Guest Reviewer - Lindsey P : My Soon-To-Be Sex Life by Judith Tewes

Review: My Soon-to-be Sex Life - Judith Tewes - June 2014

Charlie Webb, a teenage wannabe 17-year-old screen writer, is desperate to lose her virginity.   Aided by Roach, her religious mad friend, Charlie contrives a devirginization campaign.  Like her scriptwriting, Charlie believes that if her campaign is plotted and storyboarded, it will happen. Yet 3 weeks in, she is still having no luck and the would-be candidates are getting thin on the ground and decidedly unappealing.

Charlie’s plans to pop her cherry become thwarted though when her Mum declares herself to be a Valium addict: a result of her Father’s untimely death and checks into rehab.  Charlie is sent to live with her estranged grandfather, Monty, who she never really bonded with and who is not really that keen to have her.  Neither is his dog, Mona …

As Charlie struggles to cope with the events in her life, she meets Eric – a gorgeous man who definitely ignites her desire to continue with her campaign, even if he is fresh out of rehab and with baggage of his own. Yet Charlie gradually finds herself being increasingly drawn to him.  But, all is not smooth on the path to true love and obstacles are thrown at the would-be lovers, namely in the form of Tyler Gribbons, one of the former contenders on her list, who is on a vengeful mission to bring Charlie down…

I really enjoyed this book.  Although it is geared towards YA, it not a tale of typical teenage angst.  The death of her father and her mother’s addiction hits Charlie hard and when she moves in with Monty, in a role reversal, she finds herself looking out for him rather than the other way around. Charlie is thrust into the world of adulthood and responsibilities.  As the reader learns more about her, it becomes clear that the quest to lose her virginity is her ultimately trying to take control of her life whilst everything around her is failing. She feels that in doing so will finally give her the “inciting incident” to change her life. But, as Charlie points out “life is stranger than fiction” and does not always plan out as we would like…

Charlie is a very strong, likeable character who takes it on the chin with her sarcastic retorts and as Eric says, part of her appeal is that you “never know what (she’s) going to say next.”.  The book is both funny and at times heart-breaking as Charlie begins to see that life is not all peaches and cream and the journey to adulthood is often fraught and you can never really guarantee anything…

This was a fun, fresh and entertaining read played out with a host of highly likeable, well written characters.  It dealt with some really heavy themes: love, loss, addiction, pressures on teenagers, religious beliefs and peer pressure but told in a very relatable way.  I would recommend definitely …