Playground: A Childhood Lost Inside the Playboy Mansion

by Jennifer Saginor

You are six years old. Every day after school your father takes you to a sprawling castle filled with exotic animals, bowls of candy, and half-naked women catering to your every need.

You have your own room. You have new friends. You have an uncle Hef who's always there for you.

Welcome to the world of Playground, the true story of a young girl who grew up inside the Playboy Mansion. By the time she was fourteen, she'd done countless drugs, had a secret affair with Hef's girlfriend, and was already losing her grip on reality. Schoolwork, family, and ""ordinary people"" had no meaning behind the iron gates of the Mansion, where celebrities frolicked, pool parties abounded, and her own father -- Hugh Hefner's personal physician and best friend, the man nicknamed "Dr. Feel Good" -- typically held court.

Every day was a party, every night was an adventure, and through it all was a young girl falling faster and faster down the rabbit hole -- trying desperately hard not to get lost.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Biography Memoir, Ebooks, Sexuality, Autobiography

288 pages, Hardcover

First published June 14, 2005

About the author

JENNIFER SAGINOR was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, where she still lives. She has worked in production and development at Spelling Entertainment, Miramax Films, and the Motion Picture Corporation of America.

While the surrealism of the Playboy Mansion and glitz of Hollywood provides a compelling hook, the heart of the story explores the complex, confused, and painful dynamics of family relationships from a child's point of view.

Reviews

[Sarah Kathleen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Um, it's just really bad. I was seduced by a jacket design that I feel is far too good for the contents. The book reads like a Gossip Girl book written by apes; every time Saginor enters a room or introduces someone new (which is usually by just naming them and then 12 pages later mentioning that they're a Playmate or a classmate or her mom or whatever), she names the labels that everyone is wearing. She's also constantly mentioning what song is on the radio, to the point that you question the veracity of those memories and, by extension, the rest of the book. Like, really, Jennifer Saginor, you can remember that "True Blue" by Madonna was playing on the radio while you were getting ready to go to a nightclub in your sequined tube top and Versace jeans and Isse Miyaki high heels in 1987? Really? The dialogue is also incredibly trite.

My main issue with the book is how Saginor refers to almost every single woman in the book as a whore. She's a hooker, she's a coke whore, she's a slut, on and on and on. Wanting to know more about her (and specifically what she does that makes her so great now besides writing a mediocre book that profits off of the one person who she says treated her well and allowed her to be a child, Hugh Hefner), of course I googled her. I found interviews where she says that because of the way her father raised her, she can't respect women and views all women as whores and commodities. That's great if you want to blame your father for your misogyny, but I just think that's bullshit. My dad raised me to think that the Grateful Dead are the greatest band ever. Guess what, I grew up, realized he was probably high that whole time, and used my own brain for myself.

I'm not usually this critical, but sometimes you have to be. On the plus side, though, it's a quick read. I read it from start to finish in about 24 hours. That includes seven hours of sleep and seven and a half hours of work. So if you are doing a read-a-thon or have a bomb strapped to you that will go off if you don't read at least one book every day, this is a good one to look into.

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you want lurid, crazy, mind-fucking content about the playboy mansion read only the first half of the book.
If you can stomach a memoir about a self-obsessed, selfish, asshole father and how he completely fucks up his daughter, continue reading to the end.

Also, the author, bless her heart, isn't the worst writing I've read. But it's close.

There were several things that bothered me about her writing style. She would make a great dj--she kept on stating what was always playing in the background, with only once or twice with it having any relevance to the scene at hand. She should call for fashion shows. Every time a character walked in she named what they were wearing down to the brand, color, and fabric. Is this really necessary? We get the people in this world are looks obsessed, you don't need to drive the point home every time someone walks in a room. Would a six year old REALLY know that someone is wearing a lacroix (I can't even spell it at 27...) scarf? Which brings me to the most annoying aspect. Saginor needs to decide if she is looking at this memoir through kid eyes or through adult eyes making sense of her crazy childhood. She kept on switching and it was unnerving and inconsistent.

That being said, holy shit! Everything you've imagined and more goes down at the playboy mansion....if it wasn't for the salacious content this book would have been a one-star book.

[Felisa Rosa · Rating 2 out of 5]

The memoir of poor little rich girl Jennifer Saginor, whose father was Hugh Hefner's close friend and personal physician.
I found myself actually thumbing the title pages to see if this book even listed an editor. The quality of writing defies description, so I thought I'd include a few of my favorite lines:

"My stomach tightens, all urge for laughter is gone as adrenaline rushes inside me like a volcano ready to explore. Rage rips through my skin and starts to pulsate. However, I stand there in silence because a part of me knows that she is linked to the Mob and really could have us killed."

"Inside I was hysterical--there were Uzis and coke whores in the house--but outwardly I knew I needed to remain absolutely composed."

Although the above lines have a certain entertainment value, the book suffers from lack of editing in other ways: some parts seem disjointed or out of sequence, and Saginor often follows scenes with her retrospective (still completely immature) psychobabble interpretation of them.

All of which leaves me wondering why I read this book in a day.
I couldn't put it down. Have you ever noticed that poorly written books are usually the quickest reads? Why is that?
Why do I bother to attempt to write well when the stuff we find totally compelling is trash? Maybe I'm getting too deep here. There really are some compelling and genuinely beautiful descriptions of 80's fashions. For example:
"Boys squeezed into tight leather pants and Spandex biker shorts circle the scene, shirtless beneath lambskin jackets. Girls sweat to Madonna's "Holiday," their blown-out bangs sturdily held in place with red glitter hairspray."

Between that, crippling self pity, elicit love-affairs with playboy bunnies, and lots of entertaining name-dropping, what's not to love?

[Rachel the Page-Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a sad, messed-up book. What a sad, messed-up life. Jennifer Saginor’s father happened to be the personal doctor of Hugh Hefner, so Jennifer and her little sister, Savannah, ended up spending a lot of time at the Playboy Mansion after their parents’ divorce. This book is an accounting of her time there, and it doesn’t seem to hold much back.

When she and her sister were in elementary school, it seemed so cool to hang out at the Mansion - there were monkeys to feed, birds to watch, unlimited room service, pools filled with naked but friendly girls who loved to dress up and dote on the sisters - and their dad was right in the middle of all of it. Eventually, pulled in two directions by their parents, the sisters split up. Jennifer stayed with her dad (who had his own house, but mostly lived at the Mansion) and her little sister stayed with their mother (who seemed like a relatively normal person). What a difference a choice like that makes…

I’ve read a couple other books about the Playboy Mansion, and while the salacious details are always fun to read, I usually find myself having very little sympathy for any girl who moved in there. People like Holly Madison and Kendra Wilkinson made decisions as adults to adopt a certain sexual lifestyle in exchange for fame and luxury. Any attempt to make themselves sound used or broken just sounds whiny, because they willingly chose that life.

Jennifer, however, did not choose this life. She may have alienated her mother and put up with a lot of emotional abuse from her father to be the cool teenager who got to be at the Mansion, but she was still just a child. She wasn’t even old enough to drive when the hard drugs started, the casual sex started, and part of me aches for how empty her existence was. When she did get to see her father, he was usually having sex with a random hopeful, or sitting by the pool rating women’s bodies. Not the greatest of role models - in fact, it sounded like Hef was more normal towards her than her own dad was.

This book is a super easy read…as a result of the Mansion lifestyle, the author barely finished high school and it shows in the writing. (Her tutors did her work.) There is a lot of name-dropping, a lot of stories and a lot of sex. Like, everywhere. Like, everyone. Somehow this girl remembers every outfit (including designers) she ever wore or saw other people wearing, and the book is filled with things like “she walked in with her Gucci wrap dress, red Prada shoes and Harry Winston jewelry” or “I decided to wear my faded Sassoon jeans, white Keds and two bangles on my wrist”. Then she calls the other people label whores. That got old fast.

I enjoyed this book though, because it was different from the usual “woe is me, I was a Playmate” writing you see about the Playboy Mansion. This was much more of an inside look from eyes that had no business seeing the things they were seeing. I’d give it a four for content, but a three for the writing style. It’s surprisingly a pretty good read that was hard to put down and shows a totally different look at life in the Playboy Mansion. 3.5 rounded up to four.

UPDATE, January 2022: The new show “Secrets of Playboy” on A&E says that this author’s dad was one of Hef’s lovers. That and the allegations of abuse, rapes, sexual assault, overdoses, deaths, etc. - it makes this all even crazier!

[Autumn Feathers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agghh, okay there are a lot of reviews for this already. Mixed mostly, complaints about the author, editing, etc, I don’t think people realize this wasn’t written to entertain. At the heart of the glamour that is growing up at the playboy mansion, I think we overlook the fact that she was caught in the middle of her parents, the manipulation, and exposure to things was traumatic… I don’t know. It was disjointed but I think this was more a therapeutic purge then publicity.
Take it or leave it. It made my heart hurt.

[DelGal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some may be turned off at first glance when reading the synopsis of this book about a girl's life growing up in the playboy mansion, while others, like me, may be intrigued. Sure, there are a ton of plastic bimbos and craziness, but it is somehow fascinating, a life in the infamous mansion. The author takes you on a wonderfully gritty ride of screwed up highs and wildly horrible lows of her life living not just inside the playboy mansion, but of the bizarre relationship she has with her crazy father, unavailable mother, and poor younger sister. The images are wonderfully described, feeling as if you're right there in the 80's riding along with her in stretch limos to wild club after even wilder nights at the mansion. I couldn't put this book down.

[Antoinette · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was instantly put off from this book by glancing at the back. Ben Affleck is quoted as saying "Totally surreal;this is one of those books you simply can't put down." I suppose a tiny part of me enjoys reading so much because it has absolutely nothing to do with Ben Affleck. Apparently, I have been wrong all of these years. This is the story of a spoiled, selfish little girl that justifies becoming a self destructive, bitchy, snob by blaming her childhood and parents. In that respect it has the potential to be a great memoir. However, Saignor is never able to justify being a terrible writer. A good writer can take a story and fill it with humanity and thought. A terrible writer can take an interesting life, suck all of the potential out of it, and make it mundane. I imagine the errors in Saignor's writing are similar to the errors in her life. She overlooks things, dwells on things, it is repetitious, confusing, bland, and reads like the diary of a silicone valley junior high schoolers. There are many characters in this story that deserve emphasis compassion, but more description is given to outfits and songs blaring in the background. Yes Jennifer, we realize you have super dark taste in music because your messed up life, is that what you want? Is that why you wrote this book? Not many people have the ability to make a childhood full of drugs and sex mundane, she should be rewarded. One wonders about the credibility of her narration. The entire story is told within the first four chapters, the rest is just needless sensationalism. In the end, Saignor comes off as more pathetic than her coked-out father. Worse than the B-list celebrities she mocks, she is just a spoiled little girl that just so happened to be passing through. No doubt she overplays her importance in the life of the bunnies, and Hugh Hefner himself. It is hard to sympathize with a someone that breaks up with her soap opera star boyfriend and drive drunkenly into someone else's car. Paris Hilton complex, maybe? Saignor seems to want pity, but as a sibling, daughter, student, person, etc. she comes across as drab and snobby. Constant name-dropping end this "startlingly honest glimpse into a childhood lost in the Playboy mansion." I would rather listen to a drunk sorority girl than read this self-pitying memoir, at least they are working their way through college. Saignor has never worked, makes it obvious she didn't do any work to complete her education, and seems to lack the ability to care about the people around her. Perhaps she should have spent some time learning how to write. It is a poorly written book about stupid people that act poorly. Not an expose, not uplifting, not interesting, it mocks itself. No doubt, Saignor would write about herself "She was a spoiled brat that pranced around the mansion getting fucked up and making out with bunnies. She was a bitchy slut, and her book made that obvious." No insight, nothing to be gained, and she has obviously hurt herself more than her parents ever have. For a moment it made me reflect on how traumatized many of us are by childhood. It made me wonder how sad that kid swinging alone really might be. However, like Saignor's childhood and the meaning of this book, the thought was quickly lost.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read for our book club. It's our "trashy summer beach read." I'm happy I'm done with it. It's just a lot of name-dropping and whining. At first I thought that she had learned something from her analysis of her dad's behavior, but no...she acknowledged several times throughout the book that, like her father, she uses people and is generally misogynistic, but at the end of the book she is still calling everyone sluts and whores and being generally evil to other people around her. So I guess the book is just her way of feeling sorry for herself because of the mess her life was and blaming it on her parents.

I should also add that there are numerous sentences with antecedent-referent issues, or subject-verb agreement issues. It's too bad she did not hire a ghostwriter.

[Gabba · Rating 3 out of 5]

consumed this within a day—the ups and downs of a rich little socialite who grew up in the playboy mansion. intrigue and drama galore.

unfortunately, i think this memoir suffers in terms of its pacing and immature retrospection. i don't mind the writing cadence, but some sections of her life were hardly mentioned, only skimmed (like 4-year college experience being summed up in a couple paragraphs).

i liked it overall, but feel like it would have benefited from some more self-analysis and connection of events, rather than flying through day by day.

[Em · Rating 1 out of 5]

exploitative, fetishistic and braggadocious… kept waiting for the book to redeem itself and for the author to show some introspection or critical reflection but it never came. also just poorly written.

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the title, most of this book is about the author's relationship with her father and doesn't even occur in the mansion. But Playground: A Childhood Lost Inside My Father's Malibu Home wouldn't sell as many books.

The author's father was Hugh Hefner's personal physician and best friend for decades. When her parents divorced she began spending time at the Playboy Mansion to see her father and eventually moved to her father's house, going to the mansion after school. Playground attempts to analyze the damage her father's attitude towards parenting--and her parents' way of using her as a weapon against one another--has done in her life.

The promised titillation is there: pre-teen drugs, wild parties, celebrities in compromising or embarrassing positions, teenage love affair with Hefner's girlfriend, mob hit-men, South American drug runners, and a parade of fashion and music that covers twenty-plus years of L.A. excess. But the book isn't as lurid as the cover copy suggests. Saginor uses the outrageous episodes to plot how she changed from angry at one parent to angry at another, from excited to scared, and from enthused to numb.

The story goes from tabloid to insight when Jennifer begins to drift off the trajectory her father is following. She implies that her father was getting more extreme (and in one part--while using injected drugs--he almost certainly was), but this coincides with Jennifer's late teens and we can also see her own maturation in the way she recognizes how out-of-touch her father is with the notion of consequences.

We've seen this sort of book before, of course, whether in celebrity tell-alls or Brett Easton Ellis-alike fiction. Saginor's version is interesting for the contrasts she provides. We see her life in the contexts of upper-class families, high school, her serious-minded and loving grandfather, her father's wild friends and their manipulative and dangerous world, and at the mansion, where fun is free-flowing and consequences are handled by each person individually as best they can.

The mansion serves as a neutral ground for putting her life with her family into relief. She has friends there (some celebrities, playmates, and staff); she can retreat there to reflect; and no one (at least, no one mentioned in the book) pressures or threatens her there. Towards the end, she comments that Hugh Hefner is the one person who allowed her to be a child. Using the mansion this way is effective, especially as her father's household gets more out of touch with reality and the mansion seems like a safe refuge for normalcy.

The writing is passable, although there are a number of sudden jumps in tone or place that made me re-read sections to follow them. I'm not fond of the present tense artifice, but it isn't too bad here. What Saginor does very, very well, though, is to ground the story in a sense of time. People wear clothes that evoke a particular moment in the 80's, they listen to music in one chapter that will be gone in the next, and the fashion designers and labels, as well as the movie or star who popularized a particular look, will revivify the moment for anyone who was alive and in America at the time.

This is a really quick read and it's worth it if you're interested in the genre.

[Sammi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was quite the coming of age story. Jennifer is the daughter of the Hef's long time doctor "Dr. Feel Good" who spends all his time at the mansion and even lives there for a bit.

Jennifer first went to the mansion at six years old and is wow'ed by it - she sees sex and drugs for the first time and when she moves in with her dad full time, the party never stops. Jennifer describes losing her virginity, hooking up with Hef's girlfriend, finding bags of drugs and all the things in between.

You can tell by this memoir that her childhood and lack of love really impacted her negatively, but this story is a wildly entertaining one from the outside. This memoir is a perspective we've never seen before: most are bunny memoirs written by women who have to convince the world of their choice to sleep with old men for money, but Jennifer didn't have to do any of that.

All in all, I read this book in basically one sitting, it is the perfect beach read (short chapters & paragraphs) & while it was entertaining, I wanted just a bit more of the Mansion-life stories before Jennifer diverted to her house parties & clubbing.

[Ceeceereads · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be absolutely unputdownable- I raced through it in a day. It’s really quite sad in a quietly devastating way. This is the story of a lost childhood and a very unique kind of ‘glamorous Hollywood’ neglect. I truly found this book shocking as the author reflected on the inappropriateness and manipulation that shaped her as a girl, in a way that is only possible to comprehend as an adult looking back at the past. It was completely mind-boggling and eye-opening reading about the intoxication of Playboy Mansion through a child’s (and subsequently young teenage girl) eyes, and her life with her father as it spiralled further and further out of control.

She was entrusted to a man who’s wellbeing of his young daughters was clearly not at the forefront of his mind. With him and his misogyny at the heart of this family, I don’t think they really stood a chance. I wanted to reach out to the young girl lost in all that and pull her out to safety. The author had a life as a child that most people could not even fathom as an adult. Her perspective is unique and worthy of telling. I feel that she told her story with a raw honesty and openness that brought it to life. Wow. 5 stars.

[Lezlee Hays · Rating 2 out of 5]

You know how sometimes you're at a party and someone starts to tell you some personal story and at first it's interesting and the pretty quickly it starts to seem a little fantastic and then by the end you're pretty sure a bunch of it is an outright made up lie? Well this book felt a lot like that. The writing is AWFUL. I mean, really, really bad. I promise you I am a better writer than Jennifer Saginor. After I finished reading (quick read, took less than 1 day) I had to fact check some of her story since it's suppose to be true. Although one character sued her for libel, that lawsuit doesn't appear to have gained much traction. Hugh Hefner basically only corrected two little things on a time line and everything I could determine indicates the story was actually toned down for publication and the publisher requested sworn testimony from some people involved before their legal dept. would allow publishing. So maybe all this crap really did happen and it only seems like a lie because it's so extreme. At any rate the writing is still deplorable. It's hard to put down because the story is so crazy, but there's not much to redeem it from it's terrible construction.

[Jo Besser · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love my trash. This definitely fit the bill, and was a quick summer read.

I read this mostly wanting to know about all the crazy stuff that goes on in the Playboy Mansion. I definitely got a lot of that. I also got quite a bit of Saginor trying to find herself while being in the crazy L.A. lifestyle. I have to say I learned a lot about her and I actually feel sorry for her, and the fact that she felt like a lot of things were missing in her life.

Nothing I read really surprised me. The names of the celebrities I sort of figured, since the Playboy parties are notorious. I don't know if all the designers Saginor kept dropping was intentional, or if that something that she'd had to do all of her life with growing up in L.A.

Either way, it was a fascinating and quick read. I really enjoyed it.

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5
I think the author has such an interesting story to tell and a co-writer could have really helped flesh out her story. I also really wanted to see more growth at the end of the book. She goes to college but we don’t see her branch out any other ways and at the end of the book she’s still at a mansion party perceiving other women as sluts.

[Lani · Rating 1 out of 5]

Having just lambasted a different book full of uncomfortable and unnecessary name dropping sex stories, I'm kind of out of words for this one...

Jennifer Saginor is the daughter of 'Doctor Feelgood' and spends a goodly chunk of her young life at the Playboy mansion. The first 100ish pages of the book do enjoy the juxtaposition of childish naivete with the debauchery of the Playboy Mansion in the '70s. Naked hijinks ensue! I expected more of the same from the rest of the book and is, I assume, the only reason anyone picks this off a shelf.

Alas, Saginor grows up a bit and becomes a drugged up hussy suffering from a negligent, drugged up, and abusive father. She describes nameless celebs at the Mansion and then drops other names constantly along with the labels they're wearing and the EXACT SONG on the radio in every freaking scene... (I'm willing to grant people some artistic license with memoirs, but I find it unlikely that you remember the precise outfits and music after all the nose candy you've enjoyed, hon...)

Once she makes it to her teens, there's not a moment when I don't want to smack the silly thing, and that includes her annoying self-analysis in the final chapter in her 30s. Even the title of the book is misleading since much of the book isn't even at the Mansion. Most of her time is spent at her father's 'sloppy seconds' version where foreign models prance around naked hoping to "make it" to the Mansion.

The title itself makes it pretty clear the book is going to be trash, but I didn't expect it to be such poorly written self-centered trash. Ick.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I almost didn't want to admit publicly I read this, however I thought I might save someone else the trouble! Narrated by Jennifer Saginor, the daughter of Dr. Feel Good, Hollywood Diet and Drug Doctor to the stars (and close friends with Hef) it reads like a train wreck, both the content and construction. If even a small percentage of this book is true, this poor little rich girl is lucky to be alive. She glosses over a time period starting when she is six and firsts visits the Playboy mansion until her mid-thirties. Salacious, trashy and hard to put down.

[Jaclyn Day · Rating 3 out of 5]

I owe reading this entirely to a friend, who told me it was the trashiest book of the summer (in a good way) and it was. IT REALLY WAS. I finished it and thought that there was no way half of the stuff in the book could have happened, but then I went down the rabbit hole of Jennifer Saginor’s website (pictures!) and news articles (Playboy tried to squash the book!). More of these this summer, please. Trash books all day long.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this one in the bargin bin at the book store for about 3 bucks so I wasn't expecting much, but it was quite enjoyable. I love the Girls Nextdoor reality show, I'm a dork. Thge book was quite Interesting and Scandalous. The 70's must have been a crazy time. Quick read, not to0 meaty of a book, but fun.

[Arun · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trashhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grew up and watched the playboy house mates show where he dated the Kendra holly and Madison. I have seen documentaries about the house too. I feel like this was just the authors way of making money off the mansion. She really liked Hugh but they way she referred to the girls and how she kept saying she knew this was wrong or that was wrong but continued to watch and or do annoyed me. I’m sure not all the women in playboy are as she describes. She also seems to remember a lot of small details that would be hard for anyone to recall especially over 20/30 years span.

All that being said it was a fast read. So if you decide to pick it up and read it that’s a plus. I also learned about some forgotten and unknown songs from that time. She also uses a lot of details to describe how things looked and what was worn so you can visualize a lot of her story.

Also I have to add how cool it would be to have monkeys.

[B. Milligan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was intense!
Poor Jennifer didn't have a chance with the parents she had. What a sad upbringing! She was doomed before she went knew what doomed meant!
This story is an insiders story of what really happens in Hollywood. Even though Jennifer's childhood takes place in the 80s, I'm sure the same things still happen today! Its truly heartbreaking to read of the things she endured as a CHILD! The Playboy Mansion was all that she knew. I sure hope that as an adult, she is coping well and living a very healthy, stress-free life!♥♥

[Sophie95 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poorly written, and turns into a self pitying, repetitive drag that essentially repeats the same story 100 times. It starts off interesting as you're introduced to the crazy lifestyle of the Doc and Jennifer and you naturally feel terrible for what this young girl endures - very emotionally damaging. But at what point do you start taking responsibility? Wouldn't recommend

[Amanda-Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

The entitlement and self pity made this a pretty hard read.

Yeh, its a shame her dad wasn't a responsible guardian, but when writing this, Saginor is mid 30s, still hasn't learned anything and is calling every other woman a coke whore or a slut as 'my dad didn't raise me to respect women' ...yeh pal, that was 20 years ago. You're responsible for yourself in your 30s. Saginor also outs herself as a bit of a racist POS, near the end of the book she attends a party at the mansion and when folk are hooking up and she's not into it & makes a dig, 'some naked Asian skank' tells her to leave the room as she's boring. Saginor boasts she kicks the woman on the shin on the way out saying ''I may not speak Chinese, but I'm pretty sure the words for gang bang are universal''. So she kicks someone and makes a crack about speaking Chinese as they're Asian and call her boring?

A few pages before this, she runs into her father who is on the way to see Hef for his birthday and is accompanied by a woman (understood to be a stripper or escort as she is his 'gift' for Hef) Saginor. Saginor's father asks 'what do you think of her?' she responds 'not much, does she speak English?' with Saginor noting 'The girl half smiles at me, as if I didn't just insult her'. Being identified as a possible non English language speaker is an 'insult' now? Again...SAGINOR IS IN HER MID 30s!

A bouncer for her birthday doesn't recognise Hef and her father, her sister refers to her as 'the idiot dyke bouncer' Saginor (who by this point is out & identifying as bi and the party is hosted in a 'trendy hipster/bisexual' bar) proceeds to 'quickly run downstairs and yell at the fat chick bouncer with a bad boy's haircut'.

If you're wondering why there's a quote on the cover from Ben Affleck, Saginor mentions his name several times in the latter half of the book. After high school (where her tutor did all her work) and college (where she paid another student to do all her work & get her stolen exam answers) she now hosts high stake poker nights (using her connections, as Saginor is a bit of a leech who, having accomplished nothing for herself apparently, trades off her dads name)...which Affleck attends.

Saginor spends the 80s waltzing into places, judging folk (although she has done nothing herself, and is trading off her father's name/wealth...which becomes a life pattern) and demeaning them or being a patronizing bitch. Her soapstar boyfriend, upon their first encounter "Listen sweetie, I'm not impressed by your B list celebrity status...I'm sure you're a great lay, but let's not waste time. Call me when you're ready to be my boy-toy''. When her friend Hunter is called a slut in school for sleeping with someone's boyfriend (Saginor isn't even speaking to her former friends at this moment) here comes Saginor ''Listen you little knockoff queen'' telling the girl her boyfriend is eurotrash Hunter wouldn't touch & threatening her.

There is a story where she witnesses a young Swedish model OD at a party and no emergency services were called and the girls father later shows up at Saginor's own house looking for his young daughter and Saginor lies to him saying she's never met her. Saginor never mentions this again and while she seems to feel self pity for herself not having felt enough love as a child (2 decades later, she's still banging on about her being an angry and lost 'girl')...she doesn't mention the dead Swedish teenager and her parents who may have never got an answer.

She found her mother cold and her dad was cool and gave her no boundaries, so she moved in with him. She then seems to blame her mother - she mentions her mum attending her tennis match and not speaking about Jennifer's appearance, weight, grungy dress (she is doing a lot of drugs & having a hard time at her dads) - her mother then asks is her dad still prescribing her meds and that's she's heard from other parents Jennifer is still invovled in drugs and Jennifer goes off on one......you can't be saying your mum isn't acknowledging and won't talk about the big circles under your eyes and your appearance (when you're rattling and high) and your weight when she is literally bringing up her concerns about it.

In college Saginor is edgy and 'underground' one day she is asked for directions by a group of freshmen 'I want to run away from them, be spirited away to a dark bar where the whiskey's flowing and music blares from the jukebox...The Cure blasts from my Sony Walkman headset, which I resentfully lift off my ears...when a redheaded Tinkerbell asks if I know where group orientation is. I stare at her, wondering if I could ever be that lame'. Saginor doesn't seem to reflect on how attitude or cruel judgemental behaviour in the previous 20 years and I have the strong impression this is still the kind of thing she does and person she is. She's not that intelligent, she's not that nice and she hasn't done anything on her own to get her to where she is in life, but she'll still be an odious bitch because she was a spoiled brat who never learned and it's easier to continue to blame mom and dad than to take ownership or get therapy when you're pushing 40.

[Emily G. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I anticipated a story of overcoming and the journey of reshaping a psyche skewed by sexual trauma. Instead, I got low-key erotica. I commend Jennifer for her attempt at vulnerability, but there was something kind of disturbing about reading a memoir that felt more like a dramatized YA novel. It’s kind of remarkable that she survived a childhood marked by truly horrific, shattering, disgusting circumstances, but the tone of this book felt…irreverent? Also, the attempt to wrap up a lifetime of deep trauma in a few rosy, pollyannaish paragraphs just didn’t do it for me. If she spent a few years in therapy and then tried to write this memoir again, I’d maybe consider reading that.

[Lorisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was extremely entertaining, but very poorly written.
It seemed like the author kept repeating herself and would loose focus in a train of thought.
Would recommend for a quick and easy read.

[Zach · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is awfully written. That doesn't mean it isn't morbidly fascinating - which is why I did unfortunately finish this book.

[Debra Brand · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an interesting, but poorly written account of a disaster of a life. Repetitive theme throughout and couldn’t get past the child-like writing. This poor girl.

[ANGELA HANNAH · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an okay read. It was pretty graphic. I would have never read if it wasn’t for my book club group.