LOSING IT BY EMMA RATHBONE

Image: goodreads.com

Rating: 1 of 5 stars

Losing It by Emma Rathbone is about a young lady, Julia, who is still a virgin and perpetually plagued as to why. Without any sort of concrete plan in place, she quits her job in Arlington, Virginia and attempts to go back home to San Antonio, Texas to live with her parents for the summer. Unfortunately, for Julia, her parents do have concrete plans and they suggest she spend the summer with her Aunt Viv who lives near Durham, North Carolina. Once there, we learn that 58-year old Aunt Viv is also chaste.

The novel is told from Julia's point of view, and there is not a lot of conversation between characters but rather more inner dialogue where Julia is clearly in conflict about her sexual position (no pun intended!) in life. This writing style made the ~250-page book feel more like 650 pages. In reading this story, I got to know quite a bit about Julia and her thought processes as of voyeur of her stream of consciousness, and as a result, I found her character to be very unlikable. She is self absorbed, judgmental, irresponsible, and quite rude. While staying with her aunt (for free) during the summer, she repays her by invading her privacy, damaging her property, and bailing on her on one of the most important night's of her aunt's life. You might expect and condone this behavior from a young or immature protagonist but not from a 26-year old who was too cowardly to have a frank conversation with her aunt.

I think Julia should have focused more on how to find and develop more meaningful relationships rather than how to lose her virginity. I have a feeling if she'd focused on the former, she might have solved the "problem" of the latter. The author did try to redeem Julia's character at the end of the book, but it was too little too late. Rathbone's writing style is decent (albeit the multitude of times Julia responded with the single-word sentence, "cool."), so I might consider reading something else by her. Perhaps a different storyline and setting might better highlight her writing skill.

Recommendation: I suffered through this book because it was a book club selection. I thought it might be a funny, light-hearted read. Instead I found it painfully dreadful. There are so many books in circulation, with new ones being published everyday, and there is only so much time to read. Save your time, and choose something else.

Until next time ... Read on!