Praise for Kerry Cohen
Girl Trouble
A clear and concise survey of one woman’s journey through a life’s worth of difficult and sometimes devastating female friendships. Cohen bravely details how one’s family of origin impacts on our later relationships, and accurately demonstrates how we must first sort ourselves out before we can establish healthy bonds with others.
BLAKE NELSON, author of The City Wants You Alone
This book is so goddamn good, you’ll plotz.
LIDIA YUKNAVITCH, author of The Chronology of Water
Kerry Cohen traces a delicate thread that runs thorough so many women’s lives…. Cohen’s concise portraits bring to life all those girls we knew—and loved madly and hated, and envied and feared—carrying the reader from the years when girlhood itself felt as tender and raw as a bruise, through the emotional minefield of friendships in early womanhood, to the later laughter and ease that we finally are able to share with our female friends. A small treasure.
MARYA HORNBACHER, author of Madness: A Bipolar Life
I was mesmerized by Girl Trouble. Kerry Cohen writes about friendship and longing with such searching intensity, I simply could not put the book down until I’d read it all. Girl Trouble is raw, real, and revelatory.
CHERYL STRAYED, author of Wild
Loose Girl
Cohen’s brutal honesty about her relentless request for companionship is refreshingly relatable.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
Cohen recounts her harrowing litany of hookups through clear, poignant, spare-no-details prose.
MARIE CLAIRE
Sensual yet sophisticated … explores why people yearn to be loved.
SELF
A quick and riveting read.… Thanks Kerry Cohen, for being real.
PLAYGIRL
A fascinating cautionary tale … Loose Girl will make you contemplate your own relationships.
ZINK
Her candor may help under-21 readers steer clear of the whole mess, while those who survived similar ordeals will appreciate her tale of survival.
BOOKLIST
An illuminating memoir of her misspent younger years when a desperate search for love led to a series of promiscuous sexual relationships with men.
THE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Compelling.… Cohen is a fine writer. She is introspective, and there’s a wry humor that penetrates Loose Girl.
THE OREGONIAN
Cohen’s training as a psychotherapist is clearly evident. She reveals an impressive analytic prowess as she exposes the damaging self-effacement that underlies the seeming assertion involved in attracting men to her and then driving them away.… An important look at the dynamics of female sexual power and promiscuity in general.
KIRKUS REVIEWS
Cohen’s memoir is a deeply poignant, desperately sad account … commendably honest and frequently excruciating to read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Seeing Ezra
Oregon Book Award Finalist for Creative Nonfiction
Seeing Ezra is the story of motherhood beyond all reserves. Bravo to Cohen for giving us such a deep, rich tale of motherhood.
VICKI FORMAN, author of This Lovely Life
This is a book to think with, a brave meditation on love and acceptance. Not just for mothers – this is a beautiful story about being human.
ARIEL GORE, author of Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness
Seeing Ezra is an important book.
JENNIFER LAUCK, author of Blackbird
I am not a mother and have never raised a special-needs child, yet Cohen’s frank memoir kept me riveted.
BRENDA MILLER, author of Blessing of the Animals
Ultimately, Seeing Ezra is a love story and a portrait of Ezra as Ezra, with all the simplicity and complexity that entails. It is a story skillfully told by a mother who understands her son for who he is and for what he brings to the world on his own terms.
ROBERT RUMMEL-HUDSON, author of Schuyler’s Monster: A Father’s Journey with His Wordless Daughter
Dirty Little Secrets: Breaking the Silence on Teenage Girls and Promiscuity
Ms. Cohen’s Dirty Little Secrets is a perfect catalyst for mother/daughter discussions. It is a safe place to start a scary talk … awake-up call.… Settle in, relax, and embrace its shocking content.
THE NEW YORK JOURNAL OF BOOKS
Very few people can write about teen girls’ sexual promiscuity with the candor, empathy, and intelligence Kerry Cohen does.
ROSALIND WISEMAN, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes
As compassionate as it is enlightening, Kerry Cohen’s Dirty Little Secrets argues for female safety and desire, and provides a road map for authentically healthy, vital sexuality.
JENNIFER BAUMGARDNER, author of Look Both Ways
The Truth of Memoir: How to Write About Yourself and Others with Honesty, Emotion, and Integrity
This book bravely enters the sometimes dark and tangled world of memoir writing–and finds light and clarity on the other side.
SUE WILLIAM SILVERMAN, author of Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir
Kerry Cohen’s The Truth of Memoir is a smart, soulful, psychologically astute guide to first-person writing.
SUSAN SHAPIRO, author of Only As Good as Your Word
Easy
The writing is realistic, insightful, and nonjudgmental.
LIBRARY JOURNAL
It’s Not You It’s Me
Despite offering moments of levity, Cohen gives plenty of weight and attention to Zoe’s darker feelings–her broad spectrum of emotions and gradual recovery ring true.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Girls will relate to the teen’s heartbreak and healing.
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL
Copyright © 2016 Kerry Cohen
Illustrations © 2016 Tyler Cohen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage-and-retrieval systems, without prior permission in writing from the Publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cohen, Kerry, author. Girl trouble: an illustrated memoir/Kerry Cohen; illustrated by Tyler Cohen.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-9970-6834-4 (eBook)
1. Girls – Psychology. 2. Women – Psychology. 3. Interpersonal relations – Psychological aspects. 4. Man-woman relationships – Psychological aspects. I. Title.
HQ777.C596 2016 155.43/3–DC23 2016020819
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts
2201