weird. Any normal person would think that was crazy.

I recommend watching the docuseries on Hulu. Unfortunately this podcast coverage of it is done super cheesy and sounds amature.

I can’t handle listening to the male voice actor. It’s ridiculous. How stupid are these kids and their parents!

The voices. Oi. Lots of vocal fry and bad voice acting. This could’ve been great. Feels cheap and gimmicky to decide to dramatize this instead of a deep dive with psychologist or just ask the victims. I thought at first they were protecting the victims but turns out the victims have been telling their story and probably could’ve been used for this. Please don’t do voice acting for true crime podcast. It cheapens what horrors these people went through and feels like I’m listening to a bad school play.

I really wanted to hear this story because it sounds so fascinating. Unfortunately it will not be with this podcast. Why the bad acting? Just tell the story! Once the girl started screaming at the top of her lungs in episode 2, I decided that was enough for me. Too bad because Wondery podcasts are usually some of my favorites.

I’m left with all questions and no answers… How on earth did this middle-age clown get privileged college elites under his “coercive control” without possessing any of the usual characteristics of cult leaders (e.g., charming, persuasive, visionary, attractive, magnetic, intelligent, etc). As presented, the series of events is absurd and the victims are completely unrelatable and unsympathetic. Perhaps there’s a compelling story here, or even a potential comedy, but this isn’t it. I’m surprised Law & Crime is affiliated with this nonsense

Don’t mind her voice like other reviewers but she uses inappropriate analogies. The innocence project? Mexican cartel drug trafficking? Not trying to minimize the trauma but she’s got no self awareness and the bad analogies make sympathy more difficult. These were not children being shipped on false pretenses to a foreign and unfamiliar place. Vulnerable, yea, but don’t try to make it seem like child sex trafficking, it’s a bad analogy.

Interesting story kept me engaged, but the narrator’s voice is grating! Story not fully fleshed out, and acting is meh.

The narrators voice is loud and grating while voice actors and clips vary from whispers to low volume to vocal fry, then bounce back to loud and grating.

I’m cannot get through this first ep…her voice😳

So insane I can’t listen . The narrator has an annoying voice just can’t listen past episode two .

I couldn’t get through the first episode. The acting and narration are horrible. Fortunately, I found a documentary streaming about this case. The story is crazy. A traditional true-crime podcast would have been great.

I am so glad I didn’t pay the subscription to listen to this. I was looking forward to learning more about this story, but after the second episode, I can’t listen any longer.

I can’t believe these people fell for this guy’s lies and manipulation but worse is the narrator of this story. Monotone and hard to follow. I find myself toggling between getting angry at the people involved for being so stupid and the boring narrator telling us about it. She’s some sort of actress I’ve never even heard of, not impressed. Don’t bother.

Couldn’t get through with the narration and voice actors. Stop midway through episode 2.

I struggled and fought to get through episode 2. Skipped to the last and still couldn’t listen. Less is more. Constantly mentioning she went to the school and trying to connect as an “almost” victim was very off putting. Terrible format. I’ll just YouTube or Google what happened

incredibly boring and hard to get through.

Stopping at Episode 4! I’ll save you the time, it doesn’t get any better.

The narration and dramatization together, killed it within the first 10 minutes. There really needs to be the actual players in the story, actors. Also, the narrator cannot carry the story on her own. it sounds like bland reading. I do not recommend.

How delusional are the people who produced this crap? You should be paying me. Here’s a little advice if there is ever a next time. Less is More. This is garbage