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Bitch Money
Working in Spain for the summer, away from the cosseted atmosphere of her parents' house and the dull prospect of university, Louise found life as exciting as it had ever been. She was turning heads and making money - good money. Away from the criminal underworld of Manchester, Jonathan believed things had finally taken an upward turn. But his past always did have a nasty habit of catching up with him and Jonathan's past was particularly nasty. Scams, drugs, prostitution, and then there was the TV heist he botched which had forced him to flee to Spain in the first place. But now the mob knew where he was and they were out to get him.
Hardcover
First published August 4, 2012
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About the author
Joanna Traynor
4 books1 followerJoanna Traynor is the author of Sister Josephine, Divine and Bitch Money, all published by Bloomsbury, and an educational television producer/writer.
Joanna was born in London but raised in foster care in Chester. She is of mixed race - her mother was a daughter of Irish immigrants and her father Nigerian.
Her first novel, Sister Josephine, won the SAGA Prize in 1996[1:]. Joanna described the novel as: "..a semi-autobiographical account of a foster child on a white northern working class council estate and her experience of hospital life as a nurse in Liverpool. I used my own childhood as a canvas and painted things on it." Joanna is passionate about writing, communications, technology and relationship counselling.
Joanna was born in London but raised in foster care in Chester. She is of mixed race - her mother was a daughter of Irish immigrants and her father Nigerian.
Her first novel, Sister Josephine, won the SAGA Prize in 1996[1:]. Joanna described the novel as: "..a semi-autobiographical account of a foster child on a white northern working class council estate and her experience of hospital life as a nurse in Liverpool. I used my own childhood as a canvas and painted things on it." Joanna is passionate about writing, communications, technology and relationship counselling.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 24, 2025
Absolutely dreadful. What really doesn't help is that this book is really lacking in identity. Is it trying to be a crime thriller? A satire of Brits abroad? A coming of age tale? A kitchen sink drama? A cautionary glimpse at the dark underbelly of expat life?
Is not funny, exciting or insightful. It's not well written, and the characters are either cardboard cut outs (Louise,Chas,Sammy) or such iredeemable arseholes they are almost unreadable (Jonathan,Jason). Despite it's relatively short length it drags, repeating itself, indulging tedious overlong scenes where nothing happens (about 25% of the book is chatting on a balcony), either to the characters, between them, or within them.
All of these issues are compounded by how...grimy?....the book is. I don't mean that in a good way of course - not gritty, just gross. For example, there is a scene early on which a character does a shit in a pub (this warrants a whole page description) and gets faeces on his hands. He cleans up as best he can, walks home, argues with his wife and son, and 15 pages later STILL has so much shit on his hands that his son can smell it, and remarks upon it. Someone CHOSE to write this. There is further unecessary grotesquery (describing the smell of a womans genitals as "a guff of fresh rice pudding") and I say unecessary as it does nothing to advance the miniscule plot.
Allied to this scatalogical focus is an undercurrent of misogyny - from dismissing equal rights as 14 year girls rebelling, to Jonathan's attempts to become a pimp,to overt and laughable objectification ("When he had a woman,he'd drive along with his hand on her tits,and the fish and chips gave him the exact same feeling."), to domestic subjugation ("The polka dot poo on the pan,scatter-gunned since Tuesday. She could clean that up.") Probably it's in order to demonstrate what a cock Jonathan is, but it doesn't make it any more readable.
As a free gift with your misogyny, you get a more general contempt - holiday makers likened variously to animals, corpses, litter and in one instance the holocaust (!). It's all very well having a bitter and childish protagonist, but when most of the book is written from their POV it becomes very wearing, and you'd hope there would be some payoff. There is not.
None of these problems are helped by smaller but annoying issues with, for want of a better word, continuity. A man gets a suntan at night, Jonathan and Louise have spontaneous sex and then she fills his bathroom with mutiple knickers and bras (how many was she wearing?!?), cars pulling away in 2nd gear, people who never take money from their friends doing just that in an adjacent scene. If the author can expend so much effort describing poo, they can get this other stuff right.
The use of language is irritating too - the writing style obscures rather than reveals, and the same themes and topics come up ad nauseum. There is also a per peeve of mine - writing accents "yer", "'ang on" etc etc. In my view when done well it adds basically nothing, when it's half arsed and inconsistent like it is here, it's an active detractor. We also see the same pitfall in "Bitch Money" as in a lot of other books - repetitive description of the sea and sky. You can keep all that thanks; you aren't writing Moby Dick.
Right, the plot then. There isn't one really. A banal heist gets fouled up. The protagonists run away, then come back. Some horribly dark things happen to Louise.
I cannot imagine who would want to read this book. It's unpleasant in every way, yet also crushingly boring. It's badly written, has minimal characterisation and no real plot. It says nothing clever about Brits abroad or Expat life.Avoid, avoid, avoid.
Is not funny, exciting or insightful. It's not well written, and the characters are either cardboard cut outs (Louise,Chas,Sammy) or such iredeemable arseholes they are almost unreadable (Jonathan,Jason). Despite it's relatively short length it drags, repeating itself, indulging tedious overlong scenes where nothing happens (about 25% of the book is chatting on a balcony), either to the characters, between them, or within them.
All of these issues are compounded by how...grimy?....the book is. I don't mean that in a good way of course - not gritty, just gross. For example, there is a scene early on which a character does a shit in a pub (this warrants a whole page description) and gets faeces on his hands. He cleans up as best he can, walks home, argues with his wife and son, and 15 pages later STILL has so much shit on his hands that his son can smell it, and remarks upon it. Someone CHOSE to write this. There is further unecessary grotesquery (describing the smell of a womans genitals as "a guff of fresh rice pudding") and I say unecessary as it does nothing to advance the miniscule plot.
Allied to this scatalogical focus is an undercurrent of misogyny - from dismissing equal rights as 14 year girls rebelling, to Jonathan's attempts to become a pimp,to overt and laughable objectification ("When he had a woman,he'd drive along with his hand on her tits,and the fish and chips gave him the exact same feeling."), to domestic subjugation ("The polka dot poo on the pan,scatter-gunned since Tuesday. She could clean that up.") Probably it's in order to demonstrate what a cock Jonathan is, but it doesn't make it any more readable.
As a free gift with your misogyny, you get a more general contempt - holiday makers likened variously to animals, corpses, litter and in one instance the holocaust (!). It's all very well having a bitter and childish protagonist, but when most of the book is written from their POV it becomes very wearing, and you'd hope there would be some payoff. There is not.
None of these problems are helped by smaller but annoying issues with, for want of a better word, continuity. A man gets a suntan at night, Jonathan and Louise have spontaneous sex and then she fills his bathroom with mutiple knickers and bras (how many was she wearing?!?), cars pulling away in 2nd gear, people who never take money from their friends doing just that in an adjacent scene. If the author can expend so much effort describing poo, they can get this other stuff right.
The use of language is irritating too - the writing style obscures rather than reveals, and the same themes and topics come up ad nauseum. There is also a per peeve of mine - writing accents "yer", "'ang on" etc etc. In my view when done well it adds basically nothing, when it's half arsed and inconsistent like it is here, it's an active detractor. We also see the same pitfall in "Bitch Money" as in a lot of other books - repetitive description of the sea and sky. You can keep all that thanks; you aren't writing Moby Dick.
Right, the plot then. There isn't one really. A banal heist gets fouled up. The protagonists run away, then come back. Some horribly dark things happen to Louise.
I cannot imagine who would want to read this book. It's unpleasant in every way, yet also crushingly boring. It's badly written, has minimal characterisation and no real plot. It says nothing clever about Brits abroad or Expat life.Avoid, avoid, avoid.
Displaying 1 of 1 review