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My Word is My Bond, The Autobiography by Roger Moore, with Gareth Owen

Pages: 330 +index
First Published: Nov. 2008
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

For years, people have said to me ‘Write your book,’ and for years I said, ‘No, there are too many people I’d have to write about, and eve if they’re dead, what I might say would be an intrusion on their privacy. And apart from that, I’m too lazy.’

Acquired: Borrowed a copy from my local library.

Reason for Reading: Roger Moore is the Bond I grew up with, the one I went to the movies to see as a teenager.

Comments: Right from the introduction Mr. Moore states that he will not be ‘dirt-dishing’ nor telling ‘tittle tattle’; he wants to write a fun book filled with memories the way he saw them and the wonderful people he met in his life but he promises that does not mean it will be a ‘fluffy book’ either. Roger Moore lives up to this statement giving the reader a very enjoyable look inside his life without trashing anyone. He does mention a couple of names that he simply hates with a straightforward reason why, he tells stories leaving the irritating one unnamed and he mentions names and follows the “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all rule” frequently. But Roger Moore is a charming fellow, very easy going, loves a prank or two, and can take a joke on himself as well so his book is filled with people he adored and those who adored him back.

Moore spends a good part of the book on his early life in England; his childhood, days in the army, acting on stage, becoming an actor in British movies. This was all very interesting and it’s hard to believe that Roger Moore is really that old to have been in WWII! Even when acting in Britain the famous names start knocking about such as David Niven (a lifetime friend) and Michael Caine. Then he comes to America and makes a name for himself on the small screen starring in Maverick (replacing James Garner as his British cousin), then his famous Simon Templar as The Saint and finally The Persuaders with Tony Curtis. Not until we are closing in on page 200 does Roger Moore get to James Bond and the book has been so interesting up to this point that Bond is not the vital part of the book. Even if you started to read the because of the Bond connection. I won’t go into any more details but from their Moore continues on with Bond, his wives, his other movies and work, ending finally with his long association with UNICEF.

Moore comes across just as I had expected him too. He keeps his debonair, suave, gentlemanly air about him but he also has his tongue firmly planted in cheek at the same time. Even as a child he behaved this way, he calls himself on it frequently saying “ever the poseur”. He tells some wonderful memories and anecdotes as he’s been with all the greats throughout his career: Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Noel Coward, Stewart Granger, Richard Burton and countless others.

The only thing I didn’t enjoy about the book was the last few chapters which mostly focused pretty heavily on his UNICEF activities that it began to feel like an infomercial. I will state I don’t support UNICEF for conscience reasons but I did enjoy hearing of the travel and good work he accomplished. But then it just seriously devolved into three chapters about UNICEF with Roger as the emcee. Otherwise, I had a very enjoyable read and certainly learned a lot more about the man who I previously only knew as The Saint and James Bond.

High on Arrival by Mackenzie Phillips with Hilary Liftin

Pages: 292 pgs.
First Published: Sept. 23, 2009
Genre: non-fiction, memoir
Rating: 4.5/5

First sentence:

In the mid eighties, when I was on tour with the New Mamas & Papas, a porter brought two packages up to my hotel room.

Reason for Reading: I enjoy reading celebrity memoirs and was a big fan of One Day at a Time when the show was on. I had read Valerie Bertinelli’s recent memoir and knowing Mackenzie Philips’ checkered past figured she would have a very interesting memoir.

Acquired: I received a review copy from Simon & Schuster Canada.

Comments: Mackenzie Phillips is the daughter of John Phillips (the mastermind of the famous singing group The Mamas & The Papas) and is best known for her role as Julie Cooper on One Day at a Time. In this book Mack tells her own story from birth to the present. She was born into the psychedelic world of the sixties, partially raised by a man addicted to a plethora of drugs who let her and her older brother do as they pleased. Their exposure to drugs lead them both to become users as children, happily supplied by their father. Mackenzie’s life was to continue to be run by drugs for many, many years until she finally became clean for 15 years only to end up addicted to pain killers which led her straight back to the monster until she was arrested for possession in 2008. Once again clean, and pain free, Mackenzie tells all in this well-written biography.

Mackenzie’s voice is very down to earth and makes for an easy read. She tells her whole life story without leaving out the ugly parts. She has secrets to reveal and does name names most of the time. One can tell right from the start though that she has not set out to trash anyone. This is her story and she accepts all responsibility for all the wrongs she’s done in her life but also tells the wrongs done to her without attempting to blame anyone. I’m sure everyone knows the secret she reveals about her father (though I won’t mention it, in case you haven’t heard) and it is one of the creepiest, saddest, disgusting things one can read about and Mack’s journey from violated victim to drug induced willing participant is an uncomfortable story to read.

The book is written with respect to all; she doesn’t leave out parts, as in other memoirs I’ve read recently, about her siblings in so far as they concerned her life story. She stops at some point with each of them saying that it is that individual’s story to tell, not hers, but at least the family dynamics are fully explored. Much time was spent on the One Day at a Time years which I fully appreciated as I was sorely disappointed in that aspect of Valerie Bertinelli’s book.

Mackenzie has lived a hard life and excepts responsibility for it. Her son is the driving force behind her sobriety and staying clean. She shows how her life started on this route with the upbringing she had but as an adult she excepts making her own bad choices. It’s a miracle she has pulled through this life and come out the other side. A very interesting read about the sixties/seventies drug culture, the eighties coke obsession, filled with famous names but centering on the life of a little girl who had to grow up in the middle of it all. Recommended.

Up Till Now: The Autobiography by William Shatner with David Fisher

Pages: 342 + index
First Published: May 13, 2008
Genre: memoir, actor
Rating: 5/5

First sentence:

I was going to begin my autobiography this way: Call me … Captain James T. Kirk or Sergeant T.J. Hooker or Denny Crane Denny Crane or Twilight Zone Passenger Bob Wilson or the Big Giant Head or Henry V or the Priceline Negotiator or … Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?

Reason for Reading: I love William Shatner and there was no doubt I’d be reading his autobiography!
Comments: William Shatner’s autobiography covers his entire life from growing up in Montreal, Canada to virtually the present with his thoughts on not being invited to participate in the recent new Star Trek movie. His childhood is briefly summarized though his acting ventures as a child, in high school and university and then book focuses on his career as an actor starting with his days on the Canadian stage at the Stratford Festival and moving right along to his current role as Denny Crane. In between he has had a career with many ups and downs. Though never any really big downs as he is the type of actor who accepts work when he needs it. Thus he has done a lot of B-grade movies (and proud of it) and played character parts on hundreds of TV shows and every now and then he hits it big. So big in fact he has become an icon in the industry and love him or hate him, who doesn’t know the name William Shatner?

I love Shatner’s sense of humour! He is dry, witty and most importantly doesn’t take himself seriously and plays that up to the media, who often take him seriously; reporting him that way and creating a false persona, “Bill Shatner”. It’s very funny to watch in real life when people actually take the guy seriously when he’s acting his famous Bill Shatner character. Maybe it’s a Canadian humour thing. He talks about these “pranks” and how he first told the media an outrageous made up story back in the early Star Trek days, of how it just popped into his head during an interview, he thought he was telling a joke but everyone actually believed him and so it all began. His humour shines through in the book, with pompous statements, one-liners and segues into commercials for priceline or promos for the book. It’s quite hilarious.

There’s also another side to Shatner though as he tells of his personal life. Such as his first two failed marriages and his faults as a husband that contributed to there demise; the tragic death of his third wife and the tumultuous marriage they had preceding that death; his thoughts and fears about growing old and realizing his own mortality is approaching; his thoughts on the negative opinions of his fellow Star Trek cast members (all except Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley).

The book is very satisfying covering everything you’d really expect to find in Shatner’s biography. The one thing not present is long meanderings on Star Trek as that material is covered in his first memoir, Star Trek Memories, which I read when it came out and also enjoyed. He still has a few stories to tell, though, and talks about the conventions, movies and such. I felt as if he gave Star Trek just the right amount of space in this book seeing as he’s already covered it in depth. I especially enjoyed his thoughts, and reminiscences on making Rescue 911, Invasion Iowa and Boston Legal. A very enjoyable read from an actor who is not-so-surprisingly a down to earth man at heart and a brilliant actor (and a bad singer, yes, he knows this!).

Prairie Tale by Melissa Gilbert
Foreward by Patty Duke

Pages: 367
First Published: June ‘09
Genre: memoir, non-fiction
Rating: 3/5

First sentence:

My mother was nearly a month past her husband’s funeral when she turned her attention back to my desire to write a memoir.

Reason for Reading: I enjoy reading actor’s memoirs from my childhood back to the days of the silver screen and I am a huge Little House on the Prairie fan.

Comments: Melissa writes of her life from early days up to the present time. She explains her adoptive origins and goes on to give a brief synopsis of her adoptive parents’ background. Then she quickly moves onto her career which started at an early age and is really all she’s ever known. Her mother was a typical backstage mother and Gilbert has gone through a long healing process to reach the place today where she and her mother are friends. Her life was very interesting and while Gilbert was a TV Star she was the same age as the famous Brat Pack and was a behind-the-scenes member as Rob Lowe’s girlfriend and then fiance during that time of the eighties. There is plenty of name-dropping. She had a famous Uncle who wrote for Hollywood & television in the 40s and 50s making her accessible to some of the greats such as Frank Sinatra and Milton Berle. Also her years on Little House introduced her to many of Hollywood’s elite as they appeared as guest stars over the years.

Melissa specifically concentrates on the frenzied life of a child actor, her unhealthy relationship with Rob Lowe, her first marriage and her current marriage. All of which she does not hold back with the details. She also spends much time talking about Michael Landon, her experiences with him, her feelings for him and his role in her life. She also deals with her years of drug use, though she never seems to have hit bottom with that as an addiction. It was later in life that alcohol became her addiction that made her hit bottom and sent her to recovery to become sober. These and many other topics make up the whole of this book. Melissa Gilbert lead an interesting life and accomplished a lot more with her career than I hardly knew about.

What disappoints me about these memoirs is the lack of things which I was expecting. With a title such as Prairie Tales, I was hoping for a real in depth look, behind the scenes look, at her life growing up on the set of Little House on the Prairie. Yes, she does spend quite some time on those years of her life, but the Little House memories are brief and not in depth enough. Mostly Melissa spends these years telling the reader what TV movie she worked on during each summer hiatus of the show. Many actors of the show are never mentioned, others get a brief one-liner. As far as Melissa Sue Anderson is concerned it is pretty clear from Gilbert’s three short references that she took the “if you have nothing nice to say then don’t say anything at all” approach. She does mention her friendship with the actress who played Nellie Olson more than anything else. But all in all it was quite disappointing from a Little House on the Prairie point of view.

Melissa also holds back on talking about her siblings. She continuously says how much her sister Sara (from Roseanne) means to her, how much she makes an impact in her life and yet as far as the memoir goes they never do a single thing together. There are no memories of anything the two did together whatsoever. Sara is simply a name in the book. If you don’t already know who Sara Gilbert is, this book will make you no wiser. Her brother, Jonathan, who played Willie Olson on Little House, is barely referred to during those years in the book. I had expected to hear what it was like to work with your brother. Then at some time in the book Gilbert blurts out that she must mention that when he turned 18 he withdrew his money, packed up and left and never came back, the end, and she’s fine with that. Huh? I also must mention that the swearing was rather off-putting as well; I’m just not comfortable with swearing in a narrative.

All in all I think Melissa glossed over the Little House years and then decided to talk about what she wanted to tell her fans (that she had a career outside of the show) rather than what her fans would have wanted to know about. Which is, to say the least, disappointing. But now that I’ve said all that, none of it means that this book is not good or not worth reading if you want to know about Melissa Gilbert, the person. She comes across as a nice, caring person. She currently works with children’s hospice. She is not full of herself and tells a pretty much down to earth story of a girl growing up in the media spotlight. She grows from a naive girl overprotected by everyone to a teenager/young adult who gets in over her head to, finally, a mature woman who can take care of herself. Go ahead and read the book if it interests you, just don’t expect to meet all your Little House on the Prairie friends between its pages.

The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister by Nonna Bannister with Denise George and Carolyn Tomlin

Pages: 299
First Published: March 24, 2009
Genre: non-fiction, memoir
Rating: 3/5

First sentence:

I have now decided that the time has come when I must share my life story — not only with my loving family, but perhaps with all those who are interested to know about what life was like for many of us on the other side of the world before and during World War II.

Reason for Reading: I am always interested in reading survivors’ memoirs of the Holocaust.
Comments: Nonna Lisowskaja Bannister, a Russian girl, lived through the Holocaust caught when the Germans invaded her city. She kept diaries from her childhood through the war up until the time she arrived in America in 1950 to start a new life. She never told a soul, not ever her husband or children, what happened to her during those war years. Then one day about 10 years before she died in her eighties she told her husband it was time and she took him up to the attic and showed him all the letters, memorabilia, photos and diaries (which she had written in several languages). She also showed him that she had been spending her time over the years transcribing her diaries into English and was finished as she pulled out stacks of yellow legal sized writing pads for him to read. She wanted her story told to the rest of the family and perhaps published but not until her death. And now that she has passed … here is her story.

Nonna was born and raised Russian Orthodox. She was a believer her entire life and became a Baptist later on in her new American life. She occasionally writes of her religion but no more so than anyone else’s memoir might. However, the book is published by a Christian publisher, Tyndale, and does contain Christian content in the editorial comments.

Nonna goes right back to her childhood years and spends a great portion of the book describing life in Russia during the 1930s. Her father’s main goal in life was to get them out of Russia to a better place but he was never able to obtain permission through any channels he tried. Once the Germans invade her city it doesn’t take long for various reasons that her brother and father are gone leaving her and her mother alone to fend for themselves. They spend their time going from one Nazi prison work camp to another until they end up working in a Catholic hospital because of Nonna’s language skills. This at first seems a God-send but tragedy is not far behind. During this whole time they experience the brutality of the Nazis firsthand but even worse than that, they see with their own eyes the unimaginable horrors inflicted upon the Jewish people. When Nonna finally arrives in America in 1950, as far as she knows, she is the only living survivor of her entire family on both her maternal and paternal sides.

When Nonna transcribed her diaries she didn’t just translate them word for word. Instead she, now being an elderly woman having lived the majority of her life in America, has mostly used the past tense to tell her story though she does occasionally tell a few stories in first person. The story is also in many places obviously being told through the eyes of her present mature self, reflecting upon the past rather than translating her childhood words as they appear on paper. Finally, we can tell that her American self has taken over the little Russian girl as she interjects American slang or American phrases quite frequently into her transcriptions.

The book contains a frequent editorial commentary running through the book. Some of this is used as reference points, historical explanations, background information, cultural explanations, etc and make for interesting reading. One thing that bugged me quite a bit though were the Christian comments. I myself am Christian but these comments felt very patronizing. Whenever Nonna or her mother, Anna, did a kind or brave deed, the comment would tell us how this act showed their Christian character shining through. Well, yes, it does. But I don’t need someone telling me that every time, it felt rather grade school-ish.

Nonna has an interesting, powerful story to tell and it’s a shame she kept it secret from her family. I think she would have found great solace in sharing it with her husband earlier and with her children when they had grown. Thankfully, she choose not to keep her secret forever and to share with the world so that her story would not be forgotten. For that I thank you, Nonna.

The Side-Yard Superhero by Rick D. Niece
Book One in the Trilogy, Life in DeGraff: An Automythography

Pages: 173
First Published: Mar. 1, 2009
Genre: memoir,
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

Comments: First of all, I’ll admit I’m a sucker for early 20th century boyhood memoirs. No idea why, seeing as I’m a girl but there you have it. This book tells snippets of the author’s life living in DeGraff, Ohio and small former steel mill town during the 1950s and ’60s. The book does go in chronological order though there is no general plot rather single episodes or remembrances pulled from his life. What makes this book different from any of the others is Rick’s best friend. Bernie, is his name. An older boy, a teenager actually to Rick’s nine years when they first meet, who has cerebral palsy and is wheelchair bound. Bernie doesn’t talk very well and his arms and legs are always twitching but Rick can tell what he says, waits for him to get it all out and quickly becomes unaware of Bernie’s quirks. Rick and Bernie did a lot of special things together, special for Bernie as he got to experience things he never would have otherwise, and special for Rick as he grew up learning the joys of life through the eyes of one who was overjoyed with the simple things in life.

I found the book well-written, in a simplistic straight forward way, like listening to the man himself reminiscing. Interspersed throughout the book are a number of poems which I quite enjoyed, and I am so not a poetry person. While the story of the author’s friendship with Bernie is the focal point of the book, not every chapter involved him as Rick also described other events in his life. An eccentric cast of neighbours rounds out the book, such as Fern Burdette who only wore a bra from the waist up and Frank Tully the man who appeared to be a professional attendee, he was at every function that ever went on in town. A very quaint, enjoyable story. There are no famous, rich or celebrities in these pages; just plain ol’ down to earth good folks. And that is the pleasure of the book; the enjoyment of the good old days when people didn’t even lock the doors to their homes. If you like small town stories or boyhood memoirs, you’ll like this one. Recommended.

Unpolished Gem: My Mother, My Grandmother, and Me by Alice Pung

Pages: 282
First Published: Jan. 27, 2009
Genre: memoir
Rating: 4/5

First sentence:

In 1980, my father, mother, grandmother, and Auntie Kieu arrived in Australia by plane.

Comments: A Chinese family escapes communism by moving to Cambodia, only to find some years later that the next generation must escape from the dictator Pol Pot. This Chinese-Cambodian family of grandmother, brother, sister, and brother’s eight-month pregnant wife are given a choice of Canada or Australia. Knowing nothing of either country they chose Australia because the father does know it doesn’t snow in Australia.

This is a story of three women from three different generations with very different life experiences and especially the life of a second-generation immigrant. Alice, the daughter born shortly after arrival in Australia, tells the story of her life living between two cultures. Her beloved Grandmother, from China, was the second wife of a Chinese man and very traditional in her Chinese religious beliefs. Her mother, a product of Chinese rearing, even though born in Cambodia, remains within the Asian community in the new land and never learns English beyond a few words and phrases. Alice, an Australian by birth, goes to a ghost (white man’s) school and finds her culture clash of being an Australian girl within the confines of her old Chinese way upbringing.

While concentrating on Alice’s life, we learn a bit of the Cambodian and Chinese way of life through off-hand comments and brief explanations of the mother and grandmother’s past. However, the book is mostly concerned with the here and now of Alice’s life in Australia as she lives with her mother and grandmother (and father, of course) being raised with Chinese religion and morals, while being pushed to become a part of the white man’s world and yet keep her Chinese heritage and dignity.

This is a very entertaining memoir and full of interesting details of the Chinese way of life. Alice’s grandmother and mother are very strong characters both, though in very different ways, smothering her with the strict rules of Chinese behaviour and the Chinese beliefs. The mother makes Alice’s life very difficult as she does not learn English and Alice, though taught to speak Chinese as a child, slowly looses much of her ability to speak the language as she goes to school and interacts with her own new culture.

A truly wonderful read, the book is very humorous and yet at times touching and tragic. In a way, I found this memoir to be like an Amy Tan fiction in the way it deals with the mother/daughter relationship and having read all Tan’s books I can wholeheartedly say that Amy Tan fans will surely enjoy Alice Pung’s writing and the story this book has to tell. I’m very impressed with Ms. Pung’s first book and wonder if she’ll turn to fiction for her next book. I can certainly see her following in the footsteps of Amy Tan and Lisa See. Recommended!

Pieces of My Heart: A Life by Robert J. Wagner, with Scott Eyman

Pages: 324
First Published: Sept. 2008
Genre: memoir
Rating: 4.5/5

First sentence:

I was twelve years old when my future passed in front of me.

Comments: This is Robert J. Wagner’s personal memoir from his birth to 2008, when he was 78. Wagner briefly tells of his parents and then spends a small time on his childhood moving into the full story of his life at the time of his mid-teens. Wagner is one of the unfortunately few remaining from the generation that actually worked and played with the greats of the Golden Age of movies. He intimately knew the likes of Jack Warner, Bette Davis, and Fred Astaire, among many others. It is brilliant to read of these people from a first-hand account. Then of course Wagner was in his prime along with all the stars of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Wagner drops names right, left and center in this book but he refrains from “dishing dirt” on anyone. Oh, he has some colourful stories to tell but he is not vindictive to anyone, not even Warren Beatty who stole his Natalie away from him.

A wonderful read, Robert J. Wagner has lead a long and eventful life immersed in show business from the movies to the stage to TV and back again. I remember seeing him recently on Three and a Half Men and he’s still a looker. Of course, everyone from my generation remembers him most from the TV show Hart to Hart and Wagner spends just the right amount of time on that period of his life. Of course, he also spends a great deal on his relationship with Natalie Wood, one of the great love stories to come from the entertainment world, and it’s tragic end.

Wagner has the help of a co-author to make this a wonderfully written story. I was totally captivated. Wagner comes off more than a bit egotistical at times but then he comes off that way in person and in the characters he’s played on TV, so it is somewhat expected. He does have the annoying habit of letting you know of every man he introduces that is g*y and whether they made a pass at him or not. From famous people to backstage unknowns, this is something I really wasn’t interested. Do I need or even want to know if a camera guy was g*y and didn’t make a pass at him? That aside a really incredible read that anyone interested in Wagner’s life or just that of movies and television from the 50s to the 80s will certainly enjoy.

We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo and the 200 Wild Animals That Change Their Lives Forever by Benjamin Mee

Pages: 261
First Published: Sept, 2008
Genre: memoir
Rating: 2.5/5

First sentence:

Mum and I arrived as the new owners of Dartmoor Wildlife Park in Devon for the first time at around six o’clock on the evening of 20 October 2006, and stepped out of the car to the sound of wolves howling in the misty darkness.

Comments: Benjamin Mee is a journalist living in Southern France with his wife and 2 children, writing DIY articles for a British magazine. One day his sister calls to say she’s found the perfect thing for him, a zoo is for sale in England. Why doesn’t the family by it with the money from their recently deceased father. Ben’s mum, brother and sister all jump on board and so begins the journey of buying a dilapidated zoo full of animals.

At the beginning of the story Ben’s wife has recently been given the all clear after struggling with brain cancer but we soon know that she is not going to make it very far into the book when she has a very bad recurrence.

When I first was interested in reading this book I had sort of imagined a modern day Gerald Durrell and possibly set expectations too high. The book was readable and at time humorous but really didn’t have much substance to it. We’re taken through the whole process from trying to find finances, rebuilding to the first few opening months of the running zoo. There were fun antidotes about the animals and the employees but nowhere near as many as I had expected. Instead there were pages of evolutionary musings which were tedious and Ben’s frequent use of “DIY” irritated me to no end. Didn’t that expression go out with the nineties?

Ben comes across as having a bit of an ego and his observations are always from how they affected him, while I would have enjoyed more of an objective view which brought the other zoo keepers to deeper light as characters. While the book’s title notes “200 Wild Animals” most of the antidotes were about wolves, tigers, pumas and peacocks, with only a few other animals briefly thrown in for variety. I expected a wider variety of animal discussion and more about their characteristics and habits than about there evolution. Just not what I expected, perhaps others will get more out of it than me.

I slept with close to forty boys and men before I figured out doing so was not serving me well. [pg 1]

Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity by Kerry Cohen
Hyperion, 2008
Nonfiction (Memoir); 210 pgs

Kerry Cohen was nothing like me; or was she? While she was vying for men’s affections and slipping under the covers with boys and men she barely knew, I kept to myself, lost myself in my studies, and sought approval and attention in other ways. Sex, drugs and alcohol were never a part of my scene like they were for Kerry. Despite our different approaches to achieve a similar goal, I was really no different than the author of Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity.

Kerry Cohen came to realize early in her life that as a woman, she had a power over men. With a certain tilt of her head, the widening of her eyes, and a swing of her hip, men would take notice. Amidst her parents’ divorce, her mother’s favoritism of her sister and eventual abandonment, and her father’s easy going and unrestrictive mode of parenting where he sought to be more friend than parent figure, Kerry was left feeling invisible and hungry for attention most of her young life. Each of her parents harbored their own insecurities, which influenced Kerry and her sister, Tyler, both in different and yet similar ways.

Kerry wanted to be noticed. She wanted to be loved. She thought she could find what she was looking for by latching onto men. She thought she could not live without them—that they were the answer to her loneliness and lack of control over her life. And for a short while, it may have seemed satisfying to her—enough to keep her going back for more. She lost herself in the process, forgetting who she was, striving only to please the many men in her life, wanting them to want her. And yet, her constant need and wanting, even when she had what she had sought after, was never enough because she never quite felt secure in herself.

She eventually came to realize that the dangerous path she was traveling down would not give her what she truly needed most. Her life was spiraling out of control and like the alcoholic or drug addict, Kerry needed to hit rock bottom before she would be able to turn her life around. She did not like who she had become and realized that she had to do something to change that. She started to take back her life. She discovered her love for writing, which gave her a direction to go, and began to accept that she did not need a man to survive. Only then was she able to develop a healthy relationship with someone, and even then, it was not always so easy.

While I did not turn to sex and men the way Kerry did, I had my own vices, my own way of filling that void in my life. I too have felt what it is like to want to be noticed, to be needed and wanted. I could relate to Kerry on that deeper level even having never shared her life experiences. I think most of us can relate to her story in that way. We all at some point feel like the outsider, like we do not fit in. We may feel invisible or alone in this world. We seek approval. We want to be loved and feel needed.

Kerry Cohen’s Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity was a moving and heartfelt story of one girl’s struggle with her own desires and needs. She sought to be loved not really understanding what love was, mistaking it for sex. The more she gave of herself physically, the more of herself she held back, unable to truly let herself be loved and to love fully. The author’s writing style flows smoothly, and I found it impossible not to form an attachment to the author the more of her story I read. She writes from the perspective of where she was at the time the story was taking place, with occasional bits of hindsight added on. I felt this was an effective manner of telling her story.

The author offers no “cure” or big “aha!” moment in the end. She is not looking to offer anyone a boiler plate solution because there is none. Kerry’s own story and struggles are ongoing. There is no quick fix. I liked that about this book. It is real and honest. After finishing the book, I rushed to her website to see what she is doing now, to see if her story had a happy ending.

Rating: (Very Good)