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4.0
Lovers XXX
ByPublisher Description
Los Angeles, 1982: best friends Jude and Winnie are eighteen and working at a strip club. Soon they progress to modelling for Penthouse and Hustler, then to shooting hardcore porn. Dazzled by the drugs, sex and parties their new life offers, they are also beset by sexism, bitter competition and the precarity of life on the margins. When their friendship ends in recrimination and a dramatic act of betrayal, Jude goes missing and Winnie can find no trace of her.
Thirty years later, newly divorced and down-on-her-luck, Winnie is ready to face her past. Determined to solve the mystery of what happened to Jude, she sets out to brave the dark underbelly of the adult industry. What follows is a gutsy, propulsive look at sex and power that builds to an unforgettable revelation about love.
Thirty years later, newly divorced and down-on-her-luck, Winnie is ready to face her past. Determined to solve the mystery of what happened to Jude, she sets out to brave the dark underbelly of the adult industry. What follows is a gutsy, propulsive look at sex and power that builds to an unforgettable revelation about love.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesLovers XXX Reviews
4.0
“⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Little Brown Book Group UK for the ARC.
Wow. For a book with such a difficult subject matter, Lovers XXX was a truly gripping and beautifully written book with the most atmospheric writing and genuinely interesting set of characters. Exploring themes of body autonomy, patriarchal ownership of women, drugs, poverty, abuse and the life of sex work in the 1980s, this isn’t a fun time read. However, for a literary fiction novel the character work and plot line kept me hooked throughout and I felt like I was there with the girls in the hot Californian sun.
I think this was a very respectful take on sex work and the author has clearly done her research. It explores the historical abuse and lack of care of sex workers through Winnie’s story directly alongside the liberation of sex and power it can build for characters like Cherry and to an extent, Jude. There were times where I wanted to bundle everyone in this book up and protect them from the harm they were clearly subject to, but at the same time there was no judgement of the work itself, simply sadness at the conditions the girls found themselves in and the seedy underbelly of the industry in the essence of being owned by men in these co-op housing situations.
Another great plot device was the fast forward to the future where Winnie is looking for Jude. This kept the interest going for me and made me feel really emotional. I love how the narrative was flipped for how Jude felt about Winnie, and then Winnie feeling about Jude. It was also really interesting to find out what happened to Cherry and the male figures in the present day after the horrors of the 80s were left behind.
I highlighted so so many beautiful quotes from this book as Allie’s writing is so descriptive and lush. It really helped me to put myself in the shoes of the characters especially when they were young as runaways and made me feel emotionally connected to them.
If you enjoy reading books about women’s rights and more importantly women’s wrongs, this could be the one for you. Emotional, beautiful, raw and wrapped up in political dialogue about women’s autonomy, lovers XXX was a really unique read.”
“this is what happens when you take girlhood, codependency & ambition & drop them into the neon-lit, coke-dusted bear trap of the 80s p*rn industry. I ate this up. the writing is slick & hypnotic… a little grimy in the best way. it romanticizes the spiral just enough before reminding you what it costs.”
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