Kayla is a little of each of us. She is the Everygirl, who eventually morphs into the Everywoman. In CONSTELLATION OF BOYS by Kerry Cohen, Kayla Gray connects the boys of her life from age eight onward. Her brother's friend, the boy at the gas station, her missing-in-action father, the boy at the summer beach house, boys from the mall, boys from school, boys from the skate park, older boys who were friends of her brother, men her mother has relationships with. The boys were fleeting moments in her life, much like the passing of a lone shooting star, once they passed over her, were never to be heard from again. The connections she craved from boys, most notably mirrors her mother’s own relationships with men, eventually becomes her unraveling.
Told in short vignettes about each boy’s effect on her life, however minor or major, CONSTELLATION OF BOYS is simply a glimpse into a young girl’s mind specifically as it relates to boys. How boys are all-consuming, how boys have an ability to be confident about their place in the world from a young age and how girls have to forge out their own place while withstanding the emotional rollercoaster highs and lows of want and desire. How boys have it so easy, they “owned the world” and how girls subject themselves to boys’ whims in the most intense ways just to grasp at the possibility of connection. How boys become a drug. The underlying parallel between boys as heavenly bodies. The euphoria attached to be wanted can be addicting. Thus, how easily we all become loose girls.
A great, quick read for adults and teens alike. Kerry Cohen has definitely done it again with being able to speak for all of the loose girls of the world.
