Book Review: Easy by Kerry Cohen Hoffmann

Title: Easy

Author: Kerry Cohen Hoffman

Pages: 163

Where I got it: library book sale.

Summary:

Easy. At the ripe young age of fourteen Jessica has discovered that getting the attention she wants is just that -- easy. It's not the attention of a divorced mother who spends all of her time grieving over a broken marriage. Nor is it that of a father with a new girlfriend who's moving on with his life. It's certainly not the attention of a clueless older sister or a best friend since grade school who still acts like she's in grade school. No. For some reason being noticed by her friends and family seems to have become almost impossible. Boys -- and men -- are a different matter altogether. With the right clothes and attitude, Jessica realizes that she can get all the male attention she wants.

What she doesn't realize is how easy it is to get more than you're ready for.

Remember when you were younger, maybe twelve or eleven, and you would be so riveted by anything relating to teh smex that you would venture into your school library and check out that one book that looked even remotely titilating? Remember how you would read the book in two hours on Saturday and then just think about how unrealistic it was, yet you were still intrigued enough to finish it?
That's Easy.

The entire 160 pages just screams "after school special". One long retorical scenerio you get in health. Maybe a tad more detailed then any school would bother with, but still. I wasn't buying it.

Jessica is an Emotionally Distraught Teenager, who feels Unloved (admittedly) Unwanted (admittedly) and Worthless (oh, so admittedly). After her parents divorce (due to the Extramarital Affair), she feels like no one Understands her and, once more, nobody Wants her. So she retreats to two things: photography (healthy) and trolling the freeway for men to honk at her Jailbait-tastic ass (very, very Unhealthy). Why all the Capitalizations, you may be asking yourself. Well, the answer is as simple as the plot: Easy is so, ridiculously formulmatic that it's themes have become diagnoses in themselves. Seriously. Go out and read any book on Teenage Promiscuity and replace all those character names with these character names, and they're the same thing.

Jessica, albeit, is a very well-drawn out character. While it is so motherfucking annoying that she is constantly going on and on and on about how miserable, shameful, and alone she is, it does reflect the way most teenagers feel like they're problems are the center of the universe. I know I, for one, can relate. But then, there's also this hypocricy that's glaringly obvious. She complains that her mother only cares about herself and her problems, yet all Jessica herself does is whine about her life to everyone around her. She complains that her old friend (deemed the "school slut" for...growing boobs...in the fourth grade...or something) is picked on and ignored, but Jessica is doing exactly that. It's just so mind numbing how self-centered she is, how self-righteous but at the same time so pathetically down on herself...ugh. No thank you.

Like I said, this is just the written version of a health video, but there are things to be learned from it: don't have sex till your good and ready, don't tell a twenty year old cashier your eighteen when your not (but, come on, he has a pony tail!) Don't go around the street looking for said Twenty Year Old's Civic and fuck him. Do not tell him your not a virgin. Do not tell him you live at your neighbor's house (when they have twin babies...) so that he goes stalking said neighbor's house in said Civic look for said Eighteen Year Old that is said you, even though you asre in fact said Fourteen Year Old with Self Esteem Issues.

Are we clear?

So, don't go out and spend a bucketful on this baby, because all it can be is that lazy weekend read to pass the hours before you have to go to a party or something. Maybe get it for a curious eleven year old whom you want to scare off of having sex for, like, ever.

Rating: 4--not even meh.