Kerry Cohen

The saddest Judy Blume book. Sex addiction tends to generate lascivious chuckles but the author does a terrific job of depicting the depressing emptiness driving people trapped in its thrall.

In Loose Girl, Kerry Cohen remembers her history of promiscuity with
the open-mindedness of someone who has learned the error of her ways.
Cohen is only eleven years old when she first realizes she can use her
gender and sexuality to gain attention from men, and mistakenly
assumes that attention equals love. Throughout this memoir we see
Cohen in casual hook-ups and doomed relationships, always trying to
fill the void inside her. Over time she realizes that only through
true intimacy and show more self-identity can she ever be whole.

Cohen doesn't attempt to hide the dirty truths of her past, instead
she bravely puts her mistakes and incidents on display in hopes
that we might learn from them. This is where Loose Girl shines, as the
raw details make Cohen a much more relatable character. She's flawed
and we don't always like her... but we do understand her. We also wish
her well- cheering when she exorcizes self-control and cringing when
she makes bad decisions. When Cohen finally finds peace we're happy
for her. Loose Girl is the sort of book that makes you look back at
your own past relationships to determine if and when you reached your
own point of understanding.

The main downside with Loose Girl is the ending. That's not to say the
ending was poorly written, it simply seemed to sum up too much in too
few pages. It would have been nice to see more then five pages devoted
to Cohen's change of behavior. Once she meets Michael the book is all
but over. We see that Cohen made a decision, but does she stick with
it? Does it work for her? Is the emptiness finally gone? Does she
respect herself now? We never learn the answers to these questions and
can only hope that the answers are yes. Even a simple afterward
detailing how her choices changed her life for the better would have
been nice. We see in the acknowledgements that Michael is still in her
life and that they have children- we can choose to take that as proof
of her dedication.

Loose Girl tells the gritty truth about a young girl who mistakes sex
for love. If this book helps one girl steer herself off the path of
promiscuity then Cohen's work is worth it. And every girl is worth it. show less

(FYI: Loose Girl is the title of Kerry Cohen's first book and describes girls who are "obsessed with getting love,with using male attention to make [themselves] worthwhile in this world. This may or may not go hand in hand with promiscuity)

I am a grown up loose girl. There. I said it and it is now out in cyberspace for the good or bad. I read Cohen's first book several years ago, while trying to figure some things out about myself. The fact that I won her second book in the LibraryThing show more Early Reviewers giveaway was nothing short of fate. I needed this book. And SO DO YOU. Even if you don't consider yourself a loose girl (or are male), chances are you know someone who is. And if you EVER intend or end up being the parent of a girl, you absolutely have to read this book. It addresses the issues that all (and I do mean all) adolescent females go through regarding love, sex, and relationships and what happens when those issues become true problems. It also gives practical solutions to how to deal with or help divert some of these issues.

Ms. Cohen, thank you for sharing your story and thank you for this book. It just may have saved me, although there is still some work for me to do. show less

Loose Girl can in a way be read as a cautionary tale--this "memoir of promiscuity" is the experience of a girl whose parents divorced just as she noticed she could attract boys (and older ones at that). Making matters worse, Cohen's parents are caught up in their own lives and offer little guidance. Refreshingly, Cohen doesn't seem to blame anyone--instead she lays out the facts as she sees them without making such judgments. Likely her background as a psychotherapist has helped her show more understand her choices.

I simply could not put this book down. Each bit of the story compelled me on to find out what would happen, how it would end. Of course, with it being a memoir one does partially know how it ends from reading the author bio, but how Cohen goes from someone who cannot maintain a relationship to someone who is married with two children isn't known until the very end. She admits her continued struggle and concludes the story with the perfect sentiment: "Maybe, I think, I don't have to be great at this; maybe I just have to be good enough." show less