The Only Girl in the Car: A Memoir (ISBN 0701166649)

Manages to make bad girls boring:
I could not make it past page 50. The part I did read was Dobie telling childhood tales of neglect and being misunderstood, ostensibly to explain what happened later in her life. This should have been more exciting than it ended up being. The main problem I had was that the narrative just wasn't compelling. At no point in this book did I care about what happened next. Perhaps Dobie was pulling her punches and keeping things clean for the youth. Young girls thinking of becoming the neighborhood bicycle could benefit from this memoir, but in my experience, those girls don't usually read. So, the book is a waste on all fronts. Avoid this one.

Too Shallow:
My daughter read this and found it wonderful, so I gave it a shot. It's a short book, one you can finish in 3-4 hours. That, I feel, represents part of the problem. This book lacks depth. The periods of her life are isolated from each other and she fails to make the connections between her family life, her wantoness, the group sex, and her afterlife. I'm not sure Dobie understnad the impact of her choosing to engage in sex with those boys in the care had on her adult life. Instead, the ending leaves one with a voyeuristic hangover similiar to watching The Jerry Springer Show.

The Only Girl in the Car:
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and have recommended it to friends who have teenage daughters. In the future I will let my daughter read it. Although it does have a lot of sexual content it is a very honest account of a young girl growing up. Definately would recommend to teens and mothers of teens as well.

Not that great:
I just finished this book today. I am typically a fast reader, but not in this instance. It did not hold my attention enough to where I wanted to sit for periods of time to read it. The beginning of the book, really talked about nothing. The part having to do w/ the title was interesting, but after the act, it went back to being a bore. I do not recommend this book to anyone. It should read quickly for being so short- instead it drags.

Didn't relate to me, I felt nothing:
First of all, I'd like to say what the author went through was a terrible experience. The way she wrote was beautiful..the words are beautifully descriptive. She manages to bring her surroundings, the people, and the things alive with her wonderfully deep and thought provoking words. However, I didnt' relate to this nor did I feel much about this. I was left a little confused and even a little angry. It describes her childhood and how she always liked attention. I felt that it never really explained why she needed to sleep with so many men or why she gave herself so freely. Her parents seemed loving and kind and caring. Somehow I think she said she wanted mens attention bc she never got her mothers or something along those lines, which still made no sense to me. She had 5 other brothers and sisters and they didn't really act this way. I felt like after the incident happened, she didn't really care so much about the fact that she got raped (even though she said Okay, she really didn't want to) or the fact that her body was misused and abused by several men. It felt like all she cared about was the people who called her names and harrassed her or something, and all she wanted back was Jimmy's attention. It seemed like it never quite sunk in what exactly happened to her and she never really showed any remorse or anger or any other emotion towards her attackers. Also, from when she was barely 13 men seemed to be attracted to her like an ant to candy...without her ever really doing anything. This felt kind of unbelievable to me that so many grown men would risk everything and stop a 13-14 yr old on the street and want to sleep with her..and she'd let him. Maybe the place she lived in was perv city? I can see this happening once or something but it seemed like whenever she'd go out truckers and grown men would just follow her and stalk her wanting to sleep with her. I was left feeling empty and even angry bc she gave herself so freely w/o thinking of consequences. I applaud the author for having the courage to write this and the way it is written is beautiful.