LOOSE GIRL- KERRY COHEN

This is a must have!!

All of us women have a special power that men do not have. We have the ability to seduce and get what we need by using our body parts. Using that, plus our sometimes manipulative talking, allows us to be a very powerful being. Unfortunately by doing this, we are not only disrespecting the person we have turned our attention on, but also we are disrespecting ourselves. Kerry Cohen does just that. In her memoir, Loose Girl, she shows us just what women and young girls are capable of and how our society can take advantage of that.

At the age of eleven, Kerry realizes this power she has when an older man gives her a suggestive smile while he is checking out her young, maturing body. This power she had was lying dormant until this point in time. She got an adrenaline rush, and decided that she really liked how it made her feel. From then on out she started to seek out men, using her body to get their attention. She hung out at clubs, went into the city, went to boys’ homes that she didn’t even know, and hung out with the wrong crowd to accomplish this. She starts to sleep with a lot of these boys and men and eventually even loses count of how many she has slept with. Some people in her life start to lose respect for her and I think at one point she even starts to lose respect for herself.

Kerry realizes along that way that what she really wants is to feel loved. Her parents are split
up, and are not very good role models to boot. She and her sister have grown distant as well. Kerry saw her mother act sexually inappropriate with her sister, and her father tried to climb into bed with her one day. The boundaries of what are sexually appropriate and what is not has been blurred for this young girl. With that image being skewed and her hunger to feel powerful, Kerry gets herself into a routine that is very damaging to her. She has to deal with heartbreak after heartbreak, gets used, contracts STDs, etc. She eventually realizes that she is doing something wrong and that if she keeps acting the way she is acting she will never find true love. Kerry goes to great lengths to get some help for herself.

This memoir does not leave anything out and Kerry Cohen allows you to feel her greatest triumphs and her greatest failures. I was very impressed with this book and how honest Kerry Cohen was able to be with her audience. Her writing was smooth and easy to follow and she gave us just enough detail to really pack a punch. I think this is an excellent book for all young teens to read. The more we can educate these girls the better. All of the events that take place in this book are all things that could easily happen to any one of us. If you have young children and want to try everything you can to help them succeed in a very tough society, where they get lots of attention for all of the wrong reasons, then this is a book you should make sure they own.

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EXTRAORDINARY WILL-TRISH EDMISTEN

Wow, this book was amazing!!!!!

I read this book in one day. Usually I then will turn around and review it right off while it is still fresh in my head. With this book, I had to walk away from it for awhile. I had to wait until my emotions were a little less fresh in regards to this story. This book had me crying page after page after page. This is a first for me. Sure, I sometimes get misty eyed when something terrible happens to a character or when something miraculous happens, but this was all pure, raw emotion spilling fourth.
Brandy is a nineteen year old girl who is doing normal nineteen year old things. She works at McDonalds and hates it, so she finds a new job in an office and continues to go to school. When Brandy meets Will, the son of her boss, Felicia, everything appears normal. I thought this was going to end up being a typical romance, with some twists and turns and possibly a break up or a ‘happily ever after’ type story. Boy was I wrong.
Trish Edmisten takes her words and lifts them off of the page and shoots them straight into your heart. Will and Brandy fall in love and are extremely happy. What Brandy doesn’t know is that Will has a secret. He is no ordinary, healthy young man. Brandy finds out that Will has fought and survived a brain tumor that could just as easily have killed him. They make a pact that no matter what happens, they will continue to stay together, even if the tumor comes back full force. That’s just what happens; Will’s tumor comes back and he finds himself once again fighting for his life. Brandy and Will no longer have a normal relationship where they can take things slow and just enjoy life. They now are dealing with a love that may be short lived and tear their lives apart. Instead of going to the movies on a Friday night, or ordering in pizza with the love of her life, Brandy finds herself quitting school and completely taking care of Will to help him fight for his life, and their relationship.
Trish Edmisten grabs hold of your heart and will not let go until the very last page. She forces you to come to grips with the fact that this could happen to anyone; even you. She makes you realize just how precious life is and that once you find the gift of love and happiness you should enjoy each and every precious day because you never know when it is going to be your last. Finding true love is a rare and beautiful thing, and there is nothing stopping the powers that be from tearing it away from you. For days after reading this book I looked at my relationship in a while new light and pondered what I would do if I lost the love of my life.
I would recommend this book to everyone to read. Grab a box of tissues and tuck in to read it front to back. This is a reality check for everyone and is a must have on your shelf.

This review is also posted at www.frontstreetreviews.com

POISONWOOD BIBLE-BARBARA KINGSOLVER

I did not do a formal review on frontstreet.com for this book, but I thought I would talk about it anyways. My cousin from Colorado had to read "The Poisonwood Bible" for a class and answer some questions about it and she asked me to read it as well so we could work on the questions together. I finally finished it at work last night. I thought it was pretty good, but I remember a few years ago it was like this big deal, and I'm not seeing that.

I really like how Barbara Kingsolver broke up "chapters" by using all four sisters and their mother as separate narrators. By doing it this way, I felt as though we really got to get to know each character, their flaws, their strengths, etc. Since the book was over 400 pages, I think this was key so that the readers didn't get bored.

If this book is bordering on truth, which I am assuming it is, then I really learned a lot a bout Africa, the Congo, etc. It was really neat to learn about their culture, how they survive, how many of them don't survive, and then to put all of that in perspective about how we live everyday and what we take for granite. I really think this is a great book to have high school age children read because it shows them that there is a different world out there and that here in America we really have it made. For a lot of teenagers, the biggest crisis in their life is to keep up with their friends when it comes to clothing, and all of the latest gadgets, who has the most hip hair style, etc.

Has anyone else read this book? Did you have any favorite parts? Any parts you didn't like?

On another note, I know that I have been lacking lately with posting on here...I promise I will start to do it more often! I had about 63 family members from all over the US come up to Maine to visit out at our family camp this year and it was soooo hectic for a few weeks. My grandparents were the last to go and they just left on Friday, so things are starting to get back to normal! I hope you all can forgive me, stay patient, and continue to visit my site! :-)