{New Adult} Review: Losing It by Cora Carmack

Title: Losing It
Author: Cora Carmack
Series: Losing It, book #1
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Publication Date: February 26, 2013
Source: from publisher via Edelweiss
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Virginity.

Bliss Edwards is about to graduate from college and still has hers. Sick of being the only virgin among her friends, she decides the best way to deal with the problem is to lose it as quickly and simply as possible-- a one-night stand. But her plan turns out to be anything but simple when she freaks out and leaves a gorgeous guy alone and naked in her bed with an excuse that no one with half-a-brain would ever believe. And as if that weren’t embarrassing enough, when she arrives for her first class of her last college semester, she recognizes her new theatre professor. She’d left him naked in her bed about 8 hours earlier.

GAH!  Where was this book when I needed it all those years ago?!?  Losing It was such a fun, light-hearted  look at one young woman's misadventures while attempting to ensure she graduates from college without her virginity intact.  And it might have saved me some embarrassment back in the day.  At the very least, I could have used the sense of camaraderie I gleaned from this book back then.

Losing It is sexy, but it's not all about sex.  Sure, there's some of that in there -- guaranteeing that you won't want a younger audience reading it -- but a big part of this book focuses on friendships and relationships and how they evolve into more...or into nothing at all.  Losing It is honest and thoughtful, but it's also full of hilariously mortifying moments that make the story all that more genuine.  Oh, and all the Shakespeare references...be still my heart!  Some were comical and some were tragic, just like the man's plays, but all in all, their inclusion in the story was perfection.

My bestest reading buddy Em and I decided to knock a review book off our list whilst reading together, and we'd both eagerly been anticipating Losing It.  You can tell from our status updates on Goodreads (here and here) that we both had a lot of fun with this story, but in the beginning we had no idea just how much win this book would be when we deigned to read a mere five chapters a night.  We did okay that first night, despite a rather horrendous stopping point.  The second night, we caved and read two night's worth of chapters.  At the end of the third night, we had finished the book.  There was no holding ourselves back with this one.

Losing It has everything I'm looking for in a great contemporary novel:  realistic and witty and sometimes terribly awkward characters, a great plot full of uh-oh! and oh, yeah! moments, and clever dialogue full of awesome banter.  Plus, it's set in Texas, which you can never go wrong with in my book.  :)  This is one of those novels that I want to set aside for my daughter for when the time is right...like ten years from now.  It's full of astute observations from a slightly snarky protagonist, and it's the kind of story that I like to think will really help get some tough points across when it comes time to discuss the merits of waiting for the right person.

I am super stoked that this novel garnered so much attention as an indie that it was picked up by an imprint of HarperCollins.  I was even more excited to see that the cover for the companion novel Faking It was revealed on the very same day that Em and I started our little read-along.  I imagine that read-along will go even quicker than this one did.  (Em and I seriously have no self-control...but we're okay with that.)  At any rate, I definitely recommend Losing It if you're a fan of awkwardly enjoyable reads.  (Um, I meant the book...don't go out and, um, "lose it" just because you enjoy reading awkward books.  Or do...who am I to tell you what to do?)

/awkward ramble

Rating:  

Favorite Quotes:

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” I asked, eyeing him standing carefully outside my door. “Is this the part where you tell me you’re a vampire?” 
He chuckled. “No, I promise the paleness is only because I’m British.”

“Four. 
That’s the number of people who saw me hiding around the corner from my own apartment in just a skirt and a bra. 
Eleven. 
That’s the number of ant bites I got on my shoeless feet. 
Twenty-seven. 
That’s the number of times I was tempted to do myself physical harm because I am an IDIOT. 
One. 
That’s the number of times I tried not to cry, but failed.”

“Some relationships just end. Like a star, they burn bright and brilliant, and then nothing in particular goes wrong, they just reach their end. They burn out.”

“I had no one, but Hamlet. Who hated me with the fire of a thousand suns.”

“He was flabbergasted. That was the best word. His flabber had been thoroughly gasted.”

“I mean not that there's anything... I mean we didn't actually... um, make the beast with two backs and all that.”

***Be sure to stop by the For the Love of Swoon Giveaway Hop...I'm giving away a copy of Losing It!!!***

Labels: contemporary, cora carmack, harper-collins, indies, losing it, new adult, reviews