|
| Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity | 
 enlarge | Author: Kerry Cohen
Publisher: Hyperion
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $10.97
You Save: $10.98 (50%)
New (33) Used (13) from $10.85
Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 15389
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 1401303498
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.7083520973
EAN: 9781401303495
ASIN: 1401303498
Publication Date: June 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW!! MINT CONDITION!!!
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
For everyone who was that girl.
For everyone who knew that girl.
For everyone who wondered who that girl was. Kerry Cohen is eleven years old when she recognizes the power of her body in the leer of a grown man. Her parents are recently divorced and it doesn't take long before their lassitude and Kerry's desire to stand out--to be memorable in some way--combine to lead her down a path she knows she shouldn't take. Kerry wanted attention. She wanted love. But not really understanding what love was, not really knowing how to get it, she reached for sex instead. Loose Girl is Kerry Cohen's captivating memoir about her descent into promiscuity and how she gradually found her way toward real intimacy. The story of addiction--not just to sex, but to male attention--Loose Girl is also the story of a young girl who came to believe that boys and men could give her life meaning. It didn't matter who he was. It was their movement that mattered, their being together. And for a while, that was enough. From the early rush of exploration to the day she learned to quiet the desperation and allow herself to love and be loved, Kerry's story is never less than riveting. In rich and immediate detail, Loose Girl re-creates what it feels like to be in that desperate moment, when a girl tries to control a boy by handing over her body, when the touch of that boy seems to offer proof of something, but ultimately delivers little more than emptiness. Kerry Cohen's journey from that hopeless place to her current confident and fulfilled existence is a cautionary tale and a revelation for girls young and old. The unforgettable memoir of one young woman who desperately wanted to matter, Loose Girl will speak to countless others with its compassion, understanding, and love.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "JACK KEROUAC ONCE SAID: "EVERYTHING I WROTE WAS TRUE BECAUSE I BELIEVED WHAT I SAW." July 20, 2008
17 out of 27 found this review helpful
I am not being flippant or obnoxious when I pose to potential readers the following question: "WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF SOMEONE CALLED YOUR MOTHER A SLUT?" A guy would probably punch the distasteful person in the jaw. A woman would probably knee the abhorrent individual in the groin "and" punch the person in the jaw. Ok... what would you do if your very own Mother not only called herself a slut... but shouted it out to the world, by writing a book that proved her claim a million nauseating times over. That's what this entire repulsive book does. It even has an acknowledgment, before the actual appalling story begins from the author/Mother to her two children... "Who I hope will forgive me someday for writing a book for all their friends to read about their Mother's sex life."
Calling it sex does it too much justice. I am a man who has shared "locker-room" talk with the guys... I've shared stories with other service men in peace and in war... and yet... I have never heard any man ever describe a female... so consistently... in such a manner... that so degrades... a woman... to such a "pride-less" piece of worthlessness... as the author does to herself.
There is absolutely nothing sexy or alluring in this entire book. In addition to being a slut (as she readily admits on page 148: "I don't need anyone else to tell me what a slut I really am.") she abuses cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol. By the twentieth page, the matter-of-fact personal debauchery, literally put a pallor on my very being. The only reason I finished the book is so I could give an honest review.
I am a Father, and a Grandfather, and believe me, I have not led a sheltered life. To any parents out there who may be considering reading this book: Did you watch the movie "Thirteen"? If you did, did you get kind of clammy and shaky thinking; "Man I sure hope my young teenage daughter isn't carrying on like this?" Well the behavior (the only decent word I could use here.) in this book, from before the author was thirteen, and non-stop from there on out... is ONE-THOUSAND-TIMES-WORSE! Parents... I guarantee you... if you read this book... it will not be enjoyable.
The author's actions are so repulsive that when she gets crabs... you find yourself rooting for the crab! Then of course there are the genital warts and scabies. A rational person would have to scratch their head and wonder why... anyone would write this and use their real name... especially with children???
 Truly life-changing June 12, 2008
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
I probably had no business reading this book. I'm a 20 year old guy, and Cohen's new memoir has been clearly targeted towards women, specifically young girls still coming of age. When I was buying it, the lady at the Borders cash register gave me one of the strangest looks I have ever seen. I tried to explain. It was recommended to me by a friend, so I figured it would be an interesting read. I'd just sell it back on Amazon after I was done.
All that being said, there is no way I am selling this book.
We have all seen those girls at bars and parties, the ones who flaunt themselves around. The ones everybody calls whores and sluts. Maybe you look at them with disgust. Maybe with pity or empathy. Maybe, if you're like one of the guys in Cohen's story, you look at them with lust. Whatever it is you think when you see a promiscuous girl, this book will change your mind forever.
Loose Girl holds nothing back. Cohen writes about her journey with heart-breaking honesty and detail that will make you cringe. The recount of sexual incidents during her childhood and adolescence is melancholy and at times very disturbing. As she continues on through high school and college, making the same mistakes over and over, the story becomes downright agonizing. The last section reads like day turning from afternoon to dusk, or perhaps late night becoming dawn. Every chapter holds new truths. She answers questions that can't be answered--questions about why we are the way we are, what it means to love and be loved. There is a part where she realizes "Not being able to live without someone is not love. It's need." Quotes like this make the book unforgettable.
In the process of writing and publishing her memoir, Cohen has taken a lot of unwarranted criticism. She's been called an attention-whore and a slut. But the truth is, Loose Girl isn't really about any of that. It's about identity. Kerry's sexual promiscuity could have been anything. It could have been alcohol, drugs, religion, or whatever else people let get in their way of creating their art and their life. Kerry's favorite quote is by Mary Oliver: "Tell me, what will you do with your one wild and precious life?" In telling her chaotic story, she's not begging for attention to her life, she's helping us figure out ours. The writing truly touches on all fronts, it would be a huge mistake to assume otherwise.
This is a life-changing memoir that you'll want to read over and over. Here's to hoping Kerry Cohen will ignore the critics and keep up her incredible writing.
could not put it down June 4, 2008
9 out of 13 found this review helpful
I was riveted from the first page on and basically ignored my children all afternoon to read this book. Kerry Cohen has captured the sense of pride coupled with self-loathing and disgust that filled my teen and young adult years as I too sought something to fill an inner emptiness in the arms and beds of boy after boy. Sometimes very uncomfortable to read - but so powerfully honest I was compelled to continue. Excellently done, beautifully written and a book most women will see at least a part of themselves in. Highly recommend.
 Journey to REAL Intimacy? Not! June 19, 2008
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
To be honest, I also could not put this book down once I started reading it. From a purely user-friendly perspective, it's a simple, quick read. No sophistication here at all, and in this case, it's a good thing so that one really absorbs the story. Also, I too, like so many others who have already read this book, can identify in a very personal way with Kerry's experiences...the degradation, denial, and self-loathing that comes from desperately trying to find love and feel loved at any cost. This "theme" is nothing new to most women who grew up in a post-Watergate or Generation X time period, whether experienced first-hand or through movies and literature of the time.
HOWEVER, to describe this book as a story of "finding her way toward real intimacy" (from the front cover flap) and "a model for recovery and real love" (review on back flap cover) is to totally mislead. Nothing could be further from the truth! Kerry is still sleeping with nameless, faceless men right up until the end, when she meets her husband-to-be, Michael. Who she then is engaged to within a period of 8 months. THIS is recovery? I don't think so. In fact, on Kerry's website, she states that she still struggles with some of the indentfied issues in the book.
I'm not trying to knock Cohen down as an author or a person. However, saying that you've been healed/recovered simply because you finally got married is akin to saying that you've conquered alcoholism simply because you stopped physically drinking alcohol. But there's more to it (anyone hear of a "dry drunk"?) and we all know it. The likely truth is that Kerry has been healed by the actual WRITING of this book, and good for her. But if anyone thinks this book offers any insight as to how she decided to stop sleeping with every guy she encountered, forget it. It's not there. Choose to enjoy this book only as a launch-point in thinking about and analyzing your own similar experiences.
Just not interesting June 27, 2008
9 out of 15 found this review helpful
I'm sure for the people who write these confessional memoirs, they find the tales of their own life to be gripping and profound. Cohen's work here is along those lines. Obviously for her these experiences were dramatic and unique. However, on the printed page they are mundane and not very interesting.
She also suffers from the common fault of many recent memoirs...the desperate rush to get her story into print before she's had the time or maturity to process the deeper meaning of all these experiences. Gives Loose Girl a shallow, tabloid feel.
In the end Loose Girl comes off as a narcissistic endeavor. One can sense she is using the reader to fill the void that neither the men nor her parents could fill....and one that she seems unable to fill herself.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
