Diablo Cody, the very famous screenwriter of the much beloved movie Juno, is by no means a shrinking violet; however, her biting sense of humor and quirky view of the world makes her no ordinary “punk” chick. Her memoir of her year working as a stripper proves that while she is able to do almost anything, she also does almost anything with some semblance of intelligence. She never makes herself out to be a victim and her raw, honest look at the people she sees in her profession makes Candy Girl a far more striking book that I had anticipated it to be.
I’ll start off this review with a huge preface on my view of the world, which will make you understand why I completely loved this book. I like people who aren’t what they seem to be. I like people who “look” like they should be one thing (for example, ditzy) and turn out to be something complete different (a rocket scientist). While I knew that Cody was far from a typical stripper, I was anticipating some childhood trauma (child molestation, beatings, no father figure etc). To my surprise, I didn’t get any of that with Cody. I got a “good girl” who was looking to break that wholesome childhood with a bad wig and a spray tan.
One of the most striking parts in the book is when Cody describe a wet T-shirt contest at the strip joint she was working at. Basically the event consisted of a bunch of men squirting water at girls in T-shirts. The last lines of the chapter particularly stood out to me:
The boys’ faces had been so black, their trigger fingers spasming relentlessly as they stared between the girls’ splayed thighs. I’d seen that face before, on an ex-boyfriend when he played video games. Empty. No one home but the id.
Her candid description of the activities of that night (and many others) paints a picture of a scene in which all sense of what makes people thoughtful, compassionate, and kind all disappear as pleasure becomes the main focus of this circus act.
The other section of the book that stood out to me was Cody’s synopsis on stripping:
The rules of attraction were reversed in strip clubs. Girls that could halt midday traffic at Nicollet Mall were rejected by fat guys wearing Zubaz…the rejected girls, regardless of how loved they were by husbands or paramours or infants at home would feel worthless for an instant, and all because of good ol’ Joe.
I hated the the girl buffet. I deserve better presentation, I thought. We all did.
I’m not a fan of stripping (or porn, or 1-800 numbers, or pretty much anything to do with the sex industry) so I can take what Cody was saying and take it a step further. Candy Girl did not change my view of strip clubs, in fact, it just reinforced everything that I had thought about them. While there are many funny scenes throughout the book that had me laughing out loud, there were many sad ones as well that made me wonder what Cody had gotten herself into and why she kept it up for as long as she did.
Women Unbound is a book challenge that focuses on women’s studies. The challenge is to read books that focus one way or another on women; the roles that they play in society and how those roles relates to socioeconomic status. The books included in the challenge can be non-fiction or fiction. This meme is an amazing way to concentrate on the roles that women not only play in literature, but also on the roles that women play in cultures around the world.
Book Source: Hennepin Country Library, Eden Prairie, MN
Referred By: Find Your Next Book Here
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