Review: Losing It

LOSING IT
Losing It #1
Cora Carmack
New Adult Contemporary Romance
288 pages
William Morrow
Available February 26th
Received from publisher via Edelweiss

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Virginity.

Bliss Edwards is about to graduate from college and still has hers. Sick of being the only virgin among her friends, she decides the best way to deal with the problem is to lose it as quickly and simply as possible-- a one-night stand. But her plan turns out to be anything but simple when she freaks out and leaves a gorgeous guy alone and naked in her bed with an excuse that no one with half-a-brain would ever believe. 

And as if that weren’t embarrassing enough, when she arrives for her first class of her last college semester, she recognizes her new theatre professor. 

She’d left him naked in her bed about 8 hours earlier.

MY THOUGHTS
Losing It is a story that brings an enormous smile to our faces, the protagonist’s penchant for landing herself in the most awkward situations imaginable something we know would only add to her humiliation were she aware of us as additional witnesses, but her embarrassment causes not a single laugh directed at her to escape our mouths, instead we always laugh with her, invisible partners to share the burden of her repeated romantic misfortunes. This book is one to read for pure enjoyment, Bliss and Garrick highly entertaining characters despite the fact that they don’t necessarily bring anything new to the contemporary romance table, and we find in their story the simplicity of a spectacularly fun read.

Bliss is endlessly amusing, someone who embodies those moments we’ve all had where mysterious gremlins intercept the words we want to say when they leave our brains, twist them around completely, and then release them from our mouths, laughing all the while in maniacal glee at what they’ve done. There’s an extreme disconnect between her brain and mouth when she gets nervous, and her bumbling actions and frantic excuses have us laughing aloud even as our cheeks turn bright red in vicarious mortification. As the story progresses her awkwardness throttles down several gears, ensuring she doesn’t become a caricature of quirkiness and allowing us to really connect to her emotionally instead of simply finding ourselves amused at her antics.

Garrick is as adorably swoon-worthy as they come, a sexy accent accompanied by intelligence, patience, and charm to make Bliss’s (and our) hearts beat double-time. As mentioned previously, he’s not a new character by any means, many of his traits things we’ve seen before several times over, but his familiar feel doesn’t detract from his romance with Bliss, and we’re easily caught up in the little lies and the huge teacher-student relationship danger that exists between them. The possibility of their being caught has us strung tight the entire second half of the story, waiting for the inevitable moment when everything they’ve begun to build starts to crumble around them. Luckily for us though, there is absolutely no game playing for our leading couple, and while things for them are hard and painful at times, we always have faith that the rather blunt approach they’ve taken throughout in terms of communication will see them through.

Overall, Losing It is a joy to read even if it’s not blazing a new romantic trail, and both Bliss and Garrick are characters whose memory warm our hearts every time we think of them.

Rating: 4/5