I don't like rating memoirs poorly. since this is Antonia's life, as she chooses to present it. But I had some serious issues with this book. The main one is that, despite the (potentially) salacious topic, this book is boring. Since sex-work is decriminalised in New Zealand (as it is in Victoria Australia, where I live) it's just another job. So, the main topic of this book is "running a small business is hard" and "getting and keeping good staff is hard". There are repeated copies of text messages from clients. I think it's deliberately showing how wearing this can be on someone running this job, but it's really boring to listen to.

Antonia believes that, when sex work is decriminalised it can be a great way for women to make a living. While I agree with this, it could have been a Ted Talk, and we could have been done in ten minutes. I guess, to prove this point, she repeatedly has her workers saying how much money they earn, how much fun they are having, and how they love their jobs. They are all great - except the drug users, but they are not welcome here. which might be fair enough, because this is a real job and drug addicts are also not welcome in my office, but it seems a little bit dismissive in this environment.

And this might be a spoiler, but it also might make you decide not to read the book - despite the book saying it was about three years, after describing two years, Antonia says 'and the last year was fine, not drama, nothing to tell'. Maybe she was sick of writing.

There was something unsatisfying about this book. I'm not going to analyse whether Antonia was, in fact ethical (yes, because she makes sure the 'girls' have true consent, or not because of the way she talks about her male clients. I'm going to skip over the racist assumptions about the entire Indian sub-continent (was was very surprised that this had been read by a sensitivity reader). I'm just going to say that I gritted my way through the second half of the book, and now I wish I hadn't bothered.

I listened to an audio-book, provided for free by Netgalley and Simon and Shuester Audio. The cover was much better on that edition than on the book edition - a picture of a 70s motel.