Title: Losing It
Author: Emma Rathbone
Pub Date: July 19th, 2016
My Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
View on Goodreads | Buy on amazon.co.uk |amazon.com | Book Depository
Oh, man… this was not what I expected. Let me put the blurb from Goodreads here; I will need this to make one point:
Twenty-six year old Julia Greenfield has long suspected that everyone is having fun without her.
It’s not that she’s unhappy, per se. It’s just that she’s not exactly happy either.
She hasn’t done anything spontaneous since about 2003. Shouldn’t she be running a start up? Or going backpacking? Or exploring uncharted erogenous zones with inappropriate men?
Trapped between news of her mother’s latent sexual awakening and her spinster aunt’s odd behaviour – Julia has finally snapped. It’s time to take some risks, and get a life.
After all – what has she got to lose?
I was excited to read this story of twenty-six years old Julia, who’s still a virgin, and wants to explore new territories, do something spontaneous – lose control as is says on the cover. So, this book is not at all about that. It is a steam of thoughts of twenty-six years old virgin Julia who decided to quit her job and go and live with her aunt for a summer, to live in a new city where she’s anonymous and where she’ll finally lose her virginity. And the virginity is the main theme if the book, I know nothing more about Julia after reading the book but that she’s a virgin, and she’s an asshole. She analyses everyone and gives us a detailed view into their personalities and see lives based on their looks and how the smiled or moved their eyes or whatever.
And sure she actually tries new things like watercolor classes but only because she may meet a guy there. That’s the only reason; she goes there once – judges all the people there noticed potential sex partner and tries her best to flirt. She never goes back to the class, probably because she doesn’t want to see this guy again. But seriously, all she died in this book is a motivated by her need to lose virginity; she doesn’t seem to be able to get on with her life if she doesn’t get that over with.
Towards the end of the book, she is acting like the most selfish person ever just because there is a chance of sex with a college boy she met at her aunt’s friends funeral. The aunt is also a virgin – a fifty-something-year-old virgin, which she shared with Julia pretty soon and in a way I’d never think that such thing would pop up. Julia became a obsesses with her aunt’s virginity – she needs to find out why it never happened for her, is there something that Viv did, but Julia can avoid, subsequent avoiding staying a virgin till her golden years.
The book is filled with the most awkward conversations as if it was impossible for people around Julia to have a normal conversations. At any given moment Julia is giving us an analysis of what all people just realised after the guy moved his hand and the whole mood shifted or something like that. Or she looks a person’s face lit by the sun and sees that he will become a sad man… I cannot!
The ending is just… nonexistent. What was the point of this whole story? Why did I read it?
Noooo. I saw the cover and was like “this looks cute!” and then I realised you gave it one star. Reading the blurb gave me the impression that it was going to be about adulting or seizing the day or taking life by its reins or something, but I’m not sure if I want to read it now, especially when virginity is a main theme AND the character is an ass. D:
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I had the same thoughts after seeing the cover and reading the blurb, and then I read it…
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I think this is so far my biggest disappointment this year, I was looking forward to reading this book for quite some time.
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Yeah. 😦 Hope your next read is better!
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I’m reading Harmless Like You now and it looks like it will be much much better. Cannot event compare.
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I love your review and how you didnt hold back. Its not something I would pick up but I do appreciate a well formed review 🙂
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Thank you! I quite enjoyed writing this review 😊
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I tend to enjoy writing reviews for books I didn’t like too – theres something refreshing abouy writing down all the negative thoughts, it’s almost like it helps you let go ready to move on -or maybe that’s just me
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Also writing negative reviews is easier for me – I am way more capable of expressing negative emotions than grasping and expressing my positive emotions. Something I’m working on…
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Does sound like a terrible book, and what sort of message does this book even send? Sounds incredibly bad xx
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Not a positive message at all.
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The cover looked so exciting, that I had hoped the story would be to. From what I see in your review though, the most exciting things she did do all had ulterior motives, and in general, she didn’t have that much fun at all. This book sounds terrible, and I’m so disappointed in such a shallow main character..
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You didn’t even read the book and your comment perfectly says what’s wrong with the book! And that’s all that you need to know about the book.
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Yikes, sorry you had to put up with such a shallow character and pointless read. Hopefully better books are in your future!
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Hope so too, so far the book I’m reading now is great 🙂 thank you xx
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Ahhhh this is a tragedy for such a cute cover! I’m sorry that you couldn’t enjoy this book as expected. Huhu.
http://laxsourire.blogspot.my
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Don’t judge the book by its cover works both ways – you may think you’ll like a book because a cover is cute, and you could end up disappointed.
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