Candy Girl

So. I read this book.

Diablo Cody, who also wrote the book and screenplay for Juno (hysterical and awesome movie – if you haven’t seen it, you must), was 24 and living in Chicago when she met a guy on the internet and moved to Minneapolis to live with him.  She was a self-professed “square peg”, albeit with a bit of punk rock attitude.  Working the 9-to-5 lifestyle, in a job she didn’t particularly like or hate, she entered a stripping contest on a whim.  She didn’t win, but it did start her on a whole new career path.

I’m going to talk about the bad first.  The writing is kind of…amateurish.  I’m no snob when it comes to writing (note my obsession with young adult books and the fact that I read the Twilight books), but her writing is a bit much.  It’s very conversational in tone, but I thought that took something away from the story.  The story, itself, had such potential, but it got a bit lost.  She barely grazes the surface of a lot of the aspects of her life, which left me feeling like I didn’t really know her at all.  That’s fine for a normal book, but I expect more depth in a memoir.  I know her boyfriend’s name was Jonny and he had a daughter and they got married, but that’s about all she gives us.  It was almost like she was intentionally taunting us with something…I just wasn’t sure what that something was.  And I never did find out.

But the book was great in that it gave me, a self-professed square-peg, insight into a world that I know exists (vaguely…out *there*) but that I had no idea how it really worked.  I think everyone has a stereotype in mind about what stripping and strippers are like, right?  In Cody’s Minnesotan strip clubs, some of her co-workers fit those stereotypes, and some didn’t.  Not surprising, when you think about it, but still kind of enlightening.

So yeah.  I read this book.  I liked it.  But I wanted more.  I wanted to know why she really started stripping.  What did her parents think?  Why did she keep thousands of dollars in an aluminum lunch box?