The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl - Belle de Jour

This book isn't exactly what you think it'll be.  I mean, it is the diary of a London call girl, detailing events in her personal and professional life.  But it is not erotica.  I'll admit, I thought this book was going to be along the same lines as 50 Shades of Gray, as in publicly acceptable erotic fiction with just enough plot to give it some backbone and keep it off the 'adult' shelves.  It soon became apparent that while there are explicit descriptions of equipment (both plastic and flesh) it was presented in a very factual way and wasn't overly, hardly at all actually, romanticized.  This makes sense, looking back on the premise of the book.  It is just a day at the office for Belle, so these encounters aren't particularly special.  The details get a little more steamy when it comes to her personal life, but still nothing too scandalous.  

This book is a memoir of an actual call girl who, from what I've gathered from Google, has moved on to being a full time author and speaker about sexy-time related topics.  While still working as a call girl, Belle started a blog and used it as a sort of diary, writing about her personal life, work life, and anything else that seemed worth writing about.  The blog was highly popular and a book deal was made.  There are six books in the series and the series has been made into a TV series that is actually how I heard about the books.  The series is pretty good, but they stepped up the sex content a bunch, which isn't surprising. 

Putting aside my initial confusion regarding the lack of steamy sex scenes I was expecting, I actually liked Intimate Adventures quite a lot.  I thought the characters were well done and I didn't have a hard time distinguishing between them, even though she would only use the first letter of their first name, which got confusing at times.  Belle was especially well developed, as can be expected.  There wasn't a whole lot of first person explanation of who she is as a person, which I liked.  The reader is pretty much just left to grab on to tidbits here and there about Belle's past and her personality.  Belle is sharp and funny and her voice is always present, even in the most mundane of circumstances.  The secondary characters aren't as well developed, but that's to be expected.  I think I just needed more scenes with them and Belle together to really get to know these other characters but I guess that's what books 2-6 are for.

At the beginning of the book, I thought that maybe I'd accidentally picked up the second book in the series because it seemed like I was missing some essential information.  There was missing back story to these characters and their relation to Belle, missing information that did eventually come through, but for about the first third of the book, every few entries, I was left with a feeling that I'd missed something important.  Also, I found the sparse diary entries a little off-putting.  I know that this is a memoir and mostly taken directly from Belle's original blog, but I wanted more.  There were times where there was a sudden shift in a relationship or some other big life event that I could tell happened in the time between entries, but that continuity issue never quite sat right.  I think my slight annoyance with this part is because I'm used to reading fiction where we would see whatever family drama unfold as it happens, or we would get a long, detailed diary entry.  Where as this memoir-diary style was very much dropping information into the readers' laps and then backing away and leaving the readers to put together these little puzzle pieces of information.  I'm not sure if this is just the way Belle writes or if she did it this way so as to not be super obvious about her identity.  In any case, it took some getting used to, but by about half way though, I was so wrapped up in the characters and developing relationships that the sparse diary entries stopped bothering me.

All my little nit picks aside, I thought this was a fun read.  It was something different than what I normally read, but I enjoyed trying something new.  It reads quick, is entertaining, and would be a perfect summer beach read.  I will be picking up the second book in the series for sure.

 The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl - Belle de Jour

Sexy summer beach read, a perfect guilty pleasure book.

288 pages

Rating: 3/5.  A bit lacking in plot , but fun nonetheless.

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

Full disclosure right from the beginning: I didn't finish this one and I'm ashamed.  I haven't not finished a book in years.  Usually, if a book sounds good enough for me to start reading, I finish it.  This was not one of those books.  I tried to finish it because I've heard good things about this book, about the author, and it seemed right up my alley.  However, it just wasn't working out. 


Oryx and Crake is a dystopian fiction  set after the fall of civilization.  It opens on a boy called Snowman who is living in the woods like Tom Hanks in Castaway.  No real shelter, scrounging around for scraps of food, hasn't bathed in ages, that kind of stuff.  The story of this fall of civilization is told through the flashbacks of Snowman, in which Oryx and Crake both play significant roles.  Snowman's father works at some sort of bio-engineering lab where they are trying to grow human organs inside pigs for easy harvesting and transplant options.  Snowman and his family live in the lab's compound area in order to keep out impurities (of what kind, I'm not exactly sure).  Eventually, his dad gets a new job, they move to a new compound, and that is where I stopped reading. 

I've been trying to read this book for the past month, a few pages here, a few pages there, but it just wasn't able to hold my attention.  I didn't find anything endearing about Snowman or the fall of this society.  I think the flashbacks are what killed the book for me.  I generally don't like stories told like that unless there is action in both times.  However, most of the flashbacks started when Snowman was thinking about something and when the flashback scene was over, nothing is different about Snowman.  And in the scenes when we're with him, he doesn't do much except wander around his little camp area.  After this going on for a third of the book, I was done.  It took me a month to read about 100 pages and I just couldn't force myself to read any more.

On the upside of things, I think that Margaret Atwood is a terrific writer.   She has great descriptions and the world that she created in this book was very detailed and well thought out.  I think I really would have liked this book if it was told either as the civilization fell, or if we just got the aftermath part with Snowman trying to survive.  But the back and forth wasn't working for me.

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

Give it a try, it didn't work for me, but I know lots of people who liked it.

376 pages

N/A rating for not finishing

I'm Back!

Hi everyone,
I know I've left you alone for a while, but I have a good excuse.  I've spent the last few months finishing up my college career, and as of this past Sunday, I'm a college graduate!  It was a rough few months, especially at the end, but now I have time to read!  For fun!  In any case, I'll pick out a new book to start reading either today or tomorrow, look for my pick on the shelfari shelf above, and there should be a new blog post within the week.  I have a fair number of books on my shelf that I've accumulated over the past four years of college that I haven't had the time to finish.  Excuses, excuses, I know.  But I promise, I'll be back for good now.

Happy reading!