adult nonfiction/memoir. A dominatrix-turned-journalist/writer pens her recollections of her years spent domming, including her struggle with drug addiction and the accompanying feelings of despair. ( )

A candid, precise memoir of personal growth. The author's honesty about her own self-deception and her (sometimes pitiable) clients is both excruciating and lyrical to read. Melissa (known as 'Mistress Justine' to the submissives she 'sessions' with), expends an enormous amount of mental effort trying to maintain an attitude of specialness--she's a dominatrix, thus better than a common prostitute; she's intelligent and able to hold down a job and meet her family obligations, thus she cannot be a common junky; she's fiercely independent, thus cannot secretly need everyone around her to become absorbed with her and enamored of her. One by one these deceptions fall away as she sobers up and contemplates leaving sex work. The detailed world of 'dungeons' and mistresses is absorbing, and the writing is gorgeous. ( )

The writing is decent, but the author's contempt and disgust with her chosen profession ruined the book entirely for me. I picked it up thinking I would be getting an autobiography of a dominatrix who liked her job, or if not her job, at least her clients. Febos instead gave me a claustrophobic trip inside her last few years of drug abuse and a heaping helping of scorn for and judgment about submissives in general, her own personal clients in particular. I get that it's her own story, and true to her life- and I certainly applaud her rigourous honesty for herself. But I didn't like reading it, I felt so sad for her clients.

Also, it's poorly edited, with some glaring mistakes (words and usage) that smote my eyeballs.

( )

I'm torn about this book for a bunch of reasons (some of which are not appropriate for the internets) but mostly because she starts off with a nonchalant air of "oh I'm just a nice gal" and then reveals her heroin/cocaine addiction almost off-handedly. Maybe she's intentionally being an unreliable narrator, because she spends a good chunk of the last portion of the book talking about honesty, but it just got on my nerves. Not sure if I would necessarily recommend it, but didn't HATE it, either. ( )

Since this was school reading, and the teacher presented it as "something that should interest you as college students ... woohoo" I did not expect to enjoy it. I thought I might be offended and like the whole "dominatrix" thing was going to be it the selling point. I guess it a point it really was, but that's not how I saw it. Yes, everything starts off from her job as a domme, but the story is really about how her life changed from this point, which I can really relate to! Her life changed when she became a dominatrix, and here's how ... I can relate to that from the perspective of my life changing when I returned to the Catholic Church. Different "jobs" (hobbies, what have you) but same kinds of changes -- finding the real you and growing to accept that person.

It was an awesome memoir : ) I can't wait to meet her next week! I kind of regret buying this on the Kindle because I obviously cannot have her sign my book. I'm trying to decided if I want her to sign my Kindle : )

Adrianne ( )