What My Mother Doesn't Know (207-260)

Summary:

Sophie starts to dream about her future, and Murphy is part of her future. She now starts to look at peoples personalities, and not just their looks. Murphy is always on her mind and she soon is invited to meet his parents. When she meets Murphy's mother she finds out that she is also Jewish, and they connect instantly. Sophie finds out that Murphy's name isn't Murphy, it's actually Robin. People only called him Murphy  because they thought he was loser. After she spends the day at his house, they make another date, they are going to the movies. They continue to make dates. One of their dates is at the Charles River, they watch the sunset go down and talk about how they feel about one another. Winter slowly arrives in Boston and the first snowfall brings a foot of snow. Sophie and Robin spend a day building snowmen and going sledding.  As school vacation begins to end Sophie does not know how to tell her friends that she loves Robin, she's afraid of how they'll react. In the end Sophie shows her friends who she loves, she runs to Robin and holds his hands, smiling at him. She finally grew  out of  the fear and she realized that she needed to grow up and think about what really mattered to her, her happiness.

Quote:

"I come to the sudden and very startling realization that all I want for Christmas is Murphy."  (Sones 223)

Summary:

This quote truly shows the growth that Sophie has gone through. Children tend to want toys for Christmas, but Sophie wants Murphy. She is capable of understanding what someone could mean to her. This quote also shows that what she wants for Christmas is not a material, but actually something that she could have forever. Overall, Sophie has grown a lot and she makes decisions based on her thoughts, not from what she sees. She does not mind what the rest of the kids at her school have to say about her, all that matters now is her happiness. Sophie has grown from being a judgmental girl, to a thoughtful young woman.

What My Mother Doesn't Know (156-206)

Summary:

Sophie starts to obsess over finding the boy that danced with her at the Halloween Party, that is the only thing that has been on her mind. Since she has no clue who it could have been she starts to believe that maybe he was just a jerk anyway, just to make herself feel better for a while. Zak, Sophie's  best guy friend asks her out and she says yes. In the back of her mind Sophie wishes that she didn't, so a couple days later she tells him that it would be better if they just  were friends. Hanukkah is celebrated in Sophie's family, but  this year it's not the same, it's not celebrated with as much love. Sophie misses being able to celebrate her culture, a sign that she is growing up. This shows that she knows what is important to her, religion. For Christmas Break all of Sophie's friends are going on vacation, but Sophie isn't. She decides to have a vacation of her own, she roams the city of Boston.  As she is exploring the Museum of Fine Arts, Murphy, the biggest nerd at her school, see's her and talks to her. They end up going out to get pizza and they go ice skating afterwards. When Sophie gets home she hopes that Murphy will call her, and when he doesn't she gets worried that he might never call. He calls the next day and they set up another date, one that Sophie looks forward too. During the date everything feels perfectly normal for Sophie and she loves that she can be herself with him, everything just feels right. This shows that Sophie is not childish anymore, and how she does not care about looks anymore, but she cares about personality.  

Quote:

"This door was opening up inside me that had never been opened before, and his soul was walking right in." (Sones 158)

Summary:

This quote shows how deep Sophie felt about her mystery man. Sones uses a personification, describing Sophie's feelings.  Sophie has grown a lot since the beginning of the book because she now looks at people's personalities instead of their looks, usually grown people do this. Her mind is not only thinking about one thing, boys, but instead of her art and her setting around her. She has made an effort to grow up and she has chosen to make Murphy a part of it, unlike before. Since Murphy was a geek at her school she never wanted anything to do with him, fearing her reputation would be ruined. Though now she realizes that it does not matter what people thought of her or Murphy, all that mattered was her happiness.

What My Mother Doesn't Know (103-155)

Summary:
Sophie is feeling like she doesn't belong with Dylan anymore. She looks at him as a child now, not as an adult, and she wants to be able to have a serious relationship. When they break up, Sophie feels bad, but she can do nothing about it, she moved on. Halloween is coming up and Sophie and her friends are going to a Halloween party, Sophie want's to be the center of attention. She goes shopping for a Halloween outfit with her mom and ends up buying a flower pot costume, when she actually wanted to buy a stunning black dress which her mother did not approve. As the Halloween party date arrives, Sophie goes back to the store and buys the black dress that her mother forbid her to buy, and wears it to the party. Sophie dances with a boy in a mask, and she continuously thinks about who it could have been after the party. As Sophie waits for her mother to pick her up, a couple of tenth grade boys laugh at her and when her mom pulls up and sees Sophie in the dress she yells at her and tells her to hurry and get in the car. When they get home they shout and scream at each other, and finally her mom takes the dress and tears it into pieces. They don't talk to one another for days, and once Sophie finally is tired of it, she makes up with her mother.

Quote:
"He'd just look into my eyes and know how it feels to be buried under an avalanche of guilt." (Sones 153)

Summary:
Sones describes Sophie's feelings very accurately, and in this case she uses a hyperbole. Sophie believes that her dream man will just know how she feels, without even asking. This shows that she is still a child at heart, because this is one of the things she wished for. On the other hand, she understands what's right from what's wrong. Sophie slowly realizes that she is not a child anymore and she is going to have to act like a grown-up soon. She slowly stops fighting with her mother and learns that her mother will help her get through everything. Sophie is slowly growing up, mentally and physically.

What My Mother Doesn't Know (52-103)

Summary:

Her boyfriend, Dylan comes over and Sophie enjoys being able to spend time with him. Her mother also doesn't mind Dylan coming over being she trusts Sophie. Sophie believed she was in love with Dylan. When she would watch movies with him, she would watch him, not the movie, and she would embrace his beauty. When Dylan finally leaves and it gets dark Sophie goes up to her bedroom and looks at her ceiling, wondering if Dylan is looking up at his ceiling thinking about her. The next day her best friends, Rachel and Grace come over.  They sit on her bed, laughing and talking, taking turns popping zits on each others backs, and Sophie feels left out, just as a child would. She even wishes she had zits on her back, hoping to fit in. A couple days after, Sophie gets into a childish fight with Dylan because he buzz-cut his hair and she didn't like it, though they make up with a kiss. During class, instead of paying attention Sophie watches Dylan. In Art class the teacher asked the students to draw one another, people were allowed to pick their own partners, Sophie picked Murphy.  When they start to draw one another, Sophie feels a connection when they look at each other, but she doesn't want people to know since Murphy is a looser. Grace falls in love with a new boy named Henry, and she talks about him all the time. When he finally asks her out, she adds on that she talks to him on the phone for hours, this makes Sophie feel uneasy because she has never talked on the phone to Dylan for more than twenty minutes. Sophie goes to the county fair with Dylan but then wishes she went with her friends instead. The things she used to love about Dylan has started to annoy Sophie and she admits that she's dating Dylan for his looks not his personality. When she goes on a double date with with Grace and Henry she feels how she's lost connection with Dylan, like they've grown out of their relationship.

Quote:

"And my heart sank all the way to China." (Sones 80)

Reaction:

The quote above explicitly shows how Sophie felt, the background setting to this quote is when Grace told Rachel and Sophie about how she could talk to her boyfriend, Henry, for hours on the phone. Sophie felt letdown, since the longest she's talked to Dylan on the phone was for twenty minutes. This shows that it was like a competition to Sophie, even though Grace was her friend. Sophie always wanted to fit in no matter what it cost her. This quote is a hyperbole, Sophie didn't actually mean that her heart sank all the way to China, she meant that she felt really bad. It shows how childish Sophie is, how she thought she loved Dylan, even though she really had no idea what love was.  Overall, Sophie was still a child in her mind, she didn't know what she wanted or better yet, what she needed. She just wanted to have more than everyone else, to be on top.

What My Mother Doesn't Know (1-51)

Summary:
Sonya Sones starts off her Bildungsroman story by introducing the reader to the main character, Sophie. She is the type of girl that does not know what she wants in life. For example, Sophie likes many boys at once and does not know how to commit to one relationship. Her two best friends, Rachel and Grace are very supportive of her, and in return Sophie tells them everything that occurs between her multiple relationships. Sophie likes Zak, Danny and Dylan, and because she is only in eighth grade she does not realize that boys are not her only intention. Though, the only reason why Sophie wants attention is because she is the only child in her family. Her parents frequently fight, her father drives off with his car, and her mother cries. This occurs almost everyday and Sophie can do nothing to help,  this makes her feel helpless. Sophie is the type of girl that is starstruck by every boy she meets, not knowing how to make up her mind, just like a child. When a child needs to make a decision they do not know which to pick, thus making them just want both of the things that they asked for. Sophie is also very worried about her appearance, she feels like giggly blond girls have an advantage, they get more attention. Sophie has brown hair and eyes, she is also very tall. Overall, Sophie is just a girl that does not know exactly what she wants just yet.

Quote:
"We didn't know that we'd just become best friends. But we had." (Sones 12)

Reaction:
The quote that I picked is perfectly showing how Sophie is just a child. Children don't pick best friends, it just occurs, usually naturally, just as what happened with Sophie, Grace and Rachel. In my opinion, Sophie seems to be totally dependent on her friends for everything, especially support, and as young children we aren't independent. People become independent as they grow older and mature. Sophie has not matured yet and this quote displays this though. To continue, Sophie does not seem to know what she gets herself into, she does not think things through, which gets her into trouble. She also does not understand why her parents fight and why they want to divorce. As the story will continue Sophie will soon realize why people do the things they do and why certain people care and others don't, she'll grow to learn what she wants and what she actually needs.

Loose Girl (169-210)

Summary:

Kerrys  mother gets married to a man named Donald. Soon enough Kerry leaves Tucson to go to Portland to be with Zachary. She breaks up with Leif because she finds out he's been sleeping with another girl, as has Kerry with Zachary.  Kerry meets a new friend, Terri, who is twelve years older and has wisdom to share with her. Kerry ends up going to the University of Oregon where she has a free tuition and a teaching fellowship. But she starts to feel very desperate again and she takes anyone who is willing to take her. This ends up causing pregnancy scares for Kerry because she was late on her monthly cycle. Kerry finds a new therapist that's like Nora - motherlike.  Toby becomes Kerrys new boyfriends for a couple of months though they break up when they get in a fight in  Toby's car, he hits her and she finally leaves him. She goes back to Tucson to meet Leif again and learns that her sister, Tyler is leaving Gill because he wastes too much money. Kerry's life begins to get complicated so she decides to spend her free time with her friends. This helps her finally be free from the need to have attention from boys. Kerry meets a man named Michael, he is unlike the rest, he actually loves her, her asks her to marry him and she accepts. Everything else just falls in place for Kerry because she finally got what she wanted - to be loved.

Quote:

"On these days, I don't want a boy. Being alone feels more honest." (Cohen 203)

 

Reaction:

Kerry Cohen ends the story very well, and this quote was a part that build up to the finale. It shows that Kerry finally moved on and stopped sleeping around with men. She learned from all the experiences and saw that she was not gaining anything from sleeping with these men, they didn't love her. She learned that being independent and on her own benefited her more than being in a relationship because she would always ask for more than was possible from her parter. I think that overall this book was very unique and Cohen's writing was different, she wrote the truth about her life, no matter how bad it was. 

Loose Girl (127-168)

Summary:
As winter arrives, Kerry goes home. She meets a boy named Eli and she actually started to feel loved. As her relationship progressed with Eli, Kerry realized why she did certain things, such as why she took drugs. She took drugs to pull herself together instead of loosing up, which is what what most people use drugs for. She gets  sick of her desperation and emptiness, sick of herself. Since Eli lives in the countryside Kerry becomes attached to it, where she can be free, where she can be herself. Once Kerry feels like she's loosing connection with Eli she starts to see a therapist named Deirde who's in her mid- 20's. After a while Kerry and Eli break up and this makes Kerry feel like she hasn't grown or learned anything from past experiences at all.  In order for Kerry to forget about Eli she starts sleeping with men, as a result Kerry gets  HPV and is told by her doctor that she can't sleep with anyone until she gets better. As the school year progresses Kerry becomes more intrigued by writing so she works on writing a short story. In her senior year, Kerry finds out that  Tyler is getting married. This confuses Kerry because when Tyler was younger she was against getting married. Tyler marries a man named  Gill. Soon after her Dad and Nora are splitting up.  Kerry moves to Tucson with her boyfriend Leif. She works in a University Bookstore in Tucson.

Quote:
"Without a man loving me, I feel like I don't exist." (Cohen 155)

Reaction:
As the Kerrys story is coming to an end, we learn that she's still desperate for men. She still seeks attention from men because she thinks that without a mans attention she wouldn't be loved. This simile shows exactly what Cohen wanted to express, her feeling of being no one. Throughout the text Cohen describes how desperate she was and how needy she continued to be. In order for those feelings to leave she wanted attention. This sentence wraps up the whole entire book because it explains how she felt before. Though in the end she realizes that she does not need men to make her like she she's important - like she's someone.

Loose Girl (85-126)

Summary:
As the summer approaches Kerry's dad rents a house on Fire Island off of Long Island. Nora, her fathers girlfriend has become like a second mother to Kerry. She talks to Nora about everything. Kerry hasn't spoken to her real mother for over a month, and she likes it that way. Though she doesn't like the guilt she feels. Soon enough, Kerry starts liking a boy named Justin in order to forget about her break-up with Keath. Justin has blue eyes, sun-kissed blond hair, and sand colored skin. But as usual, Kerry pushes for more than Justin wanted and he breaks up with her. Once school starts she doesn't tell anyone what happened all summer. She learns to keep everything away from her school life, especially her sexual life. A lot of girls were known as sluts at her school, and she didn't want to be another name on the list. Tyler hardly comes home, she only visits her mother, this makes Kerry feel all alone, like Tyler doesn't care about her anymore. Her mind changes when Tyler proves her wrong. Kerry gets very sick, vomiting all night and Tyler finds her next to the toilet the next morning. Tyler takes her to the hospital insuring her that everything will be alright. After this occurs, Kerry is thankful for Tyler. As Kerry is in 12th grade, she applies for five colleges and she takes an elective called Minority Literature, she starts to like to read and write. She makes it inter Clark University in Massachusetts. In the summer, she moves in an apartment with Jennifer B. and Jennifer C.. Ongoing parties occur in the apartment and Kerry continues to do drugs and sleep with the random boys.

Quote:
"Heath hangs over me like a winter coat, and I am eager to shake it off." (Cohen 87)

Reaction:
Kerry Cohen continues with her very descriptive writing. This quote describes how she felt about her break up in a beautiful way. She thinks of her old relationship as winter and since it's summer Kerry wants to start over. She wants to forget about Heath and move on, and she is eager to move on just like most people are eager to move on from winter to summer. As a whole, Cohen's writing is expressed in many descriptive ways, such as similies, metaphors, and personification. This quote is not only an example of a similie, but it is also an example of what Kerry is like. She is a girl that cannot hold a relationship for too long because she always wants too much from a boy. She also always wants to be with them causing a tension of untrust to occur. All in all, Kerry Cohen tries to describe as much events as possible in order for the reader to feel like they are a part of Kerry's life.

Loose Girl (43-85)

Summary:
The setting starts off at Kerry's father house, when her father tries to give her advice. He tells her not to screw up the chances she has with her new boyfriend, Paul. As usual, Kerry storms out of the room and goes into her bedroom, cutting the rest of the world off. Paul is a wrestler and he invited Kerry to come to one of his matches, Kerrys dad drives her to the location of the match, Tylers school. Paul goes to the same school as Kerrys sister, Tyler. After the match, Paul and Kerry make plans to hang out and when they do hang out Kerry ends up upsetting Paul with her demanding remarks and he breaks up with her. Though, this is not the end of Kerrys problems, Tyler became depressed. Since their mother was not around, Tyler had no one to talk to, or to let her emotions out, so she didn't. Kerrys mother called every Sunday, Tyler was always happy and anxious to pick up the phone and speak to her mother, but Kerry avoided talking on the phone at all times. Kerry felt closer to her father than her mother because her dad let her do anything she wanted, without the restrictions that her mom would make. To add onto Kerrys large list of problems, Kerry hated her body, she thought she was fat and constantly wished she could cut off the meat on her thighs. Soon Kerrys friend, Amy got a car and this allowed them to be free. They went to clubs all night and did not return home untill four in the morning. Kerry liked going to clubs to pick up boys, unlike Amy who wanted strong relationships, not just hook-ups. This disagreement lead Kerry to believe that Amy was not someone that she wanted to be associated with, so their friendship ended. Instead, Kerry becomes friends with the popular girls. More family problems occur and Tyler fights with Kerry about picking a side, moms or dads, this fight changes Kerrys whole attitude. She becomes rebellious, taking drugs more frequently, and partying all night. On a Sunday, her mother calls and Kerry talks to her. Her mother told her trhat she was aware of her behavior and warned her about the negative outcomes, and as usual, Kerry ignores her mothers advice.

Quote:

"I spent half my life lying about who I am and what I want. I don't even know who I am most of the time." (Cohen 80)

Reaction:

Kerry writes about her life in detail. She explains every little part of what occured in her life, and how she gave into everything. The quote I picked showed exactly how she felt, she did not know who she was. Her identity was a mystery to her because she only cared about what other people thought about her. In life, many people do not know who they are until a certain age, but Kerry doesn't seem to learn as the years go by. She lied about herself because she wanted to fit in, she wanted boys to like her. Though, she realizes that no good was coming from being so reliant on people who did not care about her at all. I believe that everyone has an urge of fitting in in society but Kerry takes it to a whole other level. She uses her body to get boys to like her, and she see's that it might do more damage then might help her.

Loose Girl (1-42)

Summary:

Loose Girl by Kerry Cohen is set in New York where Kerry lives with an older sister named Tyler and her mother. Kerry's parents are divorced and after the divorce Kerry's mother was devastated, all she did was cry and she left a despairing atmosphere in the house. Because of her mom's depression Tyler learned to help her mother, she constantly tried to make her feel better by saying everything was going to be OK. This caused her mother and sister have a very tight bond with one another, one that Kerry did not have with anyone. This left Kerry feeling alone and unloved. As an eleven year old girl that went to a private school, all Kerry wanted was attention, any type of attention, as long as someone was there to make it seem like she was worth something. In order to gain attention Kerry started to go out with her friends late at night to meet up at boys houses, but Kerry had to lie to her mother in order for her to be able to go out. She would tell her mother that she was spending the day at her friends house, though she wasn't. After her mother got over her depression she decides she wants to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor, Kerry and Tyler move in with their dad and their mom goes off to school.  Everything goes downhill from there, Kerry becomes a wild girl drinking and smoking, wearing pounds of make-up, trying to stand out, trying to be noticed by boys. She went to parties all night and does things she's not proud of, and her father has finally had enough. He transfered her into another private school hoping she'll change, but she doesn't, she goes out until three in the morning, drinks, smokes, gives herself up to boys in order to feel loved. That's all she really wanted, to be loved somehow.

Quote:

"The excitement of the city enters my bones like drugs from a syringe." 

(Kerry 36)

Reaction:

Cohen has a very descriptive way of writing. Every page is filled with similes and metaphors, personifications and descriptions. She adds details to everything, which helps clear up what she is trying to get through to the reader. The quote I choose is a strong representation of the author's style because it shows how Kerry loved being in the city because it gave her a chance to stand out of the crowd, but also how she related her love for the city to drugs, which she ends up using. Cohen is able to compare two very different things and compare it to her life and lifestyle.  I like fact that Cohen was very truthful in her writing by saying that she knew what she was doing was wrong but at the time, to her it was worth it.