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| Secret Diary of a Call Girl | 
 enlarge | List Price: $13.99
Buy New: $7.04
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 6 reviews)
Sales Rank: 26143
Category: Book
Authors: Belle De Jour, Anonymous
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Studio: Grand Central Publishing
Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing
Label: Grand Central Publishing
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 044654082X
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.74092
EAN: 9780446540827
ASIN: 044654082X
Publication Date: June 18, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
This internationally celebrated memoir is now a new Showtime original series.
Belle couldn't find a job after University. Her impressive degree was not paying her rent or buying her food. But after a fantastic threesome with a very rich couple who gave her a ton of money, Belle realized that she could earn more than anyone she knew--by becoming a call girl. The rest is history. Belle became a 20-something London working girl--and had the audacity to write about it--anonymously. The shockingly candid and explicit diary she put on the Internet became a London sensation. She shares her entire journey inside the world of high-priced escorts, including fascinating and explicit insights about her job and her clients, her various boyfriends, and a taboo lifestyle that has to be read to be believed. The witty observations, shocking revelations, and hilarious scenarios deliver like the very best fiction and make for a titillating reading experience unlike any other.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Enlightening and Unique September 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
First off, I'd like to offset other reviewers' claims that this book misleadingly refers to prostitution as a safe and thrilling lifestyle. I think its important to say that this is a unique portrayal of ONE woman's life in sex work. She very clearly states that there are many levels of sex work and the vast majority are not safe, enjoyable, or beneficial in anyway. She obviously enjoys much of her work and simply because her experience does not fit the mold, does not mean she should be silenced.
Secondly, there are sex scenes in the book and they are to some degree explicit. Is this too much? Well considering the nature of the book, I think not. Considering the importance of the job to the book, so much so that it is in the very title and also the importance of her pseudonym, I think its quite understandable that sex should be a key element in the book. Isn't that part of the experience we are so intrigued by when it comes to this particular author?
Also, as one reviewer mentioned the previous relationship and friend-circle is not full of an extraordinary amount of depth. What we need to remember is that this is adapted from the author's blog. For some bloggers, myself included, other people's lives are their own to tell. We just tell what relates to us. I felt that Belle's interaction with her friends and ex-lovers were covered meaningfully and naturally.
This is a diary and by definition it's not the type of writing that will be layered with back story or references. Although meant to be read in the fashion that most blogs are nowadays, it is written with immediacy and often with the intent to be brief. Perhaps some years down the line the author will be interested in adapting it as an autobiography and then she'll decide to add relevant information, a new perspective now that she is removed from it by time, etc., but the very title acknowledges what the book is: a diary.
When it comes to getting what you paid for and what was advertised, you get it in this book.
Beyond that, my own observation is that the author is intelligent, witty, and has a unique and sometimes detached view of sex which is enlightening thing to see in a female writer.
I enjoyed the book. It's not a literary masterpiece, but it is much better than a good amount of popular new fiction.
 Secret Diary of a Call Girl August 9, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is soooooo stupid! I don't believe it was even written by a woman. There are phrases and words a woman just wouldn't not use! DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY :(
 Save your money, just read the blog... July 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
After having read Belle de Jour's blog, I was hoping that the book would primarily be new material. Unfortunately, the bulk of it was pulled directly from the blog with only a few new entries interspersed. Yes, the alphabet piece at the beginning of each chapter was new, but I'm not quite sure that it made the purchase worth it.
Now I'm wondering if the second book will be more of the same.
I wanted to like this book.... July 20, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I really wanted to like this book, but I just didn't. Like a reviewer befor me said, some areas just lacked the details needed to make them interesting. I found myself wanting to skip over entries because I was becoming bored with the same basic descriptions of her past boyfriends and such. Overall i'm sure the book could have been worse but it still wasnt as good as I had hoped.
 Do judge a book by its cover... July 19, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This was the second memoir of prostitution that I have read (the first being The Scorpion's Sweet Venom), and so far, here is what I've learned:
- The sex scenes will as a rule be explicitly detailed and told with implausible detachment.
- Prostitution will be conveyed as a chic and not an altogether unpleasant profession.
- Flashbacks will abound in pitiful attempts at characterization and a more literary angle.
Belle de Jour was no exception to these rules, but it was a fun if not compelling read. I really enjoyed the author's witty style, even if reading about her friends was utterly boring. By the end of the book, every man in the author's life seemed to merge into one tall-ridiculously-attractive fellow with a proclivity for rough sex and moping over ex-girlfriends.
All in all, I would like to see the genre of prostitution memoirs take a more realistic/gritty turn. But then I have to really ask myself, do I really want to read the tell-all memoir of an Atlanta crack whore? Perhaps publishers choose these high-end prostitute tell-alls for a reason...
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