Publisher:
Mills and Boon
Release
Date: 12th
September 2014
Edition:
NetGalley
proof, review copy
I
don’t need the perfect guy.
I
don’t need candlelight or roses.
Honestly,
I don’t even need a real bed...
Ellie
Kostalis is a twenty-one year old virgin.
She’s
not religious. She’s not waiting for marriage. She’s not even holding on for
The One.
She’s
just unlucky,
But
with her final year of university coming to an end, she’s determined to shed
her v-plates, once and for all.
And
she’s ready to try anything – from submitting to her domineering Greek mother’s
matchmaking skills to embracing the world of nether-waxing trends (no-one wants
a ‘Hitler’) and even YouTube tutorials on how to give a ‘blow gift’ (it should
never be a job).
After
all, what has she got to lose? Well, besides the obvious.
I hadn’t heard of Virgin until I spotted a review on
Wondrous Reads. Then I immediately knew I needed to read it so I raced over to
NetGalley. I’m very glad I listened to Jenny.
Ellie is in her final year of
college and still a virgin, and so begins her quest to lose it by the end of
the year. She’s always the friend rather than the girlfriend, has body hair
issues and very personal questions about her body that no magazine has ever
dared to answer before, and she’s one of the most relatable heroines I’ve ever
read. It was incredibly refreshing to read about UK university life without all
of the sheen of Oxbridge or the stereotypes of an Americanised institution. And
there wasn’t a hint of a New Adult novel as we know it; but Virgin is exactly what I was wanting
from New Adult and I’m hoping beyond hope that this will be the first of many
novels in this vein.
Virgin
is a frank and
honest exploration of discovering sex and your body for the first times,
sometimes in a cringe-inducing way. Ellie has so many questions and most of
them are integral ones, but ones that have never been encountered in magazines,
online articles, novels, movies or TV shows. So Ellie and Emma start a vlog all
about the mysteries of the vagina and related topics. It’s a brilliant idea and
I loved reading the excerpts of posts they wrote for the site. They were full
of hilarious anecdotes and valuable advice.
I have to admit that I went
into Virgin with the expectation of
laughing aloud every few pages, and while it was genuinely funny, I wasn’t as outwardly
hilarious as I expected. The humour made me snort, smirk and shake my head in embarrassed
empathy. It made me smile a whole lot. I really do hope that there are blogs
and vlogs like Emma and Ellie’s out there for the legions of girls in the same
position.
Virgin
is a novel
about feminism, friendship and all of the awkward, embarrassing and painful
moments a girl goes through on her path to adulthood.
Thanks to Mills and Boon and
NetGalley for the review copy.
Sophie
This sounds truly adorable and exactly what NA should be like! Gonna have to keep my eye out for this :)
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you liked it!
ReplyDelete