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106th out of 448 books
—
381 voters
Rent Girl
A graphic and uncompromising autobiographical bender, the story of Tea's years as a prostitute, with provocative illustrations by Laurenn McCubbin.
Paperback, 239 pages
Published
August 1st 2004
by Last Gasp
(first published January 1st 2004)
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2,647)
Dec 22, 2007
Toni
rated it
1 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
sex workers, anarchist comic enthusiasts, horny pre-teen boys/horny lesbians
Shelves:
queer
Terrible, terrible, terrible. Why did it happen? What makes it possible? This book has no point, it barely tells a story, and it is ridiculously aloof. Like talking to a coked up drag queen, smearing mascara all over your sensible sweater and gushing out their life story, morbidly fascinating, but you just want it to be over. Michelle Tea once again succeeds in convincing the world that yes, she is a vulnerable lesbian badass. And yes, there are people around her that do drugs and don't give a s...more
"...people like to say things like 'all work is prostitution'. Most work is exploitation, but most work is not prostitution. Prostitution is prostitution, a very specific sort of exploitation... And while I am doing literal corrections to flippant turns of phrase, the earth doesn't get raped. It gets mined and poisoned and blown up and depleted, it gets ruined, but it doesn't get raped."
This book is so powerful I couldn't help but cry and laugh out loud.
Raunchy and bold. Michelle Tea shows the l...more
This book is so powerful I couldn't help but cry and laugh out loud.
Raunchy and bold. Michelle Tea shows the l...more
reading "rent girl" right on the heels of "the passionate mistakes..." may have contributed to the super-saturated feeling of grittiness i had when i finished this book. while i remain a huge fan of tea's work, i found the graphic novel format a failure. it's a strange hybrid of drawings and dense tiny type-set text that does neither justice. individual pages are lovely, but as a linear narrative, it falls short. maybe i'm just tired of the wobbly line drawings of sexy girls that seem to be crop...more
2 likes · like · see review
Rent Girl is an absorbing, but extremely depressing read made all the more depressing by its weird hipster cool tone. It strikes me as a modern version of Women by Charles Bukwoski, but this time written by a drug using hip young lesbian prostitute instead of an aging, alcoholic rock star poet. They are depressing books in very similar ways, because they center on a person who is clearly incredibly intelligent and talented who you get to watch kind of destroy themselves through sex and substance...more
2 likes · like · see review
I have read many books by artists from San Francisco/Oakland. (I think it’s the perfect literary community.) So, I had heard Michelle’s name frequently. I read a section of the book (without the illustrations) in “Sex & Single Girls.” I was really disappointed. The writing quality wasn’t bad— but when it comes to a memoir, it’s truly the author and their life that matters the most. When I read this section I found her to be really obnoxious and vowed I would never read this book— or any of...more
I'm not sure if I was prepared for this book. I thought the almost graphic novel element would be an interesting introduction to understanding the world of escorts, but this book has just as much about feminism and lesbians than it does prostitution. I read it on a general recommendation, and it seems to have good reviews, but it doesn't go through for me.
I do have to say that I seem to run into the same perspective on prostitution that I did when I had two friends that started it. It has someth...more
I do have to say that I seem to run into the same perspective on prostitution that I did when I had two friends that started it. It has someth...more
Rent Girl is sort of a lazy graphic novel. It's not presented in traditional comics format, but rather in text-dense pages with large illustrations on each page. It may have worked better as a traditional comic, who knows, or maybe its flaws are just endemic to the story. (LOTS of typos--a pet peeve of mine.)
The aspect of Rent Girl I found most annoying by far is the main character is a negative vegan stereotype. She is sickly-skinny, unhealthy, and hypocritical. Every few pages, we are reminde...more
The aspect of Rent Girl I found most annoying by far is the main character is a negative vegan stereotype. She is sickly-skinny, unhealthy, and hypocritical. Every few pages, we are reminde...more
Michelle is struggling to make ends meet, when her girlfriend encourages her to try hooking. Her reflections on her time as an escort are both self deprecated and humorous. It's difficult to balance a "normal" life when your days are filled with calls, and unsavory johns. Tea's characters are vibrant, savvy and tragically, emotionally scarred. The money she makes is decent, but a change in relationship, exposes her to the illicit drug trade, another venture opportunity. The illustrations are ind...more
never have i read a book with more typos than rent girl. under normal circumstances, i think this would drive me crazy, probably even make me not be able to read the book. but this is michelle tea we're talking about here, and despite the typos, i couldn't put the book down. in fact, i'm kind of excited about re-reading the book so i can make all the corrections. pro-ject!
i think if it was easier to get my hands on her books, i would have read all of them by now. our library only owns one of the...more
i think if it was easier to get my hands on her books, i would have read all of them by now. our library only owns one of the...more
This book is awesome! I enjoyed every minute of it. The writing and illustrations are great! Alas, it would be five stars were it not the most poorly copy-edited book I'VE EVER READ. I'm sure it's not the author's fault, but next book y'all should totally have someone correct the typos. Aside from that technical issue, thanks for giving me a "good read"! (Ha, was that cheesy to say or what?)
I read Chester Brown's "Paying for It," and wanted to find the female counterbalance to his almost genteel exploration of prostitution. "Rent Girl" is Michelle Tea's account of her time as a young, queer sex worker in Boston. With a survival mechanism cloaked in feminist rhetoric, she frankly describes the profession: detestable johns, psycho girlfriends, and interminable waiting around, and the drug addiction...oh, the drug addiction. For me, it was the saddest part to her story. The story real...more
Maybe this is silly, but I used this book as my bedtime reading. Each page is like a little mini-memoir, a distinct little personal essay paired with a graphic image. The illustrations are simplistic or simplified; they depict the idea of the page-long "essay" in a seriously essentialized, boiled-down way. I really liked this book. It reminds me of other great memoir, personal essay collections like those by David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, and Laurie Notaro. I really enjoy the self-deprecatin...more
I only have nitpicky problems with this book. There were lots of typos, and the way she expressed characters talking was very confusing. Sometimes I wasn't sure which character said what. I also didn't like the way she represented her veganism. Every time she brought up how skinny and unhealthy she was she said it was because she was vegan, while admitting that her other vegan friends didn't have the problem. Maybe it's a silly thing to be bothered by, but I think she could have made a better po...more
Published by Last Gasp of San Francisco, CA; donated by T.McCarthy; Words by Michelle Tea, a well known writer/contributor/autobiographer in the Bay Area. Most of her work touches on sex work, feminism, and queer culture to name a few. She has won numerous Lambda Literary awards for her works. Laurenn McCubbin illustrates the work and, like Tea has done work portraying sex workers in her recent show/thesis: A Monument to the Risen: Emotional Labor, Intimacy and the Spaces of Sex Work.
"Rent Girl...more
"Rent Girl...more
I'd probably give this 2.5 stars if I could. First off, it's not really a graphic novel, more like a memoir with selected illustrations. On some level, it was interesting to get a first-hand perspective from a former sex worker, and her sense of boredom, apathy and occasional cruelty towards her work and customers really come through. She's a very honest anti-hero. At the same time, however, there are some major holes in the plot. Beyond her girlfriend being an escort, what really convinced to g...more
I enjoyed the writing a great deal and was impressed that the "graphic" aspects of the novel did not override the plot and characters in the actual story. However, I was disappointed in the story as a whole. I found Tea's work as a sex worker extremely interesting, but as a narrator I found her to be whiny and often annoying. Though she courageously displayed her weaknesses as well as her strengths, I still could not help but want more from the characters whether it was development, background i...more
I was expecting a traditional graphic novel-style book with panels and speech bubbles and all that, but this was pretty different. It's drawings done from pictures of posed models with the text in a traditional prose format. I continue to love Michelle Tea's writing, how it's so stream of consciousness and richly descriptive. This book details a pretty gritty time in her life, which was interesting to read about since it's so far removed from what my life is like. It seems to repeat a lot of wha...more
Not the counterpart to Chester Brown's "Paying For It" that I imagined. It's disjointed and ultimately left me cold. I pitied the author's younger self but was frustrated by her lack of drive to improve her life through anything resembling hard work. She becomes a less and less sympathetic character as events progress while trying to separate herself from her 'pathetic' johns and drugged up acquaintances. Mainly she plays the role of victim in most of her situations and after a while you wonder...more
I saw Michelle Tea speak so I bought this book, and it is well written, informative, and pretty depressing, none of which is a surprise upon reflection. I think the reason I didn't love it is because the journey she describes--many parts of which are extremely graphic and may appear to be personally revealing--somehow avoids the heart of the matter,re-creating the same illusion as the work she describes with customers; it has all the trappings of intimacy, but none of the vulnerability. I guess...more
To be honest. The writing gets 4 stars, the pictures?!?!?!? Get zero stars. Never in my life have I wanted to read a graphic novel and this is my second. It takes a rather special author to get me to look at such work.
I don't understand why Tea couldn't just make Rent Girl a novel.
It was bawdy and raucous along the lines of Dennis Cooper but too much emotion was involved and not enough hot twink story telling.
Good offering by a lesbian I'd say. I'm sure the pictures have some artistic value I...more
I don't understand why Tea couldn't just make Rent Girl a novel.
It was bawdy and raucous along the lines of Dennis Cooper but too much emotion was involved and not enough hot twink story telling.
Good offering by a lesbian I'd say. I'm sure the pictures have some artistic value I...more
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. A lot of people have a lot of opinions about Michelle Tea and my opinion is that I like her writing (in this book). I like how she rarely uses contractions. I like the way the dialogue interacts with the narrative. I like her theories and considerations and anger. I like the nonchalant way she introduces the occult and other alternative life choices. I also like the illustrations, although they don't do the same thing illustrations do in comic boo...more
I liked this slightly better than the Chelsea Whistle, the only other Michelle Tea I've read. The art in this 'graphic novel' is pretty great. Its mostly rated R scetches in red and black have a standoffish feel that lends itself well to the subject matter.
The story, fiction or memoir, is definitely an interesting and worthwhile read. I think I would give it to a dissafected high schooler to read.
There are tons of really distracting grammar mistakes in the book.
This is unrelated to Tea's strea...more
The story, fiction or memoir, is definitely an interesting and worthwhile read. I think I would give it to a dissafected high schooler to read.
There are tons of really distracting grammar mistakes in the book.
This is unrelated to Tea's strea...more
Up until about halfway through this book, I thought it was fantastic. It's on point, it's funny, and the red-black-white illustrations really make the book.
To an extent, the book remains its funny and on-point self (the illustrations, certainly, are still terrific), but by the time I reached the end I had soured on the narrator. Maybe it was the switch to a focus on drugs (doing them, dealing them), which I didn't expect -- but I think that more than that it was the lack of depth.
I wasn't sure a...more
To an extent, the book remains its funny and on-point self (the illustrations, certainly, are still terrific), but by the time I reached the end I had soured on the narrator. Maybe it was the switch to a focus on drugs (doing them, dealing them), which I didn't expect -- but I think that more than that it was the lack of depth.
I wasn't sure a...more
I accidentally stumbled upon Rent Girl at Borders, I was looking for poetry and ended up in the Gay & Lesbian section of the book store. Nevertheless, Rent Girl's enticing cover, gritty subject matter and hip illustrations were too intriguing to ignore.
Author Michelle Tea is a very interesting person with a colorful past. Rent Girl is her 2004 autobiographical illustrated novel about her years as a prostitute.
It's amazing to think that this was once her life and now she is an award winning a...more
Author Michelle Tea is a very interesting person with a colorful past. Rent Girl is her 2004 autobiographical illustrated novel about her years as a prostitute.
It's amazing to think that this was once her life and now she is an award winning a...more
Tea candidly recounts her years as a young, broke lesbian in the sex trade in this absorbing, compellingly illustrated memoir. Intrigued by the large amounts of money and glam lifestyle of her wild girlfriend, Steph, Michelle decides to give prostitution a try. This is no exposé of the evils of the sex trade. Rather, Tea explores the range of emotions and experiences as a prostitute, from the allure of her first $700 trick, to her repulsion with the johns, to her struggle to establish boundaries...more
I have been in love with Michelle Tea's voice since hearing her at a writing workshop at the Michigan Womyn's Festival in 2001. Her speedy truth-telling maintains a breathless honesty that glitters. Most of her books focus on her burgeoning sexuality and coming of age and this tome was no different. Her tenure on hope amid a bleak landscape of the darker underbelly of humanity is a talent few writers and in fact few people posess. The description of her life as an escort and so-called "baby dyke...more
When I bought Rent Girl by Michelle Tea and Laurenn McCubbin I thought it was a novel. And it is, but not a traditional novel because it is illustrated. But it’s not a graphic novel, either. There are no panels or dialog balloons. But the illustrations are as much a part of the story as the text. Each page of the book has text (50 to 250 words on average) accompanied by and beautiful drawing that connects (often, ironically) with the words.
This is a memoir of a sex worker. The back cover explain...more
This is a memoir of a sex worker. The back cover explain...more
This book is unique because of the way it looks at sex work--the narrator doesn't take a firm stance, of empowerment and solidarity, or of victimization. The story is simply her recollections, her feelings and reasons--but from a place of some distance. So, one shouldn't read this book hoping to gain greater insight into the overarching impact of sex work on our culture and vice versa, but more as an account of what one person experienced as a sex worker.
I read this awhile back, but here is what I remember that I thought: Although a lot of the vignettes included here will be familiar to anyone who has read Valencia, The Passionate Mistakes[...] or any of Tea's other autobiographical stylings, they are given different perspective here, both in Tea's text and the illustrations. That said: the massive amount of copy-editing errors DROVE ME BATSHIT! The book deserved better.
I loved Michelle Tea's "Chelsea Whistle" & this is covers some of the same material but now in comic book form, which I guess could be called a "graphic novel," except it's a memoir. (It's graphic in more ways than one, being about prostitution.) Tea has that great writer quality of being able to notice & remember details, so even though I was never a lesbian prostitute or drug dealer her writing brings me back to Boston in the '80s, or SF in the '90s
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Michelle Tea is the author of 4 1⁄2 memoirs, 1 1⁄2 novels, and a collection of poetry. Her memoir Valencia is an underground classic and is currently being made into a feature film by 21 different filmmakers. She is the founder and executive director of RADAR Productions, a literary non-profit which hosts the monthly RADAR Reading Series (voted Best Literary Series by SF Bay Guardian readers), the...more
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“i wanted to try things, everything, especially things that are illegal and have a faint whiff of glamour.”
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21 people liked it
“You would have to forget everything that came out of her mouth in order to later enjoy it on your cock.”
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8 people liked it
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