Title: Losing It
Author: Emma Rathbone
Genre: Romance
Published: July 19th, 2016
Source: ARC requested from publisher, Riverhead Books
Synopsis:
Julia Greenfield has a problem: she's twenty-six years old and she's still a virgin. Sex ought to be easy. People have it all the time! But, without meaning to, she made it through college and into adulthood with her virginity intact. Something's got to change.
To re-route herself from her stalled life, Julia travels to spend the summer with her mysterious aunt Vivienne in North Carolina. It's not long, however, before she unearths a confounding secret—her 58 year old aunt is a virgin too. In the unrelenting heat of the southern summer, Julia becomes fixated on puzzling out what could have lead to Viv's appalling condition, all while trying to avoid the same fate.
My Review:
When I first saw this on Edelweiss, I got so excited that I immediately emailed the publishers and asked if there was any way that they would send me a physical ARC of the title. I mean, come on, how funny does that synopsis sound? I'm a little sad to say that the book didn't quite live up to my expectations.
While the story itself was really good, I mean I totally identified with a lot of the thoughts the main character, Julia, had, the humor was really pretty subtle and not as laugh out loud as I'd hoped for. While I don't have the same issue she had, it has been a long time, and I'm maybe a born-again one of what she is. In fact, if I hadn't made the friends I did in college, there was probably a pretty good chance that I could have ended up like Julia, or at the rate I've been going since college was over, like her aunt Viv!
Julia talked at one point about wondering if she let off some kind of scent or sense of being desperate to the people around her, men especially. And I remember a guy I had a summer job with when I was in college, that said I had the words, "Marry Me" on my forehead. Meaning that I was looking for a boyfriend. Yeah, I might have been, but what girl isn't for certain parts of her life? And then there is the part where she mentions that people always say it is easy for a girl to get laid, not true, the way this book described the whole situation with Julia was so true.
Unfortunately, the title made me go into it thinking there would be lots of episodes of Julia meeting guys and trying to lose her virginity, in funny little scenes. There were a few examples of this, but not in the way that made me really laugh very much. I smiled, and nodded in understanding with her online adventures, as well as workplace adventures, but that was about it. There were times that I just didn't understand why she did what she did, especially if her goal is to have sex.
Then there was her aunt. Her aunt was very quirky, and at times pretty funny. But, there was so much that was just kind of random, and never really tied into anything, or contributed to the actual plot. I would like to have had some more about that in the story.
But, I can see that many people who enjoy a more subtle read will probably enjoy this, and I definitely am very glad that the publisher sent it to me to read.
