LOOSE GIRL by KERRY COHEN

LOOSE GIRL

BY KERRY COHEN

THE BLURB:-

“There is a new boy I like. I see him every other day when our classes let out at the same time. He has long, dark hair and unbelievably beautiful eyes. Almost immediately I can feel the energy between us, the promise of something to come.”

Kerry first noticed the power she had over the opposite sex at the age of eleven. By the time she was in her teens she was obsessed by boys, and soon she needed sex just to feel alive.

Sleeping with countless partners, Kerry's misguided search for love was getting out of hand. But would she ever find what she really needed?

THE REALITY:-

This didn't come across as a diary of a sex addict- I've read before about the desperation involved with using sex like a powerful drug and that tipping point where the addiction begins to control the addicted- that obsessive crave whilst searching for the next fix and total breakdown when denied it. Rather, this came across as a journal of a thoroughly normal young woman's sexual conquests!

Maybe that came from being brought up in a small town. It was the kind of place where eleven year old girls think they are pregnant by an eighteen year old “boy”; the kind of place where a fourteen year old girl has a baby and there are six possible candidates for the position of father; the kind of place where a fifteen year old girl keeps a sex diary listing the twelve or thirteen boys she has fucked, with boxes ticked for fellatio, cunnilingus, anal, a bit of finger etc; the kind of place where a twelve year old loses her virginity and, a couple of years later, takes out a group photograph of her male "friends", pointing, laughing and boasting about who she's been out with, got off with or just plain shagged.   This, sadly, is all true.  Although with the latter female, I've always thought that half the fun with regard to having sex is the boasting about it afterwards. A bit blokeish, me!

When I moved to London, in my early twenties, I was surprised how innocent and decent the girls were when it came to sex. Maybe it's because, in the provinces, there is nothing much to do and no future to plan other than getting married and having babies. And with that comes too much focus on the former experimentation and exploration. I'm glad I don't have a teenage daughter. If I'd had a child, I would have made sure I did the preliminaries at an early age; those being making sure the poor little mite had such a bigged-up sense of self esteem that she didn't feel the need to validate her worthiness via the media of sex. The peer pressure to perform at an earlier and earlier age is absolutely colossal (and depressing.) It was there when I was at school and, like autobiographical Kerry in the book, my parents had to take a large share of the blame where my particular behaviour was concerned. Like Kerry, I also noticed my power over the opposite sex at the age of eleven. I won't tell you how- it's rather freaky and for my next novel. Like Kerry, I also used sex as a weapon, although for her it was to shore up her shattered sense of worthiness and for me it was an act of rebellion and sticking one in the eyes of my verbally abusive and morally self righteous parents, and getting my own back on certain vile boyfriends. One teenage suitor in particular was a nasty, jealous, insecure, possessive bastard who wasn't fit to even be in my presence. I stayed with him because I was young and innocent and didn't know any better. But to this day I haven't cheated on someone as much as I cheated on him. And I'm proud of it! I'm not sorry that I lowered myself to get him and my parents back! It shows that I thought very little of them, which is exactly how they deserved to be thought of! But it's not necessarily a good way to behave and thankfully I grew out of it and raised my standards. Kerry's parents must take some share of the blame in the novel. They both come across as too hedonistic and the boundaries seem to be blurred where sex is concerned. For instance, Kerry's mother touching Kerry's sister Tyler's breasts and mentioning that it can feel quite nice when a man does it. Or Kerry's dad getting into bed with teenage Kerry just for a cuddle, because he needs comfort. Neither of them are perverts, but uuurrrggghhh! That's too much familiarity.

I was glad that this book was only 300 pages long and that the writing was well-spaced, as it meant it was over quickly. It didn't seem that great. What I would have loved to have read were gory descriptive details laid out there, such as who had a walloping big penis and who was hung like a toddler; who was a fantastic shag and who was a jackrabbit who came in two seconds flat. This had all the power to be humorous but just came across as a bit depressing. I also found it hard to relate to some of Kerry's situations and choices as Americans always seem to be so well-off in comparison to us British. Their standard of living is certainly better than ours. The book did, however, make the very good point that a lot of young women use sex as a means of attracting attention.  Again, parents wise up and do your job properly, then maybe youngsters won't feel so inclined to seek emotional fulfillment outside of the family home.  This is probably a book a teenage girl would find enjoyable but for me it was just okay and nothing more.