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Pretty Baby
- A Memoir
- Narrated by: Chris Belcher
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
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Publisher's summary
“Absolutely not to be missed.” —Vogue
“A muscular, canny memoir about labor and power and gender…I couldn’t put it down. What a fucking gorgeous book.” —Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
A queer teen rebel escapes small-town Appalachia and becomes Los Angeles’s Renowned Lesbian Dominatrix in this searing and darkly funny memoir that upends our ideas about desire, class, and power.
The dominatrix is the id of American femininity. She says the words that we all wish we could say when we find ourselves frozen in the presence of men. No is principal among them.
So writes Chris Belcher, who appeared destined for a life of conventional femininity after she took first place in an infant beauty contest—a minor glory that followed her around a working-class town of 1,600 people in rural West Virginia. But when she came out as queer, the conservative community that had once celebrated its prettiest baby turned on her.
A decade later, living in Los Angeles and trying to stay afloat in the early years of a PhD program, Belcher plunges into the work of a pro domme. Branding herself as Los Angeles’s Renowned Lesbian Dominatrix, she specializes in male clients who want a domme to make them feel worthless, shameful, and weak—all the abuse regularly heaped upon women for free. A queer woman whom men can trust with the unorthodox sides of their sexualities, Belcher is paid to be the keeper of the fantasies that they can’t enact in their everyday relationships. But moonlighting as a sex worker also carries risks, like the not-so-submissive who tries to turn the tables and the jealous client out for revenge.
As Belcher moves between the embodied world of the pro domme and the abstract realm of academia, she discovers how lessons from the classroom apply to the dungeon, and vice versa. Still, fear that her doctoral program won’t approve burdens her with a double life. Pretty Baby is her second coming out.
In this sharp and discerning memoir, we see through Belcher’s eyes how power and desire can be renegotiated—or reinforced.
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Story
I Am Not Myself These Days follows a glittering journey through Manhattan's dark underbelly---a shocking and surreal world where alter egos reign and subsist (barely) on dark wit and chemicals...a tragic romantic comedy where one begins by rooting for the survival of the relationship and ends by hoping someone simply survives.
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depressing
- By Barry Morrison on 08-02-16
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Private Citizens
- By: Tony Tulathimutte
- Narrated by: Pete Cross
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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The story's four whip-smart narrators - idealistic Cory, Internet-lurking Will, awkward Henrik, and vicious Linda - are torn between fixing the world and cannibalizing it. In boisterous prose that ricochets between humor and pain, the four estranged friends stagger through the Bay Area's maze of tech startups, protestors, gentrifiers, karaoke bars, house parties, and cultish self-help seminars, washing up in each other's lives once again.
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Too dour and cynical.
- By Zanriel on 01-18-17
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Her Dad's Friend
- By: Penny Wylder
- Narrated by: Lillian Claire, Blake Richard
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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He was my dad's best friend - and my first crush. Falling for him was bad. Flirting with him and trying to get in his pants the night of my 21st birthday party was definitely worse. But can you blame me? I hadn't seen the guy in years and he comes back looking hotter than ever. Our fling shouldn't have even begun but now that it has, I don't want it to stop. I'm crazy for this guy - and he's obsessed with me. Too bad my father will kill him if he finds out. So we can't tell him. We just have to keep it secret. Right? That might have worked...until he got me pregnant.
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Wow!
- By Amazon Customer on 12-13-17
By: Penny Wylder
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Smashed
- Story of a Drunken Girlhood
- By: Koren Zailckas
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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From earliest experimentation to habitual excess to full-blown abuse, 24-year-old Koren Zailckas leads us through her experience of a terrifying trend among young girls, exploring how binge drinking becomes routine, how it becomes "the usual". With the stylistic freshness of a poet and the dramatic gifts of a novelist, Zailckas describes her first sip at 14, alcohol poisoning at 16, blacked-out sexual experience at 19, and total disorientation after waking up in an unfamiliar New York City apartment at 22.
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Smashed
- By John Riggs on 07-14-05
By: Koren Zailckas
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Rats Saw God
- By: Rob Thomas
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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By his senior year, Steve York has come through the worst two years of his life. His parents have divorced, and his girlfriend has betrayed him. Worse yet, after running away to live with his mother in San Diego, forays into the drug culture have turned his A-average into a thing of the past. Steve's only hope to graduate on time and avoid summer school is to write a 100-page paper for his guidance counselor. Unfortunately, he has to write about something he knows, and all he knows well are the last two years of his life.
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Real
- By Mary on 06-26-09
By: Rob Thomas
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The Other Side
- A Memoir
- By: Lacy M. Johnson
- Narrated by: Lacy M. Johnson
- Length: 4 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Lacy Johnson bangs on the glass doors of a sleepy local police station in the middle of the night. Her feet are bare; her body is bruised and bloody; U-bolts dangle from her wrists. She has escaped but not unscathed. The Other Side is the haunting account of a first passionate and then abusive relationship; the events leading to Johnson's kidnapping, rape, and imprisonment; her dramatic escape; and her hard-fought struggle to recover.
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Wow
- By katherine on 04-21-15
By: Lacy M. Johnson
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Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes
- By: Karin Slaughter
- Narrated by: Kathleen Early
- Length: 2 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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A beautiful young girl was walking down the street - when suddenly …Julia Carroll knows that too many stories start that way. A beautiful and intelligent nineteen-year-old college freshman, she should be carefree. But instead she is frightened - because girls are disappearing without a trace. Fellow student Beatrice Oliver and a homeless woman called Mona-No-Name are missing, both gone after being snatched off the street. Julia is determined to discover the reason behind their disappearances - before she's next.
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Disappointed
- By Addie on 12-07-15
By: Karin Slaughter
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The Wangs vs. the World
- By: Jade Chang
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Charles Wang is mad at America. A brash, lovable immigrant businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, he's just been ruined by the financial crisis. Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so that he can go to China and attempt to reclaim his family's ancestral lands - and his pride. Outrageously funny and full of charm, The Wangs vs. the World is an entirely fresh look at what it means to belong in America - and how going from glorious riches to (still name-brand) rags brings one family together in a way money never could.
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Spectacular
- By Barbara on 10-11-16
By: Jade Chang
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The Drowning Girls
- By: Paula Treick DeBoard
- Narrated by: David Atlas, Amy McFadden
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Liz McGinnis never imagined herself living in a luxurious gated community like The Palms. Ever since she and her family moved in, she's felt like an outsider amongst the Stepford-like wives and their obnoxiously spoiled children. Still, she's determined to make it work - if not for herself, then for her husband, Phil, who landed them this lavish home in the first place, and for her daughter, Danielle, who's about to enter high school.
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Did the author run out of paper?
- By grandparent on 06-06-16
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Undeclared
- The Woodlands, Book 1
- By: Jen Frederick
- Narrated by: Connor Kelly-Eiding, Andrew Eiden
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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For four years, Grace Sullivan wrote to a Marine she never met, and fell in love. But when his deployment ended, so did the letters. Ever since that day, Grace has been coasting, academically and emotionally. The one thing she's decided? No way is Noah Jackson - or any man - ever going to break her heart again.
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Swoon
- By KH on 09-18-14
By: Jen Frederick
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The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club
- True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life
- By: Laurie Notaro
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Introducing Laurie Notaro, the leader of the Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club. Every day she fearlessly rises from bed to defeat the evil machinations of dolts, dimwits, and creepy boyfriends - and that's before she even puts on a bra. For the past 10 years, Notaro has been entertaining Phoenix newspaper readers with her wildly amusing autobiographical exploits and unique life experiences.
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Sweet and funny
- By Julia Valentin on 12-19-20
By: Laurie Notaro
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Some Girls
- My Life in a Harem
- By: Jillian Lauren
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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A jaw-dropping story of how a girl from the suburbs ends up in a prince's harem and emerges from the secret Xanadu both richer and wiser. At 18, Jillian Lauren was an NYU theater school dropout with a tip about an upcoming audition. The "casting director" told her that a rich businessman would pay pretty girls $20,000 if they stayed for two weeks to spice up his parties. Soon, Jillian was on a plane to Borneo, where she would spend the next 18 months in the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah....
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Boring, Pretentious Book
- By Marcos on 04-23-11
By: Jillian Lauren
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Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See
- By: Juliann Garey
- Narrated by: Dan Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In her tour-de-force first novel, Juliann Garey takes us inside the restless mind, ravaged heart, and anguished soul of Greyson Todd, a successful Hollywood studio executive who leaves his wife and young daughter and for a decade travels the world giving free reign to the bipolar disorder he's been forced to keep hidden for almost 20 years.
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Psychosis or Syphilis?
- By Vira on 04-02-13
By: Juliann Garey
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How to Be a Grown-Up
- By: Emma McLaughlin, Nicola Kraus
- Narrated by: Tara Sands
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Rory McGovern is entering the prime of her life when her husband loses his dream job and announces he feels like "taking a break". Rory was already spread thin and now, without warning, she is single-parenting two kids, juggling their science projects, flu season, and pajama days, while coming to terms with her disintegrating marriage. Without Blake, her only hope is to accept a full-time position working for two full-time 20-somethings.
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Performance
- By Jill on 02-10-16
By: Emma McLaughlin, and others
What listeners say about Pretty Baby
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joe
- 01-31-23
A gritty, exciting and thought provoking memoir!
A fun and fast paced memoir about first coming of age as a queer woman in rural Appalachia and then working as an out lesbian pro domme in Los Angeles while going to grad school in the humanities. I thoroughly enjoyed both parts.
I found this book because of a short column that the author wrote for The New York Times about the complexities of telling people her real name as a pro domme. That article brought up a lot of interesting thoughts about the power dynamic there, and her experiences with how it could go wrong in different ways. When I saw that she had also written a memoir I bought it on the spot. As I had hoped, this book expanded on her thoughts about power imbalances and the dynamics of sex work and service work, as well as telling more stories about her life in her unique voice.
Lastly, the author narration of the audiobook was excellent.
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- LexxRexx
- 09-01-23
Beautifully poignant and restrained
Belcher has expertly woven her memoir to perfection. The tone and voice and recall she uses to authentically share what those moments felt like and what they meant was beautiful. Having recently tried to read another memoir that felt like a hacky strict retelling with predictable prose, Belcher’s story was refreshing and a delight to listen to.
It was equal parts tragic, beautiful, and poignant. Simple, but never dumb. Practically single handily restored my faith in good writers.
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- K C
- 08-08-24
Highly recomend
Engaging, well-written, and honest. I've been searching for a book that fully engrosses me for some time now, and this was it. Thank you, Chris.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-02-23
A must have!
Just incredible- it will not disappoint. An easy listen with a smooth narration by the author.
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- Ila Erickson
- 10-29-22
The perfect book.
Bonus you get to listen to Chris’s soothing voice. Do yourself a favor and buy this book.
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- Book Fan
- 09-01-23
Extremely well-written exploration of a fascinating world
Chris Belcher’s memoir is both a bracingly honest examination of her own interesting-though often challenging-life and a window into a world I’d often wondered about though never wanted to personally explore. Her extensive education informs her many insights into human needs, interactions and sexual dynamics.
She is an honest and gifted writer who has a lot to offer on a range of topics that are not easily discussed. Excellent work.
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