Losing It (Losing It, #1)

by Cora Carmack

Love. Romance. Sex. There's a first time for everything...

As far as Bliss Edwards can tell, she's the last virgin standing, certainly amongst her friends. And she's determined to deal with the 'problem' as quickly and simply as possible.

But her plan for a no-strings one night stand turns out to be anything but simple. Especially when she arrives for her first class and recognises her hot new British professor.

She'd left him naked in her bed just 8 hours earlier...

• ISBN10: 0062273248
• ISBN13: 9780062273246
• Publish Date: 26 February 2013 (first published 5 December 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

Losing It was so freaking adorable and awkward! Bliss is a twenty-two year old virgin. Not that there's anything wrong with that. She just hasn't felt ready to take that step, but her best friend thinks it's time. Bliss does think that maybe she should just get her first time out of the way, so the girls head out. Bliss meets a super sexy guy reading Shakespeare in a bar. And he's British! Everything is going well, until they get naked, and Bliss gets painfully awkward and runs out (of her own apartment). Then it gets more awkward when she walks into class the following morning and that sexy guy is her professor.

I absolutely adored Losing It! Bliss' misadventures in losing her virginity were hilarious and heart-warming. I'm glad that she didn't just do it to be doing it. And her excuse for not doing it in the moment was so funny! Like, no one could possible make up something that weird, right? Wrong! Bliss running out on Garrick made me laugh and cringe, which was wonderful. There's several more moments like that sprinkled through out. Bliss is like a magnet for awkward situations.

Other than the superb awkwardness, Losing It is a fairly standard New Adult Romance, although with the student-teacher twist (which is one of my favorite tropes). There's plenty of tension between Bliss and Garrick as they try to stay away from each other, and try to keep their relationship a secret. There's also a pretty good subplot with tension involving Bliss and her best friend who is in love with her. Her absolute cluelessness was a bit unbelievable, but I liked it anyway.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[readingwithwrin]

I read this book last year, but for some reason didn't mark it as read nor did I write a review for it for some reason.

From what I remember from it the main character is a virgin who end up falling for her teacher, who didn't know was a teacher. This creating an awkward situation between the two, all while they keep it to themselves even though everyone around them can tell something is going on between them.

I found the ending for this one to be very cliche and I just didn't care for it to be honest. I feel like it was a little to much of a happy ending considering everything else that was going on.

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

Losing It by Cora Carmack was recommended to me as a book to cover for Sex in Teen Lit Month II, but once I started reading, I came across a problem; Bliss, the main character, is twenty-two. I'd reasoned with myself that some NA titles could be covered as long as the protagonist was still a teenager, but that wasn't going to work with Losing It. I read on though as I had started, and was planning on giving it a normal review. However, now I've finished, I've realised that it's still a pretty good book to cover for the month, despite the ages of the characters. Losing It is quite a sweet romance, but the romance could have been deeper.

Bliss is a virgin. She's just told her best friend Kelsey, who is shocked and determined to help Bliss change it. She drags Bliss out for a night at a pub so Bliss can have a one night stand. Bliss isn't really into it, and is only going along to keep her friend happy, but is sure she won't find anyone. Until she meets Garrick. Hot, British, and reading Shakespeare, Bliss is unable to resist the magnetism between the two, and soon the two are at her house, in her bed. Things get complicated, though, when she turns up at school the next day ands finds the new Buisness of Theatre professor is the guy she brought home last night.

Despite the setting and the ages of the characters, Losing It feels just like a YA novel - it's no more sexually explicit than some YA novels I've read, and considering the topic it covers, I decided to include it for the event. Shortly after it opens, Kelsey is draggin Bliss to a pub, and I felt uncomfortable. Until Bliss told Kelsey about her being a virgin, she had no plans to rid herself of her virginity. The only reason they're at the pub is because Kelsey thinks Bliss is too old to be a virgin, and it's something that needs to be "fixed".

'"If you're not gay, and it's not about Jesus, then it's just a matter of finding the right guy, or should I say... the right sexual sword."
I rolled my eyes. "Gee? Is that all? Find the right guy? Why didn't someone tell me sooner?"
[...]
"I don't mean the right guy to marry, honey. I mean the right guy to get your blood pumping. To make you turn off your analytical, judgemental, hyperactive brain and think with your body instead."' (p3)

I was completely against Kelsey's attitude; if a virgin wishes to lose his/her virginity on a one night stand, fine, but someone else telling that virgin that they need to, and this is how... that's not on. Especially as Bliss didn't really want to - thought she does just give up and go along with it. It's something that was never really addressed in the book which I have a problem with.

But otherwise, the book is mostly pretty good on the subject. Bliss is conflicted about her virginity. She doesn't want to be that person, the one who hasn't "done it" yet, but actually having sex? She's not so sure.

'I wasn't ready. Not at all.
There was a reason I hadn't had sex yet, and now I knew it. I was a control freak. [...] But sex, that was the opposite of control. There were emotions, and attraction, and that pesky other person that just had to be involved. Not my idea of fun.
[...]
I could do this. It was just a problem that needed to be solved, an item that needed to be checked off my to-do list.
It was that simple.
Simple.
Keep it simple.
[...]
I didn't want to be a virgin. That much I knew. I didn't want to feel like the immature prude who knew nothing about sex. I hated not knowing things. The trouble was... as much as I didn't want to be a virgin, I also didn't want to have sex.' (p5)

Then Bliss meets Garrick and the sexual tension is instantaneous. They can barely keep their eyes off each other, let alone anything else. Bliss realises, he is the guy. The perfect guy to have her one night stand with, the guy who stops her thinking and has her body wanting. They get to her place, and soon they are in bed, and things are moving. The sex scenes in the book - all two of them - are graphic, but not overly so. They're not like the kind you read in most NA novels. They're not tame, but they're not written for the sole purpose of being hot and sexy and turning the reader on. The two are, in a way, quite different. This first is about Bliss' first experience of anything sexual, and finally understanding what the fuss is about. However, when it gets to Garrick starting to remove her knickers, she panics. She can't do this. She's not ready. This is not what she wants. I'm not going to go into detail about how they get out of it, I'm not going to spoil it that much, but they don't have full penetrative sex, just mild foreplay.

The story then takes a turn, and focuses mostly on the romance aspect. Garrick is now Bliss' teacher, she is mortified, but they're still undeniably attracted to one another. It's difficult for them to keep away from each other, but they try to do what's right. It's a really sweet, adorable romance, and it's great watching it develop. It's actually really awesome to have an NA novel where there's all this sexual tension, but for the most part, no sex. The only problem I did have with the romance was that... we never really find out much about either character other than they're an actor and a theatre student, and as we don't really get to know much about them, I don't see how they do, either, so I found it difficult to believe when they fall in love. But otherwise, it's really, really lovely, and Garrick is just amazing (apart from the slightly cheesy, stereotypical Britishisms).

When we get to the second sex scene, when the two actually have sex, this time, it's sweeter. It's about their feelings for each other, Bliss' trust and love for Garrick, as well as her desire for him, and how her worries and nervousness go out the window. When it comes to being her first time, it's quite realistic about pain, but without being scary about it, and also shows it can be an enjoyable experience, too, which is another reason why I think this is good for teen readers (maybe older teen readers, some may argue). As I said, there are only two sex scenes, and as much as I enjoyed that, I did find it surprising that as a book about Bliss losing her virginity, the focus was much more on the romance than it was on sex. The sex is completely secondary, but I don't think that takes away from this great novel.

Overall, as a romance, Losing It is just gorgeous, and as a book that deals with a girl losing her virginity, I think it does brilliantly. If you can deal with not a huge amount of depth to the characters, Losing It is a wonderful novel. I'll definitely be checking out more of Carmack's novels.

Trigger Warning: There is some use of politically incorrect language in this novel that I was uncomfortable with. The language used made light of mental illness and self-halm; "borderline schizophrenic display" (p50) and "Twenty Seven. The Number of times I was tempted to do myself physical harm because I am an idiot." (p49) These are just two examples, but there are a couple more towards the beginning.

[melanchalina]

Хорошее начало – с юмором, нетипичной на первый взгляд героиней, но в итоге затянутый и абсолютно бессмысленный сюжет.
Это была типичная книга.
Легкая.
Романтичная.
Но совершенно не то, что ожидала лично я.

Их отношения начались ночь, когда они встретились (притяжение с первого взгляда, серьезно?) и так же быстро свернулись, когда выяснилось, что Гаррик – преподаватель Блисс. И в течение семестра их отношения развились в любоффь-любоффь. Простите, что?

Возможно, я не права, но я не верю, что может возникнуть столь сильная любовь при таком малом взаимодействие между героями. Я не верю в любовь на пустом месте, которая возникает между людьми из ничего. Я люблю, когда в книгах один из героев видит уникальность другого персонажа, ценит его взгляды на жизнь и именно это пробуждает в нем чувство любви.

Помимо всего этого проблема сюжета в том, что в нем нет никакого движения, развития. Начало было многообещающим, но с середины книги, а то и раньше, и до конца сюжет топчется на месте. И на фоне этого НИЧЕГО лишь стенания и страдания героини – очень скучно. Я была рада, когда дочитала книгу.

Моя оценка: 5/10

[Ashley]

Nose Graze — Young Adult book reviews

4.5 Stars

Losing It was one of those books that I put off reading. Everyone was reading it and raving about it, but I just wasn't that excited about it. Maybe it's because the old cover had a creepy, young looking boy on it? Or maybe the synopsis just didn't pull me in? Who knows. Sometimes I just don't get that excited about a book for some inexplicable reason. But when Losing It went on sale for like $0.99, I felt like I had run out of excuses.

OMG I WAS MISSING OUT!!

Just like everyone promised, Losing It was a fun, hilarious, awkward, and sweet read. The awkwardness was literally the best part. I LOVE awkward books. It makes them feel real (plus sometimes it feels good to laugh at a fictional character's funny misfortune). And, the guy she almost has sex with—Garrick—is a Brit! A Brit! I love me dem Brits.

"When I asked a classmate for a rubber, you call them erasers, everyone laughed so hard that I was ready to board a flight straight back to London."
Garrick

Every now and then Bliss did annoy me a little bit.. Like when she just annoyingly assumed Garrick would have gotten tired of her "once the forbidden factor wore off" as if all men get sick of nice girls eventually. I just hate stereotypes like that. And when she and Garrick started dating and she was paranoid about being SOOO careful. I mean.. I get it, and it makes sense, but the emotional side of me just wanted her to say "screw it" and totally be with him. But for the most part, I thought she was pretty hilarious. She was such a control freak and it was hilarious how she tried to cover up her lies. When she ran out on Garrick before sex, her excuse was that she had to go get her cat... She doesn't have a cat... but then when she started talking to Garrick again, she realized she'd have to go buy a cat so he wouldn't catch her in that lie. So she actually bought a cat for that reason! LOL!

"Let me get this straight... you didn't have a cat? Did you get a cat just so that you wouldn't have to tell me you were a virgin?"
Garrick

Losing It was definitely a great giggle book. All the awkward moments had me giggling, Bliss's psychoticness had me cracking up, and the sweet moments had me squealing and growing hearts in my eyes (totally possible!). And the ending... oh gosh... so sweet! I mean.. sure it moved too quickly and he was going to propose to her after like... I don't know... 3-6 months of dating? But it was one of those things where I JUST DIDN'T CARE! I was swept up in the romance and how cute they were together and I was so thrilled that they were going to get married!

Immediately after I finished Losing It I bought Faking It! I just wasn't ready to stop reading Cora Carmack epic-ness! So if you're like me and if you've been putting off reading Losing It, go read it NOW! It's worth it!

[Cocktails and Books]

After hearing a lot of buzz, I finally broke down and read it. It was cute and had me hooked when I found out Garrick was British.

[Mercy]

3.5/5
Hace mucho que no leía un libro de este tipo. No es que sea un libro perfecto, no es que este escrito maravillosamente, no es que sus personajes sean super especiales. No. O sea, es fácil de leer, fácil de amar, de esos con los que te puedes partir de risa con las ocurrencias, estupideces, etc. de los personajes.
Veamos, la historia trata sobre Bliss, una chica que a sus 22 años sigue virgen y ya no quiere serlo. Se lo comenta a su amiga y esta decide que es hora de poner fin a "tan vergonzosa situación" y la lleva a un bar con la idea de encontrar a un chico, tener un rollo de una noche y listo.
Bliss esta a punto de darse por vencida y seguir virgen cuándo se encuentra a un chico ¡LEYENDO EN UN BAR! Eso es como para morirse xD ¡Y encima tiene un sexy acento británico!
La cuestión es que van a parar al apartamento de Bliss, y cuando están a punto de "hacerlo", ella entra en pánico y huye.
Pero para hacer las cosas interesantes, al siguiente día, al llegar a la Universidad reconoce al nuevo profesor de teatro como el chico que hacía un par de horas había dejado: listo y desnudo... en su cama.
Garrick es sexy, lindo, preocupado, británico... y profe.

Ahora diré lo que no me gusto: El Epilogo, esta narrado por Garrick y... ¿Qué paso con el hombre responsable que conocí? ¿Dónde está el británico sexy? Pareciera que es un chico de 15-con-las-hormonas-alborotadas. Pero quitando eso, lo demás esta genial, es una muy buena opción para pasar una tarde y reírte un rato. Como dije antes, hace mucho que no leía un libro así, y no me arrepiento, me obsesioné con él.

[Leah]

When I received a copy of Losing It by Cora Carmack, I couldn’t wait to read it. I’m in love with the New Adult genre, made even greater by the fact I’m only able to read one New Adult book a fortnight due to all the Chick Lit novels I have to read. Losing It is very much a novel people are talking about – it’s such a popular novel and as is the case with NA novels, it was originally self published. I’m not a massive fan of the cover – though the guy on the cover is very pretty! I decided it was the perfect book to read before I had to go to work one evening, and I absolutely blasted through the book, it was that good!

Losing It as you might be able to tell from the title is about losing it. The v card. Yes, Bliss Edwards is a virgin and she’s sick of it! She feels like a freak and after confiding in best friend Kelsey, she finds herself all dolled up and at a club, looking for a man for the night. When she meets Garrick, a hot British boy, she’s entranced. He’s gorgeous, and very interested in Bliss and Bliss decides he is the one for her. But once they get back to her apartment she freaks out and leaves him naked in bed. She thinks that she’ll never see him again, and cannot believe it when she walks into class the next day and see her new teacher is none other than Garrick Taylor…

I flipping loved Losing It. I absolutely blimmin adored it and I devoured it in a meagre 2 and a half hours. I just couldn’t stop reading! I loved Bliss so so much, she’s the same age as me and I just related to her absolutely. I thought she was one of the best female characters I’ve read in a while, she was just awesome. And Garrick! Oh Garrick. I want my own Garrick! Sigh. He was just beauty personified inside and out. I loved the tension between the two, loved the banter, the easiness of their interactions and I cringed with Bliss when she walked into class and saw him there! I was dying for them to get it together!

Losing It was just fabulous. Cormack has created such a fabulous plot with such engaging characters, characters you really care about. It was touching, smart, funny – I loved the bit with Bliss’s fake cat, Hamlet, it had me giggling. I just loved this book! This genre has yet to disappoint me, and this is the best of the lot. I’m so thrilled Cormack is continuing this series, with a second novel Faking It on the way hopefully really really soon and then there’ll be a third book to follow. It looks as though they’re companions rather than direct sequels but hopefully we’ll see more of Bliss and Garrick in the upcoming books! This is a book twenty something’s will absolutely adore, it was amazing.

[nitzan_schwarz]

To read this review and more, check out my blog!

I'm rating this book based on how much I enjoyed it. It's not perfect, but the first thing I thought when I finished the book was; Gosh, what a good book. And so - five it is.
Losing It was simply a lovely story, featuring one of the most authentic voices I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. One I could relate to, as a college student myself, and one that often sounded so much like me and my friends that it was eerie. Eerie good, though.

Bliss is the main character of the story, and the one telling it. She's just a normal girl, on her last year in college. But she's got a secret... she is, in fact, a virgin! *gasp* And so she sets to change that. Well, really, her friend kind of forces her to go out and change that - but let's not be too strict with the details.
What Bliss doesn't count on is almost having a one-night stand with a guy who turns out to be her new professor. A guy she can't really seem to stay away from. A guy who isn't supposed to be more than just a one-time deal, but somehow grows to be a lot more. A guy she really, really shouldn't fall for. She's his student - he's her teacher. It's a doomed relationship... right?
To read the rest of this review, go here!

[Rowena]

I started this book not too long after I finished reading Taking Chances and I was really hesitant about starting it because I didn’t want more of the same with this book and I’m glad to say that I didn’t get it.

This book wasn’t necessarily about Bliss Edwards (the main character) losing her virginity though it did start off that way. The book was more about the relationship that Bliss finds herself in when she decides to lose her virginity. She wants to get rid of it because she’s not waiting for marriage, she just never found a guy that she wanted to have sex with but now she’s about to graduate from college and she’s still a card carrying virgin. So her best friend takes her to the bar with a plan for Bliss to pick a guy and get laid. All she had to do was dress a little slutty and choose a guy.

That’s when Bliss meets Garrick. Sexy as all get out, British Garrick. He’s got everything working in his favor and Bliss wants to take him home.

So she does.

Things are going swimmingly until Bliss chickens out and kicks Garrick out of her bed and her apartment. He leaves and she’s humiliated but at least she doesn’t have to see him ever again, right?

Wrong…she shows up for class the next day (or week) and Garrick is her new professor.

WHAT?

The attraction is still there and it’s still blazing but there’s the whole teacher/student thing going on and while I usually hate that storyline, I didn’t mind it in this one. That had mostly to do with the fact that they were only a few years apart and Bliss was over 18. They were both adults and they tried to stay away from each other but the heart wants what the heart wants and their hearts wanted the heck out of each other.

This book was really good and I really came to like Bliss’s character. She was strong, she was smart and she was real. She had real life problems with real life consequences and they mattered to her. On top of that, she was a very likable character. Far too often, I’m left wondering why the main character of this book and that book was in such high demand because I didn’t see what was so good about the main character but I didn’t have to wonder about Bliss because she was normal, she was funny and she had a good head on her shoulders. She didn’t act like someone too old for her age and she didn’t act like a complete idiot so I liked her.

The story rounds out nicely with the other characters as well. Cade and Kelsey were great friends to Bliss and when they fought, they fought. Just like real friends do. My heart a bit for Cade but I was happy when they came around and found their way back to each other and I really like how Kelsey cared enough about Bliss to bring her out of her shell from time to time, especially when Bliss needed it.

Garrick was a total hottie and I adored him, even though at times his jealousy was eyeroll worthy. There were times in the beginning of the book where I wish that the book had moved a bit faster but for the most part, this was an enjoyable read and I’m glad that I read it.