The Only Girl in the Car

by K Dobie (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $3.22

  Cheesecake, jailbait, sex kitten - the very words seemed to open doors to a powerful, sexy new self. But from the moment she decides to lose her virginity and reels in her prey, a full-grown man , 14-year-old Kathy is headed for trouble. One cold, raw March night some months later, in a car with four boys she thought were friends, she finds it. This is her story, told with frightening detachment, honesty and lack of self-pity. Full of raw emotion, humour, horror, it simply tells it how it was - as the eldest of six children in a liberal enough close-knit Catholic family, with rebellious brothers, a young exhausted mother, and a glamorous father whom she idolised. In the spring of her 14th year suddenly the earth blossomed with men and boys - they were everywhere and a halter top went straight to the point; it started its own conversations. Wearing one was as good as having a personality. But girls who breaks rules in small towns like the one she lived in are expected to pay a high price for their transgressions - and she did. That fateful year culminated in a gang rape. How she stepped out of that car, forever altered, to be sure, but not forever damaged, how she learned to fight back, even to wear her stigma with a perverse pride, is the other part of the story she tells. Always aware that her ambitions were bigger and more complicated than those of the suburbs where she grew up, Kathy was determined to come through, and the reader, drawn deep into her story, has a stake in the outcome.

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $4.20

  From the moment fourteen-year-old Kathy decides to lose her virginity and reels in her prey, she is headed for trouble. One cold, raw March night, parked in a car on the outskirts of town with four boys she thought were her friends, she finds it. This is the story of a young girl - the oldest daughter in a Catholic family of six children - struggling to find her proper place in the world. Suddenly as 'the earth blossomed with men and boys', Kathy grasped her path towards power and freedom. But girls who break rules in small towns like hers are expected to pay a high price for their transgressions. In this disturbing and powerful memoir Kathy reveals how she stepped out of that car forever altered and how she learned to fight back after being labelled as a slut and ostracised in her own neighbourhood. Always aware that her ambitions were bigger and more complicated than the suburbs she grew up in, Kathy was determined to come through and to transform her fate.

• New

  Paperback
  2004

  $10.99

  From the moment fourteen-year-old Kathy decides to lose her virginity and reels in her prey, she is headed for trouble. One cold, raw March night, parked in a car on the outskirts of town with four boys she thought were her friends, she finds it. This is the story of a young girl - the oldest daughter in a Catholic family of six children - struggling to find her proper place in the world. Suddenly as 'the earth blossomed with men and boys', Kathy grasped her path towards power and freedom. But girls who break rules in small towns like hers are expected to pay a high price for their transgressions. In this disturbing and powerful memoir Kathy reveals how she stepped out of that car forever altered and how she learned to fight back after being labelled as a slut and ostracised in her own neighbourhood. Always aware that her ambitions were bigger and more complicated than the suburbs she grew up in, Kathy was determined to come through and to transform her fate.