In My Skin

At last a book written about addiction and prostition that is actually well written . It doesnt shout , or go on and on about how terrible the men were and nor does it have that daily mail tone of good girl gone bad and then saved again . I really enjoyed Kates style of writing , it was lyrical , moving but never sentimental or vulgar . I also found an insight into the australian legalised brothels very interesting . Yes this is an intelligent book rather than a titilating memoirs [ ie more waterstones than WHSmiths station ] so it might not be an easy read for some . But I could real feel how such a middle class intelligent girl found the romance of drugs and the lure of sex . This book doesnt preach , they are many books out there that do , this book doesnt moralise or judge nor does it just do a cheap humour of so many blogs . A more literature approach to prostitution . Excellent . And she is an Anais Nin fan .

I'm writing the memoirs of a former working girl, so I read this as part of my research. Kate Holden is a prostitute with a brain, she's sensitive and cultured and she writes beautifully. It seems her journey started when she wrote her university thesis on Anais Nin.She gets hooked on heroin and that plunges her into a life of seediness and sexual depravity. Only Holden manages to see good in the darkest places. She enjoys her work at times, and she provides fascinating accounts of how brothels work, describing the clients, her colleagues and the owners.It left me pondering the weirdness of sex. How could she go through with it? Why do so many men resort to this stuff? I enjoyed the poetry in her prose and her panache, but I put down the book wondering what her experiences meant to her, and to me. It was a phase she went through and then she seemed to walk out of when she was ready.

Found this book very strange she seems to glorify being a prostitute -.-

Well written and thought provoking

An excellent memoir, truthful and shocking in places but tender and sad in others. A brilliant non fiction read. I read this book when it was released some years ago. I've gone back to it a few times since then.

Interesting read about prostitution and reasons from individual point of view.

'In My Skin' is the memoir of Kate Holden, an Australian who became a heroin addict and prostitute. There is no tale of woe about her childhood, she comes from a seemingly pleasant home and was well educated but was simply curious about drug use. The memoir explores the effect that her drug taking had on her family and also her descent into addiction, street-walking and eventually her work at a brothel.Although I think she is brave to have talked so candidly, there isn't a lot that is new about this. There are plenty of memoirs written by prostitutes that are better written and less morally ambiguous. I was slightly uneasy that Holden still felt the need to talk about how 'cool' prostitution and drugs appear. For example, she talks about 'researching' prostitution at the bookshop where she works;'Perhaps it could be a route to independence, to empowerment. It would be a new kind of adventure. There was a kind of glamour to it, too.'Although she shows us the 'unglamorous' side of the work, she seems to come back round to this idea that it is glamorous by the end of the book.The literary pretensions of the book are also very irritating. Why the constant need to remind us that she is well read and cause her Mum to cry when she plays Chopin on the piano? I guess this was an attempt to stop the reader from grasping to stereotypes, but it did become a bit tedious.It's Ok, but don't expect any revelations.

This is not typically my type of book at all, but for some reason I picked it off the shelf in my local supermarket - it's the type of book that finds you when you're not really looking for it.Kate's story centres around her descent into addiction and the social and real life repercussions. Her entire world is altered by her dependence on heroin, something I have never been close to having any empathy with - until now.Kate Holden is a beautiful, intellectual writer, whose prose is effortless to read.She doesn't come from a deprived background, no-one forced her to drugs, it just happens. By a series of seemingly arbitary steps.The most amazing aspect to her story is her honesty, her courage to accept that these were her choices. She doesn't blame family, friends, or even the boyfriend that reluctantly introduced her to her first 'taste'.I only started this book yesterday, and I'm already addicted and anticipating my next 'hit' tonight. :)