This was an interesting behind the scenes look at what life is like for Hugh Hefner's "girlfriends". I enjoyed pulling back the curtains and looking this over, however, the author annoyed me. I'm really smart, I just did this for the experience, all the other girls were catty, but I am smart and I was nice to almost everyone. I obeyed the rules, I'm smart, I have a law degree, but this is a great experience....etc. I felt kind of sad for women who put themselves in this position. Your "boyfriend" has all sorts of rules for you and is basically paying you to be there. Pretty degrading. But I really wouldn't expect less from Hugh Hefner. ( )

I entirely rewrote the review as what I said whilst I was reading it, isn't what I wanted to say when I'd finished it.
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This is the job remuneration package:

Accommodation in the Mansion
24-hour room service and chef services
Freedom of the wine cellar and various drugs
Laundry and cleaning
Luxury car deposit and payments
Valet parking
All spa services, beautician, hair-extensions, nails etc
Clothing allowance for big events of $1,000, mega events $2,000
Plastic surgery - nose, breasts, botox, more by arrangement
$1,000 cash per week (and this was 10 years ago)

These are the hours of work and the duties:

Two nights per week to accompany the Boyfriend to an internationally-famous nightclub in a chauffered limousine after 9 pm
One night per week to watch a film with the Boyfriend
To attend the pool party on Sundays, the four big parties every year and all the red carpet events the Boyfriend fancies
To be photographed with Boyfriend
To be available for social events to accompany the Boyfriend
To go to bed with the Boyfriend and all the other girlfriends after the nightclub two nights a week when said Boyfriend will have taken viagra
To watch porno films on two huge screens with all six other girlfriends and Boyfriend
To perform oral sex on Boyfriend
To get on top and screw (briefly) Boyfriend who prefers to just lie there and have all the others do the work (the author complains he's lousy in bed, but she's paid to be good and he pays so he can just lie there. Being an octogenarian its probably all he can do anyway.)
Girl on girl action occasionally
To watch Holly fake getting excited and monopolising sucking Boyfriend's nipples
To watch while Boyfriend always wanks off to porno film with lots of slippery baby oil on his hands

Ok, that's what you all wanted to read, right? That's the only reason I bought the book. I wanted to know exactly what the King of Playboys in his autumn years (well winter really) got up to with his harem.

Upside of the job:
Meeting filmstars and going to their parties
Meeting other rich men who also keep harems and might pay better than the Boyfriend
Getting picture in the media as if a genuine celebrity
Only having to work after 9 pm - no commitments until then

Downside of the job:
Curfew of 9 pm
Not being allowed other boyfriends.

The Boyfriend may call the live-in girls Girlfriends, but everyone else, seeing that job description would call them whores. And so they are. Manipulative, mean-minded, gold-digging whores. What they want is to be a Playmate and have a career established as a nude model. What they want is to be chief nipple-sucker Girlfriend and call the shots while the old man dithers. What they want is to get lots of plastic surgery, be on tv, get more money, more clothes, student loans paid off, boyfriends on the sly and to write nasty books.

Izabella St James certainly did the latter. She totally lacks insight into herself and snobbishly proclaims that with her law degree she's a cut above the strippers like Kendra and the nude models like Emma. She never loses an opportunity to slag off Holly (who is just much clever and more manipulative and much, much colder than everyone else) by that lovely device of damning with faint praise.

The author spends all her time complaining that a $1,000 a week isn't enough cash. That the clothing allowance isn't enough for her to look .. what, trashy? In glitter and leather and see-through outfits she's going to look cheap no matter what it costs. She is pissed off that Hefner won't pay off her student loan, that the valets don't park her car properly, that having a 9 pm curfew screws up having a boyfriend, that having to sit with Hefner in the VIP area of the clubs they go to as part of her duties stops her from hooking up with assorted celebrities. Eventually, unable to knuckle under to Holly's reign as queen B, she makes excuses about wanting to live her own life and leaves - somewhat before the time she'd planned to.

Did she go back to law as she said she would? No. Did she try and get into reality tv? Yes (but she didn't succeed.) Did she instead become that wonderfully euphemistically-named occupation of boob-job blondes in Hollywood, "actress and model". Yes. Did she work for Heidi Fleiss like so many of the other Girlfriends? Hmmm, who knows?

Should you buy this book because it sounds so juicy? Whatever for? I've told you all the interesting bits and the rest is an endless round of name-dropping, complaining and bitching by the despicable author. She attempts to forestall criticism by saying in the afterword, that if you really understand where she was coming from you wouldn't call her a bimbo or a gold-digger. Sweetheart, I do understand and you are. ( )

Being a fan of The Girls Next Door (and Holly Madison, more specifically), I was very excited to get this book. Izabella does mention all three girls in passing, but is very catty rather than neutral and observatory. I would have preferred to read a more straight forward take than a whiney, spoiled view.

However, for anyone interested in Hugh Hefner, Holly, Bridget, or Kendra, this is a quick and easy read to learn just a little bit more about them and the Playboy lifestyle. ( )

Author comes across as a spoiled brat. ( )