Secret Diary of a Call Girl

by Belle de Jour

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 044654082X
• ISBN13: 9780446540827
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Juicy.

Very enjoyable read.

Different from the show, in a very good way.

I really enjoyed the book. I actually read it after I watched the dvd series of the show, and I'm pleased I did. The two were nothing alike. Though I found both enjoyable, the Showtime show was pretty "vanilla", and kind of fantasized with the character of Belle taking on a somewhat pricky and selective personality. Fun to watch and get lost in, and I imagine more acceptable to the mainstrem, but not very real. The book was far more accurate on the life and woman who is Belle...and what one would assume a call girls life would be like. She is far more real and interesting and colorful than the showtime version. There is alot more sex, both for money and not for money, more explorative types of sex...same gener and bdsm (which on the show she does once and doesn't like and in the book, she adores!), and there is more drinking and choatic relationships then the well organized ones on the show. Even her parents are more colorful and down-to-earth. I recommend it for people, women especially, who really like sex, are independent, and enjoy more non-traditional lifestyles.

Great Show

Shows the REAL world of an escort. Not the stuff that most of us think are true. And it just fun to watch

Enlightening and Unique

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.

Clean and Dirty

Belle de Jour, the shockingly intimate adventures of a london call girl has, by all accounts, become a cult phenomenon. The blog-slash-diary of an educated woman who resorts to prostitution to pay her bills for want of a regular job in a tough job market is by all accounts shocking, scandalous, candid, honest, voyeristic, and human. Her hunger for sex leads her into an unlikely job role, after facing rejection upon rejection in the real world. In between the sheets she finds acceptance, at first from men, and then for herself, as she becomes comfortable in her own skin with what and who she has become. Explicit and triple x rated she transports us in graphic detail into the world of prostitution and sex, and perfectly illustrates how we as human beings have deteriorated over the centuries. Even in the oldest of professions, new trends are developing in the sexual revolution, as women and men exchange new roles in a modern world, and Belle takes us there for first hand look. Living in a world that has learned not to show emotion, Belle too has become one of the masses; a numb body going about the motions of life, lacking feeling, lacking real passion and enthusiasm for life, all the while desperately wanting to return to the feeling of "feeling alive." (146) Belle is not familiar with crying, yet she cries....(149) realizing she is "not all that happy"....and despite the pursuit of money and materialism the resultant ephiphany is that her life has led to "nothing significant." Belle is a girl in a woman's skin - the girl who had a political opinion at age 8 is still the same young innocent girl who is aching for a return to such innocence and unhurried purity of thought. As we see in the following exerpt, Belle craves a cupcake, and the level of excitement is infectious, until we remember it is actually the voice of a woman. "...and i insisted that we get two fairy cakes from the bakery with pink icing and little plastic hearts pressed into the tops..."(151) Belle is still the little girl voice hiding in the adult female body - and for all that we know of the dark world of prostitution she inhabits, it is surpising to see her relatively unaffected on the surface by it, seemingly still able to find pleasure and an innocence in the small things and friendships that surround her. Yet her innocence with cupcakes juxtaposed with her cynical blog about valentines day combined with the explicit nature of her material leads me to believe that while this is an undoubtedly accurate, honest and extremely candid account of her life, there is still something missing. She leaves nothing out which satisfies the voyeur in us; yet something is missing in her fundamental character and her view and interpretation of her world as we realize this is not normal, she is not normal, and most people do not turn to prostitution after a few bad job interviews. I feel for the little girl trapped behind her sexual mask - she doesn't know how to tap into the ide

Fascinating book

Belle de Jour (http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com/) rightly won the Guardian Weblog award for the best written blog of 2003, and went on to become a blog phenomenon. Having secured a reputed six-figure publishing deal, this book promises to become a similarly phenomenal literary sensation, and there are already plans make it into a film. The mystery surrounding the anonymity of the blog's author generated something of a media frenzy in the first quarter of 2004, with The Times in particular applying its investigative powers to the task of hunting down the author and exposing their identity. However, such attempts proved unsuccessful and Belle's publishers have somehow managed to retain their marketing ace, despite the circulation of numerous rumours regarding who Belle may or may not be. With the initial spate of interest mysteriously on the wane, and Belle's anonymity safely in tact, the British newspapers have become engrossed in another sex scandal involving a some time high-class call girl, the details of which could very easily pass for an episode straight from the pages of Belle's blog. Having initially struck a resounding chord with her first-hand appreciation of the reality lurking beneath the surface of contemporary sexual mores, Belle now seems perfectly positioned as the definitive commentator of the post-Sex and the city/Bridget Jones zeitgeist. Couple this with a wit, intellect and honesty lacking in much contemporary British fiction, and Belle de Jour rightly deserves to become the British literary scene's equivalent of Michel Houellebecq. For a fuller account of the unfolding of the Belle de Jour phenomenon visit The Book Club Blog (http://natural-creations.co.uk/bookclub.html) for a full history and all the latest news and analysis on all things Belle.