Review: Lucky Girl
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 25, 2014
My feelings about Lucky Girl are ambiguous. In it Violet Ivy chronicles how she went from a farm girl in rural Australia to working as a prostitute and call girl both on her own and in brothels in at least three countries. She also attempts to put a positive spin on the industry with thoughts on why it is needed as well as arguing against some of the stereotypes we might have about sex workers. Taken at face value, it was both entertaining and thought provoking.However, it suffered from an overabundance of typos and other errors not caught in the proofing and copyediting process. I also found that as I was getting close to the end I was questioning the credibility or truthfulness of Ivy’s story. There were two main reasons I was able to identify as contributors to that feeling. One was a story about a man named Bruce who Ivy got involved with on a personal level which seemed to contradict earlier stories where she talked about her “one real love” and also the difficulty in having a regular relationship while working in her industry. To be fair, she might not have contradicted herself and I read more into one of the stories than was intended. However, my second concern was when she argued against the media stereotype of a sex worker being addicted to hard drugs and guilty of theft and other mayhem, saying it was done with the “aim to sensationalize” and claimed that this “archetypical hooker is the exception rather than the rule.” Possibly it is the exception, yet there were multiple stories earlier in the book that involved her peers stealing from her or someone else and the point was made that this wasn’t an uncommon problem. At least in my experience working in other industries, theft of personal items by my coworkers hasn’t been an issue I’ve had to worry about. Maybe the stereotype isn’t the rule, but it didn’t seem to be so uncommon as to paint it as rare either.If you’re willing to wade past a few typos, I’d be interested in your thoughts.**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **