The Only Girl in the Car | 
|  | | | Title: | The Only Girl in the Car | | Author: | Kathy Dobie | | Publisher: | Delta | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 02 March, 2004 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0385318839 / 9780385318839 | | List Price: | $15.00 | | You Save: | $4.80 | | Amazon Price: | $10.20 | |
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Product Description
The Only Girl in the Car
Bookworm and dreamer, Kathy was a young girl with a tender heart, an adventurer’s spirit, and a child’s terrible confusion about her proper place in the world. As the oldest daughter in a family of six children, she seemed trapped in her role as Big Sister and Mommy’s Helper. Then, one day, teetering on the brink of adolescence, hormones surging, she heard someone call her “cheesecake,” and suddenly saw her path.
“Cheesecake, jailbait, sex kitten”--the very words seemed to be “doors opening” to a splendid new self. But from the moment she decides to lose her virginity and reels in her prey, a “full-grown man,” fourteen-year-old Kathy is headed for trouble. One cold, raw March night some months later, parked in a car with four boys on the outskirts of her small suburban town, she finds it.
Though she could never have foreseen the outcome of that night, the “boys in the car could just as well have been Gypsies foretelling my future,” she writes. Girls who break the rules in small towns like the one she lived in are expected to pay a very high price for their transgressions--and she did.
And yet...this young girl, as scrappy a protagonist as any in our literature, manages to transform her fate. The story of how she came to be in that car, and how she stepped out of it forever altered, to be sure, yet not forever damaged, is the theme of this extraordinary coming-of-age tale.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews:
• Kind Of Disappointed... 13 April, 2007
First off, let me commend Kathy Dobie for such an honest, unflinching account of a girlhood gone sadly and strangely awry. Her story of being a 14 year old searching for maturity through inappropriate sexual encounters, culminating in reluctantly "agreeing" to a gang bang, is truly heartbreaking. Unfortunately though, the parts of the book that don't deal with her sexual misadventures and statutory rape(s) fall short of being interesting or particularly informative. And for that reason this memoir feels very disjointed.
With the exception of the tease at the beginning of the book, the first half of the book tediously deals with Kathy's rather ordinary and ununique upbringing in a Catholic household as one of six children. Aside from her deep and unfulfilled desire to be closer to her mother and the fact that she has an older brother who is troubled and prone to running away, there is nothing about her childhood that could prepare her or the reader for the way she so drastically veers off course. All she offers is that at fourteen she makes the decision to lose her virginity and then does so with basically the first man (yes, man) she meets. The only explanation she really offers for her sudden transformation into the town slut is that she really wanted everyone to know her name and for her reputation to precede her. And precede her, it did. It isn't until Kathy delves into her sex life at fourteen that she is at her best and able to really explore what happened and what she was feeling at the time. This gripping, thought-provoking section culminates in the gand bang. Then Kathy spends a good deal of time discussing the aftermath, which is mildly interesting but not very illuminating. She can't adequately explain her feelings about what happened and seems to be moving through the story and time in a daze, which may have been how it felt at the time to the author, but doesn't help the reader come to terms with how Kathy managed to move on from the tragedy that befell her. Then the narrative abruptly shifts to her life today, twenty years later, and we're supposed to believe she has moved past the assault; she's healed. Yet she acknowledges her inability to commit to a man; her need to always live with other people, almost like she hasn't moved on from adolescence. Ultimately, I was left feeling very sad for Kathy the 14 year old who was the victim of such a sad Greek tragedy of her own immature making, and sorrier for Kathy the 38 year old who still seems scarred by it.
I really wanted to like this book so much more; wanted Kathy to delve so much deeper; but ultimately, I felt let down by the lack of resolution as well as the hurried ending.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3CMTGGZGG94XP
• Too Shallow 22 May, 2007
My daughter read this and found it wonderful, so I gave it a shot. It's a short book, one you can finish in 3-4 hours. That, I feel, represents part of the problem. This book lacks depth. The periods of her life are isolated from each other and she fails to make the connections between her family life, her wantoness, the group sex, and her afterlife.
I'm not sure Dobie understnad the impact of her choosing to engage in sex with those boys in the care had on her adult life. Instead, the ending leaves one with a voyeuristic hangover similiar to watching The Jerry Springer Show.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AFCE79A2O96X9
• Didn't Relate To Me, I Felt Nothing 04 November, 2007
First of all, I'd like to say what the author went through was a terrible experience. The way she wrote was beautiful..the words are beautifully descriptive. She manages to bring her surroundings, the people, and the things alive with her wonderfully deep and thought provoking words.
However, I didnt' relate to this nor did I feel much about this. I was left a little confused and even a little angry. It describes her childhood and how she always liked attention. I felt that it never really explained why she needed to sleep with so many men or why she gave herself so freely. Her parents seemed loving and kind and caring. Somehow I think she said she wanted mens attention bc she never got her mothers or something along those lines, which still made no sense to me. She had 5 other brothers and sisters and they didn't really act this way.
I felt like after the incident happened, she didn't really care so much about the fact that she got raped (even though she said Okay, she really didn't want to) or the fact that her body was misused and abused by several men. It felt like all she cared about was the people who called her names and harrassed her or something, and all she wanted back was Jimmy's attention.
It seemed like it never quite sunk in what exactly happened to her and she never really showed any remorse or anger or any other emotion towards her attackers.
Also, from when she was barely 13 men seemed to be attracted to her like an ant to candy...without her ever really doing anything. This felt kind of unbelievable to me that so many grown men would risk everything and stop a 13-14 yr old on the street and want to sleep with her..and she'd let him. Maybe the place she lived in was perv city? I can see this happening once or something but it seemed like whenever she'd go out truckers and grown men would just follow her and stalk her wanting to sleep with her.
I was left feeling empty and even angry bc she gave herself so freely w/o thinking of consequences.
I applaud the author for having the courage to write this and the way it is written is beautiful.
- Reviewed by customer ID: ADS0HDB1593GK
• The Only Girl In The Car 15 February, 2008
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and have recommended it to friends who have teenage daughters. In the future I will let my daughter read it. Although it does have a lot of sexual content it is a very honest account of a young girl growing up. Definately would recommend to teens and mothers of teens as well.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1WEWBURN56MP3
• Manages To Make Bad Girls Boring 03 September, 2007
I could not make it past page 50. The part I did read was Dobie telling childhood tales of neglect and being misunderstood, ostensibly to explain what happened later in her life. This should have been more exciting than it ended up being.
The main problem I had was that the narrative just wasn't compelling. At no point in this book did I care about what happened next. Perhaps Dobie was pulling her punches and keeping things clean for the youth. Young girls thinking of becoming the neighborhood bicycle could benefit from this memoir, but in my experience, those girls don't usually read.
So, the book is a waste on all fronts. Avoid this one.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2Z4WO6M9NQOLB
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