Candy Girl by Diablo Cody

Sarah's Reaction:  My neighbor lent me this book with the words "I sometimes read weird things."  Mmmkay.  I sometimes read weird things as well.  And this book is both weird and oddly commonplace.  Before Diablo Cody became known as the woman who wrote the screenplay for the movie "Juno," she was a stripper.  Well I haven't ever actually seen her take her clothes in front of other people, but I'm taking her word (or in this case book) for it.

Candy Girl gave me a lot more insight to the world of sex workers than I needed though it was not grotesque, explicit, and was blissfully devoid of judgment.  For someone of Cody's obvious intellect with a knack for pith, it's refreshing that she could not just get close but work along with some of the world's sorriest cases and not smear them with disdain for their lives.  She constantly mocks, but not those around her at work and she does not pretend to have the answers for the other women who so clearly struggle with myriad vices and neuroses. 

What still perplexes me is where Cody picked up such insecurity and need for validation.  She is smarter than most, funnier than average, and clearly can excel at many professions.  I mean, I enjoyed the account of her time as a stripper but I'm still not sure why she felt the need to do it in the first place.  When did self-discovery become such an obvious metaphor in the shedding of clothes?  Throughout the whole thing she never seems happy, but I guess not everyone is meant to be.  Still it was a very enlightening and entertaining read.

From Booklist

A copy typist by day in Minnesota, Cody was hardly a likely candidate for entering an amateur stripping contest. But her curiosity got the best of her and, encouraged by her boyfriend, enter she did. The contest left her with an increased curiosity about the profession, and Cody decided to take an evening job stripping at Schieks, a local club. There Cody learns the ins and outs of stripping--how to catch a client's attention, how much the house takes, how some nights are highly profitable and others leave a stripper in debt to the club. Eventually Cody outgrows Schieks and moves on to Deja Vu, a bigger club that's much faster paced. A promotion at her day job forces her to give up stripping temporarily, but before long she's back in the adult entertainment business, this time stripping behind glass in an emporium. Cody's lively romp through the adult entertainment business is bound to appeal to those wanting a peek inside the inner workings of the sex industry. Kristine Huntley