Customer Reviews

Loose Change: Three Women of the Sixties

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Sara Davidson's "Loose Change" is a brilliantly-written account of the Sixties as experienced by three young women coming of age. I bought this book when it first came out in 1977 and loved it. Recently, I came across "Loose Change" in a used book store and just couldn't put it down.
The Sixties were a time of great social upheaval, and I remember many of the major events. I went though college in the late 60s and early 70s. Even though my background is somewhat different -- Blue collar, conservative, Catholic, male, short-haired, Pittsburgh, and definitely never inhaled -- it was interesting to see the female, radical point of view. Like many others in that period, Sara, Susie, and Tasha search for life's meaning in a turbulent time in which the old values they grew up with have withered away.
You are there in the historical events and movements of that period -- the Antiwar movement, major student protests at Berkeley and Columbia, the bloodbath at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention, the music of Woodstock, rural communes, free sex, and the terror of the Altamont Concert.
This book seems to get better over time because there is a greater contrast between today's world and the 1960s. The Antiwar, Womens' Liberation, and Civil Rights Movements changed the country and the world for the better, and drugs have changed things for the worst. And the sexual revolution.... well, you be the judge.
I like Ms. Davidson's rich writing style, as she places the reader right there, feeling and experiencing life with Sara, Susie, and Tasha, "warts and all." She's gutsy enough to talk about sexuality, a formerly taboo subject. Sara, Susie, and Tasha follow their sexual drives and suffer many bad love affairs, for which both the men and women share the blame.
I've also enjoyed a few of Sara Davidson's other articles and her biography of Rock Hudson. "Loose Change" is now historical, and it's so alive you can hear the music and the protest marches. This book is definitely worth five stars and I would recommend it to almost everyone, even my own daughter.

I loved this book! I've been dying to read this book ever since I read Larry Colton's "Goat Brothers" in 1994 and I was so happy when I found it on Amazon in 1997! As a recent grad from Cal (where I was also in a sorority), I definitely related to some of these women's college experiences, such as the strong friendships formed with some of my sorority sisters, and a few of the Cal traditions described in the book. Sara Davidson's descriptions of the lives she chronicled in the story were articulate and straightforward-it was one of those books where I could not put down until I was finished with it. The different paths the women took after college were bittersweet and at times heart-wrenching. I definitely recommend to anyone with an interest in women's experiences during the '60s.

I saw the miniseries on TV in 1978 in a college dorm with my girlfriends. It so inspired us, that as we tearfully said our good-byes at graduation, "Loose Change" became our anthem to describe what we expected as our futures unfolded. In 1999, I saw an article about Sara Davidson in People magazine, and I remembered how much the story had meant to me twenty years before--so it was time to get the book. The book jogged memories of the issues and choices I faced in the '70s, and also reminded me how much those '60s trailblazers did for their younger boomer-counterparts. I think it's time for the author to do a follow-up on these women today. In the meantime, I'm sending this book to my old college girlfriends.

It takes a lot to make a book excellent where all elements are concerned, but Sara Davidson has managed to accomplish that with Loose Change. The characters are very vivid, and easy to picture. What really made me enjoy this was that it was based on the actual lives of the three main characters. I thought that the sixties was covered here in great detail, with images that seemed to jump out at the reader from the pages. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and would love to read others that were similar to it. Highly reccommended!

When I first read this book some 10 years ago, I quickly identified with the characters, even though I am Jewish girl from NYC. Ten years later, I often think about the characters and wonder how they turned out. I ffound the book to be true to "us" and how "we" really felt as we went through the 60's, Vietnam, drugs and free love. You had to be there. The author captures the moment. Why not write a follow up to Loose Change? You could call it Dollar Bills.

My mother, a Cal student some years before the trio of protagonists presented in Davidson's book, brought this book home when I was twelve and hungry for coming-of-age stories about women. As a young reader, I slotted the four (a fourth is constant but not as fully reported) women thus: Tasha, the sad pretty art one; Sara, the awkward charger; Susie, the deep political one; and Candy, the grounded earth mother. I read and reread their adventures through my adolescence, changing favorites every time.

The book didn't give me a map - despite my mother's (aborted) education, I didn't belong to a generation or class that could bop off to Europe, take books of Wallace Stevens everywhere, or even go to college, let alone consider joining the Peace Corps or sitting-in as a political effort - but it illustrated several ways of growing to female adulthood. Davidson's emphases on sex and work, as well as the very different ways in which the women engaged with politics and culture, were instructive and completely engaging

As I reread my mother's old hardbound copy - the spine broke years ago - I can see several jarring instances that I didn't recognize as a kid, when printed stories meant truth on paper. The author's proto-new-age obsession toward the end particularly grates, as does one woman's history of virginal conception. Davidson was a reporter and this isn't reportage, tho I'm not sure it was meant to be.

For YA readers now, this memoir is hugely valuable as a historical depiction of the era, particularly of the unapologetic sexism of the sixties. Stories of this kind are too rare.

Greetings~ I first learned of this book from my mom and sister. I have read it twice now and plan to add it to my annual reading book collection. After moving to the San Francisco I found this book to be a vital piece of history of the Sixties. I highly recommend this book to everyone and anyone--- if you were in your twenties in the Sixties, if you were a young child, if you weren't even born yet, and if you are a woman or a man. It resonated with me personally as I am in my late twenties. I have bought this book for friends and family who were in their twenties in the Sixties. Enjoi and although you will be taking a step back in time this book will leave you thinking in the present. Be here now~ Blessings!

This was really thought provoking and brought back many memories. That era is gone forever but we will always have our memories!
If you read this book you will have to read "Leap" also.

As a Berkeley student in the 60's, this book is still the best when it comes to capturing the spirit of the place and the time. I wish Davidson would write more about this unique period in American history.

I read this book while a high school freshman 20 years ago. I have wanted to reread it for years but lost my only copy long ago and have not been able to locate another since. This book was memorable and inspiring, shedding light on how one would write about a period of one's own life in an energetic, intriguing way. I wish only for an update as to what became of the three heroines in the 1990's.