Discover Losing It Rendered By Keith Gray Offered As EPub

book of short stories is a good idea in principle, being a book about 'everything you ever wanted to know about virginity but your parents were too embarrassed to tell you', but I found a lot of the stories to be based around masculine sexuality surprise, surprise.
Patrick Ness did a good job basing his story around homosexual experiences and characters and Mary Hooper's choice to do a historical short story was a nice change but they are the only two that I felt didn't treat women as passive within sexuality or didn't really mention women at all.
This book doesn't really tell you anything about virginity, This book was so great! I know what you're thinking, but it's really not like that.
. . ok, maybe some of it is, but the stories in this collection were so diverse! My favorites were the stories by Mary Hooper about child prostitution with a historic fic twist, Patrick Ness, and Bali Rai a heartwrenching story about honor killings.
I am so glad I decided to give this collection a go! I was very excited to

read this book, I like most of the contributing authors, and three of them have provided me withstar books.
Looking back, the book got better as it went on, but I feel a little disappointed.


Let me give you a run down of the stories:

Keith Gray, Scoring: A boy tires to decide weather to sleep with his girlfriend, he knows he shouldn't but since his girlfriend is a 'goodlooking one, not a minger', he probably will.

Verdict: Dull

Jenny Valentine, The Age of Consent: A grandma starts talking unashamedly about sex over a family dinner, much to the embarrassment of her family.

Verdict: Amusing, but dull,

Melvin Burgess, Chatup Lines: Ayear old inadvertently lies to ayear old and is then forced to decide between sex and telling the truth.
Hmm, I wonder what he'll pick,
Verdict: Predictable, I expected more from the author of Junk,

Patrick Ness, It's different for Boys: I can't give you a brief synopsis because praise Patrick Ness the story was too complex!!
Verdict: This story saved the book.
It was emotional, thought provoking and original, This didn't feel like the author practising for a 'real' novel, it was a legitimate story.


Mary Hooper, Charlotte: Set in Victorian England, Charlotte struggles to support her brothers after the death of her mother.
Living in poverty she catches undesirable attention,
Verdict: Intriguing, very different from the other stories, The historical setting was unexpected but really worked, I've never read much of Mary Hooper but this story inspired me to try,

Sophie McKenzie, The Way it Is: A split narrative, it follows a boy and a girl in the lead up to the night in which the intend to have sex with each other.

Verdict: Engaging, I really liked the dual narrative it really added to the sense of realism, having two different perspectives.
There was also a unpredictable, slightly dark undertone throughout which was great, it really added to the mystique and made it very much bittersweet.


Bali Rai, The White Towel:: A British Asian girl has a flash back to time in India and learning the harsh truth about honour killing.

Verdict: The flash back was well written, in a sort of fairy tale style.
But the beginning and ending of the story the girl talking to her British friend was a little tedious.
It was only there to allow English teens to be able to associate with the situation of the Indian girl wich I found a little patronising.


Anne Fine, Finding It: A Upper School teacher teaches a sexed class and thinks about how different it was in 'the old days'.

Verdict: I liked that it was written from a different perspective but I thought the assumptions made by the narrator were rather stereotypical no one in thes knew how to have sex but now kids a experts from the age of.


With the exception of Patrick Ness, Mary Hooper and possibly Sophie MckKenzie's stories I was not provided with the 'original and thoughtprovoking' experience that I was hoping for.
In fact read more like the case studies of 'Jane and Jack' you are given in PSCH or SexEd informative, really not intended to actually interest you.


But Thank You! to Patrick Ness, who once again didn't disappoint, to Mary Hooper who pleasantly surprised me and to Sophie McKenzie who intrigued me.
You are the reason I wish I could give this collection more thanstars, “Its that kind of story, Certain words are necessary because this is real life, but you cant actually show em because were too young to read about the stuff we actually do, yeah”

Initial Final Page Thoughts.

Has anyone seen Cinema Paradiso
If yes: Stick with me for this bit and read my highly convoluted intelligent analogy.

If no but you dont mind it being spoilt: Stick with me for this bit and read my highly convoluted intelligent analogy.

If no but you would rather it not be spoilt: I loved this book and you can skip ahead to the high points.


You know the part where the priest tells Alfredo that he has to censor the films he shows in his cinema And Alfredo explains this to Toto, his young apprentice, that he has to cut all the rude scenes out and all these clippings are in the big box And then when the cut film is playing the audience boo because the scene cuts just when the couples are about to kiss
Thats usually me when Im reading a YA book.

I can probably count on both hands the books Ive read recently where teenagers have sex.

Maybe Im just reading the wrong books or maybe its because it doesnt have any relevance to the story and the characters or maybe its because if a teenager reads a book where characters have sex, or even discuss sex, they will obviously run out and have immoral sex in an alley behind the nearest paper shop.


So at the end of Cinema Paradiso, Alfredo sends the now grown up Toto a film of all the rude scenes spliced together and its all emotional and lovely and brilliant.

This book was the literary equivalent of that end scene,
It was like Mr Gray had gone through all the snippets and cut scenes of books from YA writers all across the world and put them together into one fantastic collection.



High Points,
SEX! Homegrown writers, Realistic portrayal of emotions. Awkward parent chats. Awkward teacher chats. Great dialogue. Condoms on cucumbers. Vocal grannies. Footie shirts. Cockcagoules. Handshandies. History. Diversity. The importance of being honest about sex, Truth. The censorship discussion.
If I could get away with giving this book five, full marks, performing a solo Mexican Wave in its honour based solely on Mr Ness “Its Different For Boys”.
I would.
But unfortunately I cant,
So anyone who has ever seen me wear my “I LOVE NESS” tshirt heard me talking about Ness and his writing will know that it makes me lose my blank mind.

And thesepages or so were no exception,
My other favourites were Scoring by Keith Gray, The White Towel by Bali Rai and The Way It Is by Sophie McKenzie.



Low Points,
I wish there had been more stories told from the perspective of the girls.
Out of the eight stories, only two were told from the perspective of the ladies, Im not counting Anne Fines because its told from a teachers viewpoint and Ms McKenzies was told from alternating perspective.
Maybe it was just because the first four stories were about the boys but, to me anyway, it seemed to be an extremely malecentric book.

I actually enjoyed all of the stories but I couldnt help but think that both Melvin Burgess and Mary Hoopers stories would have been so much better if they were part of a longer book.

But the more I think about it, the more that is actually a high point because I wanted to know more about their brilliant characters but, whatever I had to find something, didnt I


Theme Tune.

I struggled to narrow my collection down to one, so I didn't.
Here are a few because
sitelinkThere sitelinkwere  sitelinkabout sitelinka sitelinkmillion sitelinkthat sitelinkI sitelinkcould sitelinkhave sitelinkchosen.


But Ill leave the decision with you,

Sadness Scale,
Its difficult to give a number because most of these stories are absolutely hilarious so they kind of toned the sadness down.

But I will say that Bali Rai and Mary Hoopers story practically gutted me, Ive never read anything by either of those two authors but based on those stories I definitely will be doing so in the future.


Recommended For,
People who boo when YA books fade to black or get all tonguetied when whispers sex is brought up.
People who are looking for a collection of hilarious, heart breaking and realistic contemporary stories, People who have ever had an awkward conversation with their parents and teachers about sex,


You can read this review and other exciting things on my blog sitelinkhere.
I read this book because I was looking for Patrick Ness' new book, which isn't out yet, and the guy at the bookstore got excited about the fact that I love Patrick Ness and insisted that I read this collection of short stories.
Patrick Ness' may have been the best story in the collection, actually, Every story is about teenagers having sex for the first time, and each story approaches the subject in a unique way.
I enjoyed all but one or two of the stories very much, Patrick Ness's section was particularily amazing! : Not really what I expected, . . I was hoping for some cute YA stories, Some of these are dark and depressing and not fun at all, Didn't particularly like any of the stories except for Patrick Ness and Sophie McKenzie's, I had anticipated this a lot and I was fairly disappointed by it overall, It was fine but not what I was expecting from it, .