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Bo Derek Book
62 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1980
4 people want to read
About the author
Bo Derek
2 books6 followersBo Derek is a Golden Globe-nominated American film actress and model.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 21, 2019
I was a teen-age book thief - read on -
In the fall of 1980, when this book was published, I was 14 going on 15, an adolescent becoming a young adult, a young male still a virgin, but well aware of sex. I might have been exposed to porn by this point, but maybe not. I didn't see "10" in the cinema, which came out in 1979 - my parents were way too protective/puritanical - but I must have known who Bo Derek was, if from nowhere else than from my peers in high school. And I was a book-lover already, and a book-buyer, and sometime that fall, on a trip to the Cherryvale Mall in Rockford, IL, I found a stack of this hot and sexy tome in the local B. Daltons (or Waldenbooks, can't remember which for sure) and - for the first and only time - I grabbed a copy, put it under my coat, and lifted it out of the store and into my grubby little horny world. I probably could have actually bought it, now that I think about it - I don't think it was in any kind of "adults only" spot - but for whatever reason, I didn't, and maybe didn't think of it. I was a cowardly lad as well as a horny and repressed one, so rather than deal with the disapproving stare of a store clerk, and the possibility that I would be told "no" or have to show an ID I didn't have, I shoplifted it, and I was home free, literally.
Or so I thought. Unfortunately, I had to not only get it out of the store, but into the car, and I didn't have the keys, and didn't have my driver's license, and was too scared of mom and my younger brother finding out what I'd done, and so the book ended up underneath the car instead of inside it with me - you see I took it out there, not being able to hold it under my coat while I waited, and also not being able to come up with an excuse as to why I should get the car keys. When I rejoined mom and brother, I tried for the next several minutes or an hour (hey, almost 40 years ago, I don't remember) desperately to come up with some way of getting that sexy thing into the car with me, and back home, without being found out. I couldn't.
Flash forward over the decades, and I've actually obtained a copy of said book, finally - actually I think I may have had another for a while in the intervening years, but I probably sold it, probably for more than what I paid for this one - this has not exactly become a heavily collectible book, and it's probably less valuable now than 10-15 years ago given the market's strong downturn. And now I can look at this book with an eye jaundiced by both a much more "sophisticated" appreciation of photography and the female form, and an eye and mind colored by much more sex, both real and imagined. And, well, it's just not that exciting or beautiful as either an art book or a dirty book for adolescent boys. Much of John Derek's photography is gauzy and lightly filtered in a David Hamilton sort of way, and most of the shots aren't nudes, and aren't particularly artful. And being a movie fan most of the past 40 years, I've gotten to know not just the limited work of Ms. Derek but also her predecessors among Mr. Derek's wives, Ursula Andress and Linda Evans. The guy just kept marrying the same exact type, didn't he? And it's not my type, and I think in the case of a product like this, that's a fair assessment; it's all pictures of one lady, and if you don't find her all that attractive, well, it's going to affect your judgment isn't it?
Mediocre, soft, un-erotic photos - 1 star
An overrated "beauty" - 2 star
Mixed memories both humorous and pathetic - 4 stars
I guess I have to go with 2. For the serious Bo fans only, and maybe a few like me who want to relive adolescent obsessions.
In the fall of 1980, when this book was published, I was 14 going on 15, an adolescent becoming a young adult, a young male still a virgin, but well aware of sex. I might have been exposed to porn by this point, but maybe not. I didn't see "10" in the cinema, which came out in 1979 - my parents were way too protective/puritanical - but I must have known who Bo Derek was, if from nowhere else than from my peers in high school. And I was a book-lover already, and a book-buyer, and sometime that fall, on a trip to the Cherryvale Mall in Rockford, IL, I found a stack of this hot and sexy tome in the local B. Daltons (or Waldenbooks, can't remember which for sure) and - for the first and only time - I grabbed a copy, put it under my coat, and lifted it out of the store and into my grubby little horny world. I probably could have actually bought it, now that I think about it - I don't think it was in any kind of "adults only" spot - but for whatever reason, I didn't, and maybe didn't think of it. I was a cowardly lad as well as a horny and repressed one, so rather than deal with the disapproving stare of a store clerk, and the possibility that I would be told "no" or have to show an ID I didn't have, I shoplifted it, and I was home free, literally.
Or so I thought. Unfortunately, I had to not only get it out of the store, but into the car, and I didn't have the keys, and didn't have my driver's license, and was too scared of mom and my younger brother finding out what I'd done, and so the book ended up underneath the car instead of inside it with me - you see I took it out there, not being able to hold it under my coat while I waited, and also not being able to come up with an excuse as to why I should get the car keys. When I rejoined mom and brother, I tried for the next several minutes or an hour (hey, almost 40 years ago, I don't remember) desperately to come up with some way of getting that sexy thing into the car with me, and back home, without being found out. I couldn't.
Flash forward over the decades, and I've actually obtained a copy of said book, finally - actually I think I may have had another for a while in the intervening years, but I probably sold it, probably for more than what I paid for this one - this has not exactly become a heavily collectible book, and it's probably less valuable now than 10-15 years ago given the market's strong downturn. And now I can look at this book with an eye jaundiced by both a much more "sophisticated" appreciation of photography and the female form, and an eye and mind colored by much more sex, both real and imagined. And, well, it's just not that exciting or beautiful as either an art book or a dirty book for adolescent boys. Much of John Derek's photography is gauzy and lightly filtered in a David Hamilton sort of way, and most of the shots aren't nudes, and aren't particularly artful. And being a movie fan most of the past 40 years, I've gotten to know not just the limited work of Ms. Derek but also her predecessors among Mr. Derek's wives, Ursula Andress and Linda Evans. The guy just kept marrying the same exact type, didn't he? And it's not my type, and I think in the case of a product like this, that's a fair assessment; it's all pictures of one lady, and if you don't find her all that attractive, well, it's going to affect your judgment isn't it?
Mediocre, soft, un-erotic photos - 1 star
An overrated "beauty" - 2 star
Mixed memories both humorous and pathetic - 4 stars
I guess I have to go with 2. For the serious Bo fans only, and maybe a few like me who want to relive adolescent obsessions.
Displaying 1 of 1 review