Review: Losing It: How We Popped Our Cherry Over the Last 80 Years

Title: Losing It: How We Popped Our Cherry Over the Last 80 Years
Author: Kate Monro
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: April 15th 2014
Source: Netgalley & Icon Books

★★★★

Three stars and a half stars, rounded up.

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Losing It: How We Popped Our Cherry Over the Last 80 Years is a nonfiction collection of stories of how people over the last eight decades have lost their virginities. Old and young, gay and straight, disabled and able alike, there is a vast array of stories that share the one moment of life that we all can refer to simply as "it."

This book is a very interesting look into the lives of other people. There's that moment when you lose your virginity that you wonder if your experience was how it is supposed to be. Questions run through your head: Was it supposed to hurt? If I didn't bleed, is it really "popping"? Does oral count? What if I didn't orgasm? Kate Munro's collection of firsthand accounts makes for a great comparison both between stories as well as to your personal "it" story. In short, you're not alone!

I found it fascinating just how similar and different, simultaneously, that these stories are. Some people lose it in the spur of romance, others are more planned. But so many of them share my own personal memories of awkwardness and emotional turmoil over what had just happened. Munro sprinkles in a fair amount of history and research, making the whole book come across as well put together and well thought out.

In fact, I was surprised how this book reads. To be honest, it was a little boring at times. I expected it to be more of an entertaining genre of read, but it ended up being more like a book you'd get assigned to read in a gender/sexuality studies course. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, I just wasn't expecting it to be written in such a way.

All in all, this book is a pretty interesting look into the moment we (almost) all go through but scarcely talk about aloud to more than a best friend or two. Losing It is a great reference for anyone who is interested in sexuality studies or in looking at how their experiences compare to others'.

Thanks to Netgalley and Icon Books for my copy.