A Different Kind of Loose Woman (Loose Girl - Kerry Cohen)

Member Name: jupiter28

Product:	Loose Girl - Kerry Cohen
Date:	29/05/09 (170 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Erm......

Disadvantages: Maybe not juicy enough....

My friend gave me this book recommending it as a compulsive read and once started you couldn't stop. I have to disagree on the compulsive part, but more of that later.

The book is autobiographical and written by Kerry Cohen, telling the story of her promiscuity and addiction to sex which as we learn through the book is a way of feeling wanted and desired by the opposite sex. The author is from the US and the tale starts in New Jersey where she grew up. The cover of the book is a close-up of the right-side of a womans bottom and thigh, dressed only in knickers. Whilst I would not call this smutty, I wouldn't class it as sophisticated either. This isn't the sort of book I would have felt comfortable reading on the train or indeed in public.

Now when I first started reading the book I expected it to be quite glamourous and dramatic. Similar to Siobhan's story in the TV drama Mistresses. For those of you not familiar with Mistresses, Siobhan is in a sexless marriage so spends most nights picking up random guys in bars and ending up in hotel rooms until the early hours. This book is about sex addiction but not necessarily in a coarse way. The first part of the book starts with Kerry in her mid-teens and how she comes to terms with her sexuality, but it takes a good third of the book (and it is only 300 pages) to actually describe the first conquest.

Coupled with the fact that the psychoanalysis about why the author was in this state, was crammed into the last 15 pages, the book played out very much like a little black book as we went through conquest after conquest for Kerry. I am not sure whether the book is intended to titillate the readers senses, but truth be told it did bore me at various phases throughout the book. It seemed like the whole experience for the author was very much textbook. Divorced parents, absent mother, immature father, distant sister, regular visits to various therapists all seemed contrived and very much stereotypical. For this reason I couldn't empathise or even sympathise with the author.

The book itself was very easy to read as it is written mainly with speech and paragraphs written in the first person. The paragraphs interject with the
speech and some context or deep thought that must have been going through Kerry's mind at the time.

What disappoints me greatly about this book is the inaccuracy of written
grammar. There are many points in the book where the author uses 'it don't' instead of 'it doesn't' and not with speech but actual written text. I did wonder if this could be due to writing style or American colloquialisms but I do not think a book like this passed an appropriate proof-read. Nor would I consider grammatical errors as a writing style. What makes this point even more strange, is that the author herself is a writing teacher so something like this should not enter the market without checks.

Autobiographies are my favourite type of book and I tend to veer towards the famous side of the autobiography spectrums, so this was a bit of a change. The book was originally explained to me as compulsive and it didn't feel that way to me and it struggled to hold my attention for more than a few pages at a time. I did not feel engaged in any of the characters, especially the author considering this is an autobiography. The did not seem different to anything I have read before, nor did it stand out for me.

Even though this is an autobiography, Kerry Cohen, the author, is a writer
herself. I did some research on the author and discovered that she writes under Kerry Cohen and Kerry Cohen Hoffman. It seems Kerry writes under the latter in junior fiction and has written about 3 books including this one.

Personally I have read much better books, both autobiographical and fictional, so I wouldn't whole-heartedly recommend this book. As it is very quick to read, you could probably finish it within a couple of days on holiday. I am only giving it 2 stars, due to the lack of engagement, the errors and lack of character depth. General thumbs down from me.

Pages: 300
ISBN: 978009192271
Author: Kerry Cohen
RRP: £6.99
Published: 3 July 2008


Thank you for reading. This review will be posted on other sites by me.

© jupiter28 2009

Summary: Not a window into addiction