Book review: Candy Girl

Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper by Diablo Cody

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews.

Candy Girl is the story of a young writer who dared to bare it all as a stripper. At the age of twenty-four, Diablo Cody decided there had to be more to life than typing copy at an ad agency. She soon managed to find inspiration from a most unlikely source— amateur night at the seedy Skyway Lounge. While she doesn’t take home the prize that night, Diablo discovers to her surprise the act of stripping is an absolute thrill. This is Diablo’s captivating fish-out-of-water story of her yearlong walk on the wild side, from quiet gentlemen’s clubs to multilevel sex palaces and glassed-in peep shows. In witty prose she gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at this industry through a writer’s keen eye, chronicling her descent into the skin trade and the effect it had on her self-image and her relationship with her now husband.

Candy Girl is not for the faint of heart. Or the shy or squeamish.

I don't remember where I heard of this book, but it has been on my list for a very long time. Diablo Cody wrote the screenplay for Juno, so I expected it to be funny, and having never stripped, I knew it would be unlike anything I've experienced.

The story in Candy Girl is interesting -- Diablo really didn't seem like someone who'd end up as a stripper. All of it is new to her and that makes her really relatable, despite the job she has taken on. 

But it's also graphic. Really graphic. Bodily fluids and weirdos and stuff. So you want to be prepared for that if you read it.

I didn't hate this book, and I didn't love it, but it was interesting and intriguing, so I figured I'd let you know it existed! :)

Have any of you read Candy Girl? What did you think?

Book review: Blood Red Road

Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews.

Saba lives in Silverlake, a wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms where her family scavenge from landfills left by the long-gone Wrecker civilization. After four cloaked horsemen kidnap her beloved twin brother Lugh, she teams up with daredevil Jack and the Free Hawks, a girl gang of Revolutionaries.

Saba learns that she is a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Saba and her new friends stage a showdown that change the course of her civilization.

I loved this book.

Blood Red Road is in the future -- a future in which no society seems to exist, really. Saba, her twin Lugh and their little sister Emmy grow up in isolation, knowing only each other, their father, and neighbors that stop by from time to time. Saba and Lugh are 18 years old and have never been more than a day's walk away from home.

That all changes when Lugh is kidnapped by men who have come, just for him. And Saba takes off after him.

I've read a lot of dystopian/futuristic books, and this one ranks high among them. Young did an amazing job world-building -- making us believe the world that she's created, that Saba has to navigate. It all seems real.

The characters are also wonderful. Saba is stubborn and funny and hard to understand sometimes. That's a pretty good description for Jack and Emmy too, come to think of it. But add "charming" to Jack's list and "feisty" and "determined" to Emmy's.

In Blood Red Road, you believe in the characters. You get attached to them and root for them and you can't stop reading until you know how it all ends.

Loved it.

Have any of you read Blood Red Road? I highly recommend it. 

P.S. The audio version was also quite exceptionally read -- a great one if you've been wanting to try audio!