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A review by nightshade_novels
Losing It by Keith Gray
3.0
Having read ‘Next’ another collection of short stories edited by Keith Gray I was intrigued to read this one. I was especially interested when I saw that Patrick Ness had written one of the stories, and also Anne Fine and Mary Hooper.
I enjoyed the first story ‘Scoring’ by Keith Gray, but really wanted to know what Jason decided to do, so was annoyed that it ended where it did.
Jenny Valentine’s story ‘The Age of Consent’ was really funny and enjoyable, but came with a good message to make sure your first is a nice person.
‘Chat-up Lines’ by Melvin Burgess was a bit weird and just annoying really. It tells of a boy that gets the best girl (and a pop star) in town by reciting poetry to her, but she ditches him the moment she discovers that he is three years younger than her.
Patrick Ness’ ‘Different For Boys’ looked at what counts as losing your virginity (particularly in the context of two gay boys). I quite liked this story as even though it was just as short as the others it somehow managed to involved more characters and build up a history for each one of them and more complex interrelationships.
‘Charlotte’ by Mary Hooper tells of a young girl in Victorian times who ends up selling herself to feed her brothers after her mother’s death. It is explained that there are three levels of society; the rich the poor and those that are outcast for spoiling themselves before marriage.
‘The Way It Is’ by Sophie McKenzie was interesting in that it showed the different ways in which boys and girls view losing their virginity and how this can make things confusing in relationships. It also showed how people view each other differently; Sam loves the way Katya looks and fell for her straight away, but Katya is very critical of her own appearance.
Bali Rai’s ‘The White Towel’ was easily the most emotional of the stories. It tells of the way that a young woman in Asia must be pure and innocent, saved for marriage. That she will be cast out if it is discovered that she has sullied herself. In this case it was not true and the girl was wrongly accused, tormented and left for dead.
I liked ‘Finding It’ by Anne Fine. It was told by a teacher who is teaching a class their sex education lesson. She reminisces about her teenage years and losing her virginity. Thinking about how ridiculous the sex ed. lessons are because the students already know far more about sex than she did at that age.
This was an interesting collection of stories; each made you think about the different situations in different cultures or time periods.
I enjoyed the first story ‘Scoring’ by Keith Gray, but really wanted to know what Jason decided to do, so was annoyed that it ended where it did.
Jenny Valentine’s story ‘The Age of Consent’ was really funny and enjoyable, but came with a good message to make sure your first is a nice person.
‘Chat-up Lines’ by Melvin Burgess was a bit weird and just annoying really. It tells of a boy that gets the best girl (and a pop star) in town by reciting poetry to her, but she ditches him the moment she discovers that he is three years younger than her.
Patrick Ness’ ‘Different For Boys’ looked at what counts as losing your virginity (particularly in the context of two gay boys). I quite liked this story as even though it was just as short as the others it somehow managed to involved more characters and build up a history for each one of them and more complex interrelationships.
‘Charlotte’ by Mary Hooper tells of a young girl in Victorian times who ends up selling herself to feed her brothers after her mother’s death. It is explained that there are three levels of society; the rich the poor and those that are outcast for spoiling themselves before marriage.
‘The Way It Is’ by Sophie McKenzie was interesting in that it showed the different ways in which boys and girls view losing their virginity and how this can make things confusing in relationships. It also showed how people view each other differently; Sam loves the way Katya looks and fell for her straight away, but Katya is very critical of her own appearance.
Bali Rai’s ‘The White Towel’ was easily the most emotional of the stories. It tells of the way that a young woman in Asia must be pure and innocent, saved for marriage. That she will be cast out if it is discovered that she has sullied herself. In this case it was not true and the girl was wrongly accused, tormented and left for dead.
I liked ‘Finding It’ by Anne Fine. It was told by a teacher who is teaching a class their sex education lesson. She reminisces about her teenage years and losing her virginity. Thinking about how ridiculous the sex ed. lessons are because the students already know far more about sex than she did at that age.
This was an interesting collection of stories; each made you think about the different situations in different cultures or time periods.