Loose Girl

Book 87 of my 2016 Reading Challenge
read from October 26 - November 02

Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity by Kerry Cohen

Summary (via the book jacket)
For Everyone Who Was That Girl.
For Everyone Who Knew That Girl.
For Everyone Who Wondered Who That Girl Was.

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.
Never less than riveting, 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.
The unforgettable story of one young woman who desperately wanted to matter, Loose Girl  will speak to countless others with its compassion, understanding, and love.

My Opinion
She's very introspective about what she was looking for and why.  I understand her rationale even though my life didn't take this particular path.

But grrr, why did she have to casually use the 'r' word (she wrote a story about "a retarded girl who gets gang-raped")???  Nothing pulls me out of a book faster than that.

A Few Quotes from the Book
"It doesn't matter who he is. There are so many of them. Him. Me. Our movement together. Proof, I think again and again, of being worthwhile. Proof of being loved."

"I held off having sex before because I had the notion I would wait for love. I wasn't sure I'd ever be loved, and I was tired of waiting. If I can't have love, I'll take the next best thing - or at least the thing I figure might get me the love."

"There are times I feel like I live in a different universe, as though I am watching other girls through a glass wall, these strange creatures who seem to know how to be loved."