We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story by Simu Liu

 

This is a great memoir about Asian-Canadian actor, Simu Liu, and his upbringing in both China and Canada. He talks about how he got his big break (and some of the roadblocks leading up to it), as well as the struggles of being an immigrant in a new country, and the child of immigrant parents with sky high expectations whose means of punishment may seem unconventional or even cruel when perceived outside of their cultural contexts.

Simu comes across as very likable in this memoir and part of that, ironically, is that he doesn't slink from his less likable moments. One of my criticisms of the celebrity memoir is that they often feel too glossy, but he admits to coasting and then nearly failing in college, and quotes one of his ex-girlfriends' takedowns of him when he was behaving like a Nice Guy(TM) to give her seemingly callous treatment of him in their relationship the proper context it deserved.

This was just a really honest, really endearing memoir and I liked it a lot. I like the actor a lot and this made me like him more.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself by Crystal Hefner

 

Whoa. I've read several of the Bunny Girl memoirs but this is the best one yet. The writing is so poignant and beautiful, and I was really impressed by the amount of introspection Crystal Hefner has about her life. I'll admit that I used to be really judgy. I figured anyone who was a Bunny was probably a bimbo (derogatory), and I'm not proud of that. Especially after reading this books and finding out just how smart some of these women were, and how they were forced to hide it to perpetuate the male fantasy of uncomplicated, fun-loving girls.

This memoir begins prior to her life at the Mansion, talking about the trauma of losing her father to brain cancer (which I really related to-- that's how I lost my dad), losing her first serious boyfriend, and being raped. Like a lot of the other girls, she met Hugh by chance at a club and he picked her because he liked the way she looked. Like a lot of the other girls, she talks about Hefner's narcissism and the way he used his money to control his girlfriends, and how the other girls would often fight or go behind each other's backs to stay in his favor.

Most of those memoirs were written while Hefner was still alive and I did get the impression that some of them were holding back because of that, which is maybe testament to the power he held over their lives. Crystal's memoir, on the other hand, is no holds barred. She repeatedly calls him a narcissist and talks about how he would body-shame the girls in an attempt to get them to lose weight or get cosmetic surgery. Two of Harris's procedures nearly killed her and one ended up causing an autoimmune disorder (which is ironic, because in Izabella St. James's memoir, she talks about how lucky they all were that nobody in the Mansion ever had any complications from their surgery).

It gets grosser. Apparently, Hefner was paid $400,000 per episode of The Girls Next Door and Crystal got nothing. After his proposal, when the show Marrying Hef was being produced, Hefner was getting $800,000 and Crystal got $2,500 for the whole season as a sort of appearances bonus. She claims that he had peep holes in his bedroom that he used to film himself having sex, and based on some discussions she claims to have had with him in this book, it doesn't sound like the people he filmed always knew about it. When he and the girls went out together, he would encourage them to remove clothes or flash the camera and he would take pictures with a disposable camera. Crystal talks about finding the pictures and destroying them, while going through her husband's things.

I think the saddest thing, though, was at the end, when she was going through his scrapbooks and looking at the letters he received from people who liked what he was about. There was one from an 11-year-old girl who loved The Girls Next Door and told him she wanted to be a Playmate when she grew up. She sent him a picture of herself, too (in a school outfit), which he KEPT. There were also letters, she said, from boys thanking him for teaching them how to treat women.

Crystal repeatedly says that she often felt like she didn't have any value beyond her looks, and living at the Mansion only made that worse, because she was living a lifestyle where she was forced to be a prop and was constantly judged by her looks and mocked or commented on as if she didn't have any feelings. So many reviews have questioned why these women didn't just leave, but the prevailing theme in so many of these books seems to be that they didn't feel like they could-- that the ugly side of pretty privilege meant that nobody really took them seriously, so they felt like the Playboy brand was a stepping stone to something achievable, and possibly validating.

This was honestly a pretty devastating read and I felt so sad for her and the other women by the end of the book. She spills even more tea than St. James did and it is scalding and I hope she's doing well in her post-Mansion life, because it honestly sounds like she went through five different kinds of hell.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Bunny Tales by Izabella St. James

 

The first Playboy Bunny memoir I read was Holly Madison's. I didn't realize that there were so many others! (This one came out like nine years earlier.) When I was in high school, there was such a fascination with Playboy. I remember seeing Playboy Bunny necklaces for sale at the store (for teen girls). Hugh Hefner was considered a sex symbol well into his old age, and no small part of that was because of the harem of women he surrounded himself with and partied with. They never really talked much in the interviews though, which always made me wonder: what was it really like?

Izabella St. James defies a lot of stereotypes. The book opens with a history of Poland in WWII and what it was like afterwards, when they were under the Iron Curtain. Her grandparents were both adversely impacted: in fact, her grandfather was sent to Auschwitz for protecting and sheltering Jews. Both of her parents inherited that legacy of pain, and when she and her parents left Poland, it was to escape the lingering shadow of Nazi Germany and Communism.

She is really smart. She went to McGill and then got a law degree from Pepperdine (although she didn't pass the bar). She speaks like four languages. The reason she became a Bunny was because attending college in California put her in close proximity with party culture when it was at its zenith and she, like many women, was curious about what living with Hefner would be like. Like many people, she also had a romanticized vision of the reality, too.

A lot of what she says in here corroborates Holly's memoir, although unlike Holly's memoir, she portrays Holly as a villain. According to Izabella, Holly was controlling and played power games to keep Hefner to herself, hoping to become his next wife or top girlfriend. She seems to have more disdain for Hefner, too, with an entire chapter kind of ridiculing what went on in the bedroom (apparently he liked having his nips sucked and wanted to watch girl on girl before finishing himself off to porn). She also talks about how weirdly cheap he was, sensitive to the fact that he knew girls wanted him for his money, and how he seemed to take pleasure in controlling and denying them that.

I think I liked this book more than DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE because she felt very pragmatic. Some readers seemed put off by her arrogance, but she just struck me as very confident and giving no shits. I do think that one of her quotes about wondering why Hefner would pay for plastic surgery but not her tuition fees is very on the nose: if he truly wanted a care-free party girl, why wouldn't he remove the obstacle of their debt woes? Instead, he seemed to prefer to cultivate insecurity-- or to allow the other girls in the mansion to do that for him, with catty infighting and rivalries. I wouldn't want to live this life and I can't imagine wanting to, but it sure is an interesting story.

St. James seems to have kind of dropped from public eye after all of this blew over. I looked her up and the last big thing she did was a 2015 Polish reality show and a pug dog rescue foundation. Hope that whatever she's up to now, she's doing well. But it's interesting that she seems to have lost her taste for fame, when so many of the Playmates have chosen to remain in the public eye.

4 out of 5 stars

When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey

 

WHEN WE WERE MAGIC is kind of like The Craft meets Lisa Frankenstein, but delightfully queer and strangely surreal. The book literally opens with the heroine, Alexis, accidentally murdering a guy during a hookup by making his dick explode with magic. Desperate, she calls in her squad of five friends to help her. They're all kinda sorta witches, and their original plan is to bring him back to life with magic. Instead, they separate his body into pieces, including his heart.

There's a little bit of The Telltale Heart with this book, too, as the pieces of the boy haunt each girl as they're forced to dispose of the body, while also reckoning with how his disappearance/murder impacts the community, their relationships, and their magic. I think the beginning was stronger than the middle and the end, which felt a little unsatisfying to me. Especially since I know Gailey can do better. I'm reading one of their adult novels right now, JUST LIKE HOME, and it positively drips atmosphere and character development.

One of my friends said that this would make a better movie than it would a book and I see what she means. It would be a good visually arresting artsy horror movie, like Lisa Frankenstein or Velvet Buzzsaw. Not bad, though.

2.5 to 3 out of 5 stars

How It's Done by Christine Kole MacLean

 

I'm kind of sad that this author never wrote any more YA books after this one, because this was fantastic. Despite being published in 2006, it really doesn't feel dated. Reviews for this one are mixed, but weirdly, people seem to be taking issue with the exact things I loved about it. HOW IT'S DONE is one of those cautionary sorts of stories, about a sheltered girl with religious trauma, who escapes from her fundie parents by running right into the arms of a sophisticated older man.

I remember reading this as a teen and thinking Michael, the college professor, seemed hot. Now, reading this as a middle-aged woman, I just thought he was gross. The way he gaslit Grace and was constantly trying to Pygmalion her into being what he wanted was so brilliantly done, but it was also really hard to read. Grace also has a toxic relationship with her friend, Liv, who is poorer and desperate to escape her abusive family situation. They were close when they were younger but their diverging paths have created rifts in their relationship that have led to resentment, jealousy, and even a little cruelty.

HOW IT'S DONE never shies from its difficult subjects, and the writing is spare and beautiful and emotional. I know some people criticized the heroine for being too naive, but a fundie girl in the 2000s with the internet still in its infancy, and her only real knowledge of relationships coming from pilfered bodice-rippers? Yeah, I think her naivete makes sense. Just like how it also made sense that her strict religious upbringing and home environment ended up creating the perfect storm of self-blame and internalized misogyny that unfortunately made her so vulnerable to a predatory older man.

This is not an easy read but it is a good one, and I loved it as a coming of age story as well as a teen girl's ultimate triumph over her own oppression.

4 out of 5 stars

The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell

 

Easiest five star review I've written in a while. Has the same fun vibes as a murder mystery show, like My Life Is Murder or Midsomer Murders, but plunges into the toxic and half-rotten corruption of the British upper-class like THE SECRET HISTORY. At times, I definitely got almost-Donna Tartt vibes from this book.

Caius Beauchamp is a half-Jamaican millennial detective who just got dumped by his hot French girlfriend. In the middle of yass-ifying himself post breakup, with skincare routines and bread making, he gets put on a case for a society princess-cum-influencer who was found dead in a park, wearing a flower crown. Actually, he's the one who found her. While jogging as part of his self-improvement regimen.

As he looks into the dead woman's circle of friends, who is named Clemmie btw, Caius learns about a birthday party at McDonalds with top-shelf champagne and cocaine, an art gallery that doesn't actually seem to move much art, and a beautiful and slightly pathetic sociopath named Rupert, who was dating Clemmie but had eyes for a manic pixie dreamgirl of a woman named Nell.

Nothing in this book is as it seems and even fifty pages from the end, I wasn't totally sure what was going on. I'm surprised that the ratings for this book are so mixed because I thought it was fantastic. I am so glad that it's the first in a series because I didn't really want to let any of these characters go, even when I'd finished the book.

5 out of 5 stars