Mommywood

Title:
Mommywood
Author:
Tori Spelling with Hilary Liftin (90% certain link to Ms Liftin is correct)
Publisher:
Simon & Schuster
Length:
243 pages


One of the best pieces of advice I have received was from a journalism lecturer who told me that even ministers still get up and take a dump first thing in the morning (may have been paraphrased and censored). Charming though I thought the advice was, I was unable to shake my reverence for and thus nervousness about interviewing politicians.

Mommywood has not, I suspect, cured me of this issue. However, it has given me some insight into how those who I might look up to, respect and go weak at the knees for (in the same way many might feel about actual celebrities) might feel about both my feelings about them and the behaviour manifesting in me as a result.

I was wondering whether this particular book might feel frivolous given the reason for the blog (and am happy to take commentary) and that I might need a make up book as a result. I also wondered whether Ms Spelling had someone ghost the book entirely.

The book may have been a frivolous choice but it still opened my eyes to the lives of others. Though, even if I have a baby girl, I don’t think I’m going to take her shopping (probably at all) for her first time at Neiman Marcus followed by Neil Lane – far less offer her a fashion parade of me wearing either Christian Dior or Alice and Olivia (neither of which, I’m pretty sure, are in my price range). However, it is refreshing to know that those who exude the kind of charm and confidence Ms Spelling exude still have moments where they just don’t fit in – whether it be to a neighbourhood or a conversation.

Ms Spelling’s observations, though at times less than sophisticated in written form, about life, people and humanity are touching and feel quite genuine. It might be a cliché but I did laugh, I did cry and I did genuinely feel that the person writing was just that, a person. I suspect that Ms Liftin did not ghost the whole book. But, if she did, she did an excellent job of making the reader feel at home in Tori Spelling’s life.

I find myself surprised in suggesting that I would recommend this book. It’s not particularly deep, but once you get past the lack of the word ‘of’ (perhaps an Americanism) and some of the oddities of celebrity life it is human and a very good read.


Things I learned:

• Swimming nappies exist (can’t get over that one)
  
• If you are a celebrity, you don’t need to know another celebrity to: invite them to your party; to be invited to their party; or, to expect everyone invited to show up (= mad)
  
• Pugs look good in pink (?)
  
• Without knowing what it really is, I now have a craving for red velvet cake.
  

Kate Ratings
Content:
4 out of 10
Depth:
3 out of 10
Writing:
2 out of 10
Enjoyment/Entertainment/Education:
Entertainment
Challenge of material:
6 out of 10 (though that may be partly as I am not American and also because I am not a celebrity)

Ultimate rating:
5 out of 10

Tokyo Hostess

Title:
Tokyo Hostess: The Shocking True Story
Author:
Clare Campbell
Publisher:
Little, Brown Book Group
Length:
300 pages


Tokyo Hostess is the story of four women, their travel to Tokyo and their bodies …

Tokyo Hostess touches on a number of themes uncomfortable for middle-class Western audiences. Infidelity (of sorts), sex (or not quite), paid companionship (or maybe more) and pornography (in cartoon, or manga, form – a taste for which is acquired at a young age) all feature in this disturbing tale of women travelling to Tokyo to provide middle-aged Japanese men with recompensed companionship and conversation for short periods of time, except one who was an English teacher.

Lucie Blackman (UK), Carita Ridgway (Australia), Tiffany Rain Fordham (Canada), Lindsay Ann Hawker are all real women, they all went to Tokyo voluntarily and they all died gruesomely. Three of these women went to Japan to become hostesses – basically expensive escorts – one went as part of the Nova English language programme.

Ms Campbell follows the legal process of bringing a man, Joji Obara, to justice for crimes against three of these foreign women; the manipulation of global and Japanese media to keep the case going; the sensationalised media focus; and, the conclusion of a trial.

The most shocking aspect of this tale is that it could so easily be a crime novel rather than a report tying together the fates of four young women. The scenes are fluid and well written, for the most part. However, there is a naivety about the sex industry and human trafficking which seems to sit within the work.

The deaths of the four young women were untimely and horrific and it is easy to hope that these are the worst experiences faced by women. Unfortunately reality suggests they are not.


Additional information:

Campbell mentions Nemureru Bijo (House of the Sleeping Beauties) by Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata as a novella which provides some insight into aspects of the Japanese sexual psyche.

Kate Ratings
Content:
8 out of 10
Depth:
5 out of 10
Writing:
6 out of 10
Enjoyment/Entertainment/Education:
Education
Challenge of material:
8 out of 10

Ultimate rating:
6 out of 10