When 21-year-old Ellie Kolstakis catches sight of her profile on a doctor's computer, she is mortified to see the word "virgin" glowing on the screen. The truth is that she's not a virgin by choice--in fact, she'd love to "swipe her V-card"--it just hasn't happened yet, and she isn't sure why. Virgin, journalist Radhika Sanghani's debut novel, is the story of one woman's bumbling, hilarious, heartwarming attempt to cross the threshold of physical intimacy to the mysterious other side.
Despite its premise, Virgin is about much more than sex. It is through Ellie's sexual exploration that Sanghani invites readers to consider broader questions about identity, self-awareness and the power of socially constructed expectation. During one of many impassioned discussions among Ellie's friends, one girl remarks, "Walt Disney has made an entire generation of independent women turn to jelly the second they meet a decent guy because they pray to God he is going to be their Aladdin. And he never is, because no men are going to live up to their cartoon representations."
Eventually, Ellie and her (proudly promiscuous) friend Emma take the conversation online, creating a blog to discuss their sex lives in hopes of informing other women. It is this sense of "we're-in-it-together" friendliness that makes her such an endearing heroine. And in many ways, her blog echoes Virgin itself, which, much like Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues, is sure to provide frank truths and lighthearted condolences to anyone who has ever felt alone in the pursuit of sexual normality. --Annie Atherton