Emma RathboneRezensionen

Original de: El Blog del Gato - El Extraño Gato del Cuento

Con este libro sí me quiero golpear porque no sé qué demonios estaba pensando, o sea, la sinopsis pinta a Julia como un ser humano horrible, y el libro solo lo confirma.

Sinceramente pensé que Losing It sería divertido y feminista y hablaría de normas sociales, pero lo que obtuve fueron personajes planos que nunca se desarrollan y una protagonista sin el mínimo encanto en Julia.



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I read this book thinking it sounded like a light, fun read. in fact its quite a downer. Julia Greenfield is a rather disconnected 26 year old who obsesses (endlessly) about the fact that she is still a virgin. Seeking a resolution to her untouched state, she throws in her job and moves to live with her aunt in North Carolina. While basically disapproving of everything in her aunt's life, she stumbles her way through several attempts to lose her cherry, before being shocked to discover her aunt is also. a virgin. Deciding that her aunt is in far more need of rescue from her maidenly state than herself, she tries to matchmake, with disastrous results. I wont reveal whether or not she does eventually succeed in ceasing to be virgo intacta, but really you wont care, because she is a fairly unlikeable character. Self-centred to the max, critical of just about everyone else, vague and unfocussed in her life, she pretty much destroys what could have been a good light fun read. Not a bad book but probably could have been so much better.

Witty, realistic, funny, and a heartstring puller. I enjoyed the author's use of words. Refreshing.

Yes, yes, you're probably starting to wonder about my reading for 2017 if you've followed the rest of the reviews so far. A book about a woman trying to have an orgasm, then one with a suggestively punny title, and now one about a young woman obsessed with losing her virginity. At least some of you (probably my mom) are wondering what gives. The premise for this novel, a 26 year old woman who is still a virgin and wondering why moves in with her maiden aunt for the summer, discovers that said aunt is truly a maiden (ie also a virgin), and wants to figure out why even as she actively tries to shed herself of her own long standing virginity, sounded weird and interesting to me. Unfortunately, it wasn't as intriguing as I'd hoped.

Julia, the aforementioned 26 year old virgin, is completely adrift and lonely in her life. She hasn't had a purpose since she quit swimming in college, having been almost Olympic caliber. Finally tiring of the soul sucking life she's merely enduring, she quits her job and decides to move home again to regroup. But her parents have rented out her childhood home and are going on their own adventure for the summer so her only option is to go to North Carolina and move in with her father's sister, her Aunt Viv, who she barely knows at all. Her only decent relationship thus far seems to be with her parents as she has no good friends in whom she confides and certainly (obviously?) no significant other.

Taking a part time receptionist job in Durham, she decides it is finally time to lose her virginity and she spends much time wondering just how it is that she has gotten to her age without having sex. What she's really asking is why she has never found the intimacy and commitment that everyone else she knows started finding long ago. In order to help her on her quest, she tries everything: online dating, taking a painting class, flirting with a coworker, even trying to seduce a grieving son at a funeral. She is obsessed with not only figuring out what is wrong with her but also with rectifying it. However, as she goes about trying to connect with a man, she is quite condescending about those around her and she doesn't seem to see that she doesn't have a leg to stand on in her criticisms. She is quietly dismissive of her aunt's decorative plate painting and her general style. She describes the men she meets in less than flattering terms, criticizing their clothing or homes or offices. She is rather self-centered and bratty and it is hard throughout the novel to remember that she is in fact 26, not 16, because her immaturity shines in many of her (ill-advised) decisions.

The first three quarters of the book are very slow moving and the frustration of the reader mirrors Julia's frustrations. The novel is first person narration so the reader spends all of their time in Julia's head, seeing her wonder why she is still untouched. She looks at her past romantic history and tries to tease out where she's gone wrong, why she is so lonely and unconnected to others. She wonders about her aunt, snooping in the house and looking for parallels between them, especially once she discovers that her aunt is also a virgin. But even with all of her internal mental examinations, Julia doesn't see herself as she truly is, nor does she grow and learn from her experiences as the novel goes on. The final quarter of the novel has much more action in it than the previous three quarters, giving it an oddly uneven narrative tension. A disaffected main character, lack of action (no pun intended), and not as much insight into connection and intimacy as promised, in the end, this was not the reading experience I'd hoped.½

I loved this book!

It is a story about Jacob Higgins, a 17 year old in a Juvenille Detention Center in Northern Virginia. Jacob is a typical, angst ridden teen -- awful home life, druggie, tough kid. But, Emma has his story (in a quasi-diary format) to be pitch perfect! She does not patronize him, she just lets him tell his story and view the world from inside his head -- which she does perfectly!!½

"My name is Jacob Higgins. I'm seventeen years old. It was about three months ago that I woke up from a fibrousy Klonopin haze to find myself standing on the steps of this building, at the beginning of a punishment that, I'm sure you would agree, far outweighs the crime."

The narrator of this story is serving a six month sentence in the Braddock Country Juvenile Detention Center - referred to as "the JDC" - for a botched 3 am convenience store robbery attempt. Jacob's life up to that point wasn't exactly a bowl of cherries. Coming from a broken family of low income with an indifferent mom and a series of abusive "step-dads", Jacob's comments and observations of his surroundings in the JDC - where everything is bathed in white light, honor pledges need to be signed before computer use in the Media Center is allowed and pens need to be signed out and accounted for at all times - are a delicious blend of anger, arrogance, sarcasm and the odd existential realism thrown in to keep the reader on their toes.

Written in a quasi-journal format, I was impressed with how Rathbone was able get inside the male teenage mind and create a believable character in Jacob. With descriptions of the JDC, a walk through of a 'typical day', interactions with his fellow detainees, the center staff, 'mandatory' social night, cleaning chores and Family Day it was easy for me to connect with the story. Rathbone tackles some difficult topics, like domestic violence and inadequacies of the juvenile detention system, with a clarity and understanding that was not at odds with the character of this wayward teen.

Overall, I enjoyed viewing the world through Jacob's eyes, with all of its emotional intensity. It wasn't page-turning riveting, and I felt the ending was missing something but I haven't been able to pin down what was missing. I am a little bugged by that. A good debut and I am curious to see what Rathbone will write next.

Seventeen-year-old Jacob Higgins is bored. He’s bored with good reason, of course. He’s been locked up in a Virginia juvenile detention center for the past three months. He was thrown in for, what should have been a simple armed robbery that went a little bit askew.

Over 200 pages, Jake winds through the antiseptic, over lit hallways he shares with his fellow detainees (psychos, for the most part) and staff members (idiots, all of them). He mopes about, giving a sardonic, yet eloquent tour of the place, occasionally sidestepping to discuss his “home” (containing his constantly battered mother and his refrigerator of a stepfather, Steve).

This is, far and away, one of my favorite books from this past year of reading. There isn’t one, specific thing I can point out, indicating why I loved it so much but I think, as a package, it works.

Jake is lovable, even at his most cynical. There is also more emphasis on the clarity of inner monologue than creating some sense of teen angst, which could easily have been a down fall. There are hard parts, dealing with domestic violence, but Rathbone approaches them through Jake’s eyes in a refreshing, albeit, difficult way.

I know that writers either have what it takes to make their stories work or they don’t. I know that no amount of time will improve something that simply isn’t there. Still, I just can’t believe that this is Rathbone’s first novel. It simply stellar. Period.

Publisher’s Weekly compared the book to Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and that cinematic darling, Napoleon Dynamite but I have to differ. I think it stands alone. I highly recommend the story to almost anyone. Trust me; it’s just that good.