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Sub Rosa
Welcome to Sub Rosa: not for the faint of heart.
316 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
33 people are currently reading
1929 people want to read
About the author
Amber Dawn
22 books219 followersAmber Dawn is a writer, filmmaker and performance artist based in Vancouver. She is the author of the novel Sub Rosa (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2010), editor of the Lambda Award-nominated Fist of the Spider Woman (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2008) and co-editor of With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2005). Her award-winning, genderfuck docu-porn, "Girl on Girl," has been screened in eight countries and added to the gender studies curriculum at Concordia University. She has toured three times with the infamous Sex Workers' Art Show in the US. She was voted Xtra! West's Hero of the Year in 2008. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Currently, she is the director of programming for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
January 1, 2011
Uhh... something about the importance of memory and having a past. And magical hookers.
June 12, 2014
My musings on Sub Rosa by Amber Dawn.
First off, I'll start this review of sorts by saying that I have a wide assortment of styles and genres of books that I read - and enjoy - but the lifestyle of prostitution has never been a reading interest of mine. Upon looking up the title of my October book club novel I was apprehensive. I worried that Ms. Dawn would play the sex too heavy handed and wig me out. Although this novel has a number of failings, that was not one of them for me.
A quick note here, if you like linear stories that you come away from feeling satisfied with the way everything wrapped up in the end, this is most definitely not the story for you. There are many inconsistencies within the story that are never really explained but, in my opinion, this didn't take away from the overall impression of the book.
As a happy surprise, I really enjoyed this novel. The characters were, for the most part, lovable and unique.
In the world of Sub Rosa, prostitutes are known as "Glories", pimps are more frequently called "Daddies" and johns are referred to as "Live ones". There is an elegance within Sub Rosa that is hard for the reader to ignore. Starkly contrasted to that elegance is the sinister feeling associated with the Dark (A pit of blackness found at the end of the street, where girls have to earn their dowries in order to become Glories).
Inconsistent as this novel is, I would recommend it for anyone who enjoyed the world within Memoirs of a Geisha. Be warned, though, there will be magic and supernatural elements :)
May 3, 2013
this book is magic. stunningly inventive, a pleasure to read. you think it's a clearcut fable about sex work but it quickly becomes its own idiosyncratic world, an unstable phantasmagoria irreducible to allegory.
September 10, 2013
Engaging story, so-so pacing, terrible writing, VERY heavy-handed. gag. I suspect my friends who claim to like this book so much do so because it is "radical". Shame on them for settling.
April 9, 2010
With a sharp pen, fierce intellect and ferocious take on sex, sex work and sexuality, Amber Dawn's first novel Sub Rosa is a page-turner. Some books take on humanity, others merely relay a story. Dawn's Sub Rosa does both and is explosive.
With a brashness akin to Michelle Tea, Dawn explores sexuality, sensuality and subtlety. In moments protagonist Little lingers with innocent fragility, while in others she's overthrown by a sinister force that threatens to overwhelm her. Part pornography, part pulp fiction, Sub Rosa could be a darker, perhaps more twisted, compliment to Ann Bannon's famous lesbian chronicles. It's a modern-day musing on the roots of desire.
With a brashness akin to Michelle Tea, Dawn explores sexuality, sensuality and subtlety. In moments protagonist Little lingers with innocent fragility, while in others she's overthrown by a sinister force that threatens to overwhelm her. Part pornography, part pulp fiction, Sub Rosa could be a darker, perhaps more twisted, compliment to Ann Bannon's famous lesbian chronicles. It's a modern-day musing on the roots of desire.
September 12, 2017
I walked into the book store in my city's gay village and said, "I need more books with lesbians in them." What I got was... well, there was certainly no romance.
There isn't a lot to say about Sub Rosa. It's directionless, can't settle on any kind of main conflict, is jam-packed with characters that have no personality (including the main character), and completely contradicts itself at every turn.
When you read a book about sex work, written by an ex-sex worker, you expect it to challenge expectations about the industry at least a little. The only thing I found challenged was my ability to focus on the story. The book spends so much time trying to convince me that the reason men buy sex is because they're actually good at heart, and that pimps are actually good men. At least one of the "working girls" is underaged, but the only way this is confronted up is when Little (the main character, who is more like a prop in her own story) complains about how immature the child is. This child's interests are gardeing, sweets, and having nightly fucks with the grown man that made her a child prostitute in the first place. There is not a word about the realities and horror of children being forced into the sex trade.
The characters are shallow at best and painfully dull at worst. Though they have some agency to make their own decisions in the world of the book, it's very clear that the author considered them more puppets than people during the writing. They are shoved along from scene to scene, with words pulled out of their mouths rather than given freely, and there is no character development to show for it.
It's hard to say that a book is about women supporting women – which this is, because I can't think about anything else it could possibly be – when those women have nothing in common except that they really like having sex for money and also maybe are friends. The women, the driving forces and main characters of Sub Rosa, are constantly deferring to their "daddies" on every turn and professing their love for their pimps. This lack of agency is never reclaimed and never questioned.
The ending... did not make any sense given the rest of the story. It ends on a cliff hanger that I understand and saw coming from a mile off, but the rest of the plot was so convoluted that it falls flat. I could tell you how I would write the same story, but it would involve ripping up the original and leaving more than half the characters on the cutting room floor. Sub Rosa was, all in all, sub par.
There isn't a lot to say about Sub Rosa. It's directionless, can't settle on any kind of main conflict, is jam-packed with characters that have no personality (including the main character), and completely contradicts itself at every turn.
When you read a book about sex work, written by an ex-sex worker, you expect it to challenge expectations about the industry at least a little. The only thing I found challenged was my ability to focus on the story. The book spends so much time trying to convince me that the reason men buy sex is because they're actually good at heart, and that pimps are actually good men. At least one of the "working girls" is underaged, but the only way this is confronted up is when Little (the main character, who is more like a prop in her own story) complains about how immature the child is. This child's interests are gardeing, sweets, and having nightly fucks with the grown man that made her a child prostitute in the first place. There is not a word about the realities and horror of children being forced into the sex trade.
The characters are shallow at best and painfully dull at worst. Though they have some agency to make their own decisions in the world of the book, it's very clear that the author considered them more puppets than people during the writing. They are shoved along from scene to scene, with words pulled out of their mouths rather than given freely, and there is no character development to show for it.
It's hard to say that a book is about women supporting women – which this is, because I can't think about anything else it could possibly be – when those women have nothing in common except that they really like having sex for money and also maybe are friends. The women, the driving forces and main characters of Sub Rosa, are constantly deferring to their "daddies" on every turn and professing their love for their pimps. This lack of agency is never reclaimed and never questioned.
The ending... did not make any sense given the rest of the story. It ends on a cliff hanger that I understand and saw coming from a mile off, but the rest of the plot was so convoluted that it falls flat. I could tell you how I would write the same story, but it would involve ripping up the original and leaving more than half the characters on the cutting room floor. Sub Rosa was, all in all, sub par.
November 30, 2020
Sub Rosa is a complex novel about the dark side of avoiding the real world with all of its dangers and freedoms. The writing is beautiful and electric with Amber Dawn’s vision of pain and magic. Dawn asks very difficult questions and mostly avoids giving answers. It's easy to get sucked into the heroine Little’s mindset and, like her, have a hard time looking beyond the magic and at the big picture - is Sub Rosa is a utopia or a form of Stockholm syndrome? For this reason, Sub Rosa is a book that both has a powerful message, and could easily lend itself to unfortunate implications. And while the ending addresses a lot of my concerns, it suffers from being overly subtle. When Little realizes the truth about herself and the other women, their gifts, and the Dark, her shock is disappointingly not palpable and yet it is vindicating. In the end, Little finds a painful but liberating core of honesty and bravery within herself. I found especially moving. Overall, I highly recommend Sub Rosa, especially if you're a fan of dark magical realism.
May 16, 2011
The title of this haunting first novel literally means "beneath the rose," usually applied to a secret meeting. In this case, Sub Rosa is an actual neighborhood that exists in its own dimension in a city that resembles Vancouver, Canada. It's a luxurious haven for sex workers who have literally paid their dues by serving an apprenticeship in a dangerous place called "the Dark."
Even in the real world, the sex trade has a culture of its own. Sexual orientation is fluid in that milieu, where pimps usually have several "wives" apiece, and where sex workers have motives both to compete with each other and to stick together. Like the shadowy regulars in gay bars of the 1950s, sex workers must cope with the disapproval of "straight" society and the constant risk of arrest. Like characters in role-playing games, sex workers base their working personas on their physical characteristics and abilities, and they have single names that their parents never gave them.
In this novel, the fog of misunderstanding and invisibility that separates the sex trade from the rest of society is a real barrier of dense air. The narrator is a teenage runaway called "Little" who crosses the barrier when she is rescued or abducted from a life of couch-surfing by a charismatic man named Arsen. He is a pimp who shows genuine care for his “wives,” and he has paid some dues of his own. Joining his "family" is the best option available to Little.
Little's mentor in Sub Rosa is a voluptuous woman called Candy; she is Arsen's "first wife," whose job is to train the newer recruits. She explains the vocation of the "Glories," a community of elegant prostitutes:
“’Men got no problem sexin' a girl who hates 'em, then tossin' her away after. Plenty of men visit the skids and do just that. But a Glory . . . a Glory can turn these devils good again. We get right inside them and pull out their deepest wants. We become more than sex, we nurse their deepest insides, the parts that aren't covered in city filth. We make them good again . . . and since we do this, we never have to be ill-treated no more. We get everythin' we want. Sub Rosa never dries up. Its wealth is endless, and it's all for us. Glories rule Sub Rosa, you'll see, Little. Soon you'll have everythin' you ever wanted.’”
The Glories even have magical powers. Soon after her debut (a big party like the “coming-out” of a nineteenth-century socialite), Little discovers that she has a phantom third hand that she can learn to control. The hand seems to be connected to her new ring, a black pearl that was assigned to her. This jewel, in turn, seems somehow connected to the Dark, that place of trauma which causes partial or total amnesia.
Is Sub Rosa a utopia or a dystopia? On the surface, it looks like an inviting alternative to “the skids,” yet those who live there have few or no memories of their past lives, and no contact with anyone from the outside except their customers. Little’s recovery of her real name and her growing desire to claim her own past leads to an epiphany: the only way back to reality is to willingly re-enter the Dark. Little becomes an unlikely heroine who leads her companions to their own truths.
This novel is both whimsical and profound, and seems likely to acquire cult status. It has already been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in several categories. Readers who have worked in the sex trade will recognize the author’s metaphorical world, and readers who have never gone there can find enlightenment in this book.
----------------------
Even in the real world, the sex trade has a culture of its own. Sexual orientation is fluid in that milieu, where pimps usually have several "wives" apiece, and where sex workers have motives both to compete with each other and to stick together. Like the shadowy regulars in gay bars of the 1950s, sex workers must cope with the disapproval of "straight" society and the constant risk of arrest. Like characters in role-playing games, sex workers base their working personas on their physical characteristics and abilities, and they have single names that their parents never gave them.
In this novel, the fog of misunderstanding and invisibility that separates the sex trade from the rest of society is a real barrier of dense air. The narrator is a teenage runaway called "Little" who crosses the barrier when she is rescued or abducted from a life of couch-surfing by a charismatic man named Arsen. He is a pimp who shows genuine care for his “wives,” and he has paid some dues of his own. Joining his "family" is the best option available to Little.
Little's mentor in Sub Rosa is a voluptuous woman called Candy; she is Arsen's "first wife," whose job is to train the newer recruits. She explains the vocation of the "Glories," a community of elegant prostitutes:
“’Men got no problem sexin' a girl who hates 'em, then tossin' her away after. Plenty of men visit the skids and do just that. But a Glory . . . a Glory can turn these devils good again. We get right inside them and pull out their deepest wants. We become more than sex, we nurse their deepest insides, the parts that aren't covered in city filth. We make them good again . . . and since we do this, we never have to be ill-treated no more. We get everythin' we want. Sub Rosa never dries up. Its wealth is endless, and it's all for us. Glories rule Sub Rosa, you'll see, Little. Soon you'll have everythin' you ever wanted.’”
The Glories even have magical powers. Soon after her debut (a big party like the “coming-out” of a nineteenth-century socialite), Little discovers that she has a phantom third hand that she can learn to control. The hand seems to be connected to her new ring, a black pearl that was assigned to her. This jewel, in turn, seems somehow connected to the Dark, that place of trauma which causes partial or total amnesia.
Is Sub Rosa a utopia or a dystopia? On the surface, it looks like an inviting alternative to “the skids,” yet those who live there have few or no memories of their past lives, and no contact with anyone from the outside except their customers. Little’s recovery of her real name and her growing desire to claim her own past leads to an epiphany: the only way back to reality is to willingly re-enter the Dark. Little becomes an unlikely heroine who leads her companions to their own truths.
This novel is both whimsical and profound, and seems likely to acquire cult status. It has already been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in several categories. Readers who have worked in the sex trade will recognize the author’s metaphorical world, and readers who have never gone there can find enlightenment in this book.
----------------------
November 8, 2015
Really torn on this one. There's a lot to love, but it never quite comes together. The front 1/3 of the book is good world building, and the back 1/3 is the story that the whole thing should have been. The middle 1/3 is a complete mess and I almost quit reading during it; even the writing style (good in the other parts) falls apart in a way that feels unedited and unrevised. (And in a minor grammatical quibble, some editor really needs to figure out 'to' vs 'too'.)
The book just didn't sit right with me, and never came together. It took me a while to figure out why, but it's this: the supposedly-paradisaical setting of Sub Rosa sounds like the worst, most insufferable place to live! The people, the attitudes, everything...what's supposed to be paradise, a refuge, just sounds like The Actual Worst. The author hints at self-awareness about this later in the book but never quite gets there. I leave highly, highly unconvinced that anyone in this world actually thinks they're better off than living in ~the city~.
But there really is a lot to love here. A few of the characters and their journey together really do work. It tells a good story, even if it tells it in only 1/3 of the book and rushes it to reach the finish. And it has a setting and a world that is very different.
This is the author's first novel, and as a first novel, there's a lot of potential here.
The book just didn't sit right with me, and never came together. It took me a while to figure out why, but it's this: the supposedly-paradisaical setting of Sub Rosa sounds like the worst, most insufferable place to live! The people, the attitudes, everything...what's supposed to be paradise, a refuge, just sounds like The Actual Worst. The author hints at self-awareness about this later in the book but never quite gets there. I leave highly, highly unconvinced that anyone in this world actually thinks they're better off than living in ~the city~.
But there really is a lot to love here. A few of the characters and their journey together really do work. It tells a good story, even if it tells it in only 1/3 of the book and rushes it to reach the finish. And it has a setting and a world that is very different.
This is the author's first novel, and as a first novel, there's a lot of potential here.
September 23, 2019
2 stars = it was ok
This was a big meh for me.
I can only give this 2 stars which is sad because it was a hell of a concept and super unique. I can't whole heartedly recommend this to anyone.
This was a big meh for me.
I can only give this 2 stars which is sad because it was a hell of a concept and super unique. I can't whole heartedly recommend this to anyone.
November 2, 2024
loved this so so much. completely had me from the beginning until the end, i loved this world and i loved dawn’s writing - the low amount of reviews and the amount of them that are negative is insane to me. i really think if this came out as a new release today it would be insanely popular
August 23, 2015
I've never read such a accurate seeming depiction of sex work, and the urban fantasy side of this is top notch. I wish it had had a more compelling ending, but maybe I just read it too fast.
September 29, 2022
So strange and oddly absorbing. So much world building for a world adjacent to our own
February 26, 2014
It's hard for me to find words to describe this book, it's narrator, and her journey without foraying into the realm of cliche, or defining it by a process of deferral - ie. telling you not what it is but what it isn't.
The way I describe it to people when I know they won't read it and feel like startling them is, "It's a story about magical prostitutes." But that's an oversimplification. This is a story about growing up, a magic realist savior story, a post-feminist magical realist tale of fluid identity and sexuality. I hate when people use the word "gritty" to describe a book, because it's usually not true, but this is a story that manages to be truly gritty without sacrificing language for shock value. It is romantic in the way that pushing your lover out of the way of a speeding train is romantic, deep and tragic and without frills.
"Little" is the protagonist of this story. She is someone who has never been special until she becomes so, someone who has only been average-looking until she is touched by the magic of another place. The world she lived in, our world, was dingy and the world of Sub Rosa has the bright, hyper-real feeling of early technicolor, which only makes the Dark at it's borders more menacing.
Read it.
The way I describe it to people when I know they won't read it and feel like startling them is, "It's a story about magical prostitutes." But that's an oversimplification. This is a story about growing up, a magic realist savior story, a post-feminist magical realist tale of fluid identity and sexuality. I hate when people use the word "gritty" to describe a book, because it's usually not true, but this is a story that manages to be truly gritty without sacrificing language for shock value. It is romantic in the way that pushing your lover out of the way of a speeding train is romantic, deep and tragic and without frills.
"Little" is the protagonist of this story. She is someone who has never been special until she becomes so, someone who has only been average-looking until she is touched by the magic of another place. The world she lived in, our world, was dingy and the world of Sub Rosa has the bright, hyper-real feeling of early technicolor, which only makes the Dark at it's borders more menacing.
Read it.
April 22, 2018
THIS IS MY FAVOURITE GENRE DEFINING MAGICAL HOE Scary fairy tales.
We experience a magic secret alley filled with opulent brownstones full of Girls who hav gotten themselves woven in to a life of constant tricks and diner food and its like new orleans or amsterdam but its actually east hastings. The magical Hoe alley is explored out to its badlands of the forgotten trix down the alley styx. Our narrator is a punky teen named Little, uncertain if she needs more in life than a 247 sex with strange men powered piles of money and fresh pies maniacal pixie pj party.
no book in the past decade has made me identified with the confused motivations of Little; more succinctly: I haven't wished i was the character in the book i was devouring this much since Rat from Avocado of Death.
We experience a magic secret alley filled with opulent brownstones full of Girls who hav gotten themselves woven in to a life of constant tricks and diner food and its like new orleans or amsterdam but its actually east hastings. The magical Hoe alley is explored out to its badlands of the forgotten trix down the alley styx. Our narrator is a punky teen named Little, uncertain if she needs more in life than a 247 sex with strange men powered piles of money and fresh pies maniacal pixie pj party.
no book in the past decade has made me identified with the confused motivations of Little; more succinctly: I haven't wished i was the character in the book i was devouring this much since Rat from Avocado of Death.
January 2, 2014
Vancouver writer Amber Dawn’s Sub Rosa, published in 2010 by the radical and remarkable publishing house Arsenal Pulp Press, is a fantasy novel that is both familiar and fantastic. It deals with (what should be) a recognized reality in its depiction of gutsy, gritty, strong women doing sex work in Vancouver’s East end. But Dawn—a writer gutsy, gritty, and strong like her characters—has imagined a world that is a glittery yet tough fable twist on the story of a teenage runaway turned sex worker....
see the rest of my review at http://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wor...
see the rest of my review at http://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wor...
December 11, 2010
Amazing. Really, that's the best 'review' I can provide. Not like anything I've read in a long, long time. And really well-written.
March 25, 2018
Amber Dawn is one of those serendipitous finds that have become more common since joining GoodReads a decade ago. I can’t remember where I came across her name but I’m glad I took the time to read her autobiography and this novel, and plan to read more as opportunity arises.
I’m going to recommend this book but with a host of caveats because I haven’t a clue whether anyone would like it or not. My profile – 50-year-old heterosexual white male raised in Missouri during the ‘70s and early ‘80s (yeah…sigh) whose life bears no resemblance to either the author’s or her characters’ – would suggest to most computer-generated algorithms that this is not the book for me. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed Sub Rosa; I learned something about myself and felt a connection to the characters.
A final thought: One of the things that struck me reading Sub Rosa is the author’s sympathy and nonjudgmental attitude toward her characters. Second, the least sympathetic, is treated with respect and given dimensions explaining her hostility and anger. The Glories who turn back from the Dark are equally respected. It’s a decision they make. The fact that they make it knowing full well the options makes it as legitimate as Second’s or Little’s. I think Dawn would argue that Little’s is the better one but she respects that there are other perspectives, other options. (And, in the end, there’s nothing stopping the Glories from emulating Little; who knows but that one day First or Isabella or Dearest might find the courage to follow her.)
I’m going to recommend this book but with a host of caveats because I haven’t a clue whether anyone would like it or not. My profile – 50-year-old heterosexual white male raised in Missouri during the ‘70s and early ‘80s (yeah…sigh) whose life bears no resemblance to either the author’s or her characters’ – would suggest to most computer-generated algorithms that this is not the book for me. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed Sub Rosa; I learned something about myself and felt a connection to the characters.
A final thought: One of the things that struck me reading Sub Rosa is the author’s sympathy and nonjudgmental attitude toward her characters. Second, the least sympathetic, is treated with respect and given dimensions explaining her hostility and anger. The Glories who turn back from the Dark are equally respected. It’s a decision they make. The fact that they make it knowing full well the options makes it as legitimate as Second’s or Little’s. I think Dawn would argue that Little’s is the better one but she respects that there are other perspectives, other options. (And, in the end, there’s nothing stopping the Glories from emulating Little; who knows but that one day First or Isabella or Dearest might find the courage to follow her.)
November 12, 2017
I devoured this one and would definitely read it again. An engrossing urban fantasy tale with a truly unique and imaginative setting. I loved its explorations of the role of memory in shaping who we are, and all of the quirky characters. At points the plot got sidetracked and the denouement happened perhaps too suddenly and ambiguously, after a long enticing build up to something that one expected to be a bit more tangible. It's one of those books that gives you more questions than answers. The way the plot is structured and the pacing is reminiscent of a mystery novel, so it is a little disappointing that we never find out the meaning of some of the "clues" we're given along the way. Nevertheless, I give it five stars for pure imaginativeness and enjoyability. The politics of sex work are nuanced in the novel, but if you have an aversion to reading about sex work this is probably not the book for you. I agree with others this book also needed better copy-editing, as it had a bevy of typos and grammatical errors.
February 24, 2021
Totally drew me in! Couldn't put it down. So nice have a book that makes me excited to read
4 stars just because the ending left me wanting so much more.
4 stars just because the ending left me wanting so much more.
January 29, 2023
This writing style just wasn't for me. I talk about this book in this wrap up video.
October 5, 2019
Sub Rosa is a stunning, disorienting and extraordinary journey into a parallel world, one which mirrors and illuminates our own. The first novel by talented multi-media artist and fellow Vancouverite, Amber Dawn, this book delivers a tender, touching, sexy story which I found, towards the end, to be also almost unbearably suspenseful. The back cover blurbs offer a bewildering array of comparisons, but really this book stands on its own as a unique blend of bitter truth, insights, hope, and overarching metaphors. Did I already say extraordinary? Well, I say it again. Extraordinary!
September 29, 2020
5/5 stars - what i loved about sub rosa was how it painted a vivid picture from start to finish. we are presented in the beginning with an amateur, blank slate protagonist who is our eyes into the world of sub rosa, an enchanting strip of street populated by glories, or magical sex workers. the idea sounds ridiculous in theory but in execution, it is smart and poignant. the character’s personalities and love for each other bleeds through the pages. while sub rosa could have benefitted from better story planning, i really enjoyed it and was totally immersed, devouring the book in a single day.
September 26, 2016
This is without a doubt one of the best books I've ever read. Sub Rosa is almost familiar, it has aspects to it of every single club or brothel I've worked in, the Glories with their magical powers truly due represent the magical aspects of the sex workers I've worked with over the years. This book should be on highschool reading lists and be made into some kind of movie.
November 24, 2014
What can I say, this book blows me away on so many levels.
July 13, 2010
Stunning wonderful book; beautifully written
April 12, 2011
I loved this book. Very interesting tale of a woman taking her future into her own hands but also being the victim of circumstances. Very well written, I look forward to more from this author.
May 4, 2013
Hints of JT Leroy, but otherwise awesome.
July 9, 2015
Fantastical, romantic and gritty. This book was enthralling and gorgeous, weird and eerie in all the best ways.
July 22, 2010
Amber Dawn creates this quirky, compelling world that's not like anything else I've read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews