Pretty Little Dirty [Paperback]

Amanda Boyden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 14, 2006

Lisa sees the life of her gorgeous best friend Celeste as just about perfect: she has a gigantic house, two older sisters to coach her through the hazards of high school, and loving, lively parents. As Lisa's own home has long been a place devoid of joyful noise—her mother has shut herself off in her bedroom for years—Lisa joins the Diamond household, slipping into their routine of sit-down suppers and soaking in the delicious normalcy of Diamond family life. But what begins as the story of two young women living a charmed adolescence, one of mastering dance moves and the protocols of male-female interaction, soon swirls into an intoxicating novel of art, music, and self-destructive impulses as Lisa and Celeste dare each other ever onward.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Girlhood friends bolt from their innocence with a mixture of eagerness, ignorance and regret in this winning coming-of-age saga, told with candor and aptitude. In 1976, Lisa and Celeste move, from Chicago and New York respectively, to Kansas City, Mo., and enter sixth grade. Celeste is a blinding beauty; Lisa, who narrates, jumps readily into the welcome of Celeste's picture-perfect family, eager to efface her own dark home life. The girls mark every milestone together, from wilderness camp and first kisses to dances, drinks and loss of virginity. By the middle of high school, boys, and the real power a girl might wield over them, spawn ravenous sexual appetites in both. Their search for new summer conquests leads them to the edgy world of older art school students and '80s punk rock, each experiment with sex and drugs opening a new door onto another. Celeste and Lisa turn down paths marked by danger signs visible from a great distance, yet Lisa's voice is absolutely immediate. Shocking in its casual erotic frankness and enlightening in its drawing of shallow relationships, this novel gets the complexity of childhood friendships dead right, as well as their importance in shaping who one becomes. (Mar. 14)
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From Booklist

Set in the late 1970s and early 1980s, this dire coming-of-age story follows two best friends from their awkward midwestern middle-school days through their increasingly self-destructive West Coast college years. When reserved 11-year-old Lisa helps beautiful, charismatic Celeste cheat on the placement exam at a prestigious prep school, their bond as partners in crime is firmly established. Celeste's family practically adopts Lisa when they learn that her mother, depressed and overly medicated, spends most of her time shut away in the bedroom. Whip smart and adventurous, the teenagers take up with a bohemian crowd at the local art school and are quickly introduced to sex and alcohol by an older sculpture professor. But they graduate from blender drinks to far more serious toxic substances when they hit the West Coast. This is the fictional equivalent of the highlight reel from the Girls Gone Wild videos, with a soundtrack courtesy of such iconic punk bands as Iggy Pop and X. All the debauchery feels a bit forced, but the girls' intense, symbiotic bond is drawn with precision. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400096820
• ISBN-13: 978-1400096824
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #531,951 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Brave New Voice, August 9, 2006

By 

Amy Bonn (Toronto, Ontario) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pretty Little Dirty (Paperback)

As an astute reviewer at the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out, it's easy for the average reader to miss the subtleties of the wonderful Pretty Little Dirty if he only skims the prose's surface. Fortunately there's much more in this smart, sad, and insightful novel than meets the immediate eye. Pretty Little Dirty is a retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth as told from the handmaiden's perspective, and while this knowledge isn't necessary for the understanding of plot, it most certainly lends credence to Boyden's abilities.

Lisa Smith tends to her best friend Celeste's needs the way a servant might, but after a while, the reader begins to question just who is taking care of whom. The symbiotic relationship between Lisa and Celeste grows stronger with each chapter till the reader reels. The young women's friendship virtually sings with authenticity; nearly all close readers would agree that these BFF ring true.

Yes, the novel addresses sex and drugs and danger and music in its later chapters. And the girls cook and dance and attend glee club in the earlier chapters. They're great students who screw up, Renaissance women who wander down a dangerous path. But most importantly, this novel from a brave new voice addresses what Beauty is, how we treat it (and her), and the place of art in our world. Such notions are complex and worthy of examination to be sure, and Boyden doesn't take the easy way out. There may not be many quick answers to all that the novel questions, but the reader who believes this book to be a work without depth has missed all of the nuance and, truly, the importance of the bigger issues between the lines.

Pretty Little Dirty is contemporary. It touches on issues all too many parents wish would simply go away. Still, the fact that some of us may want to cloister our daughters in their safe bedrooms forever, hide them from the portion of the world that Lisa and Celeste find, doesn't mean that Boyden's work is dangerous or, oppositely, a cautionary tale. If it's used as one, fine, but Pretty Little Dirty asks very important questions that reflect on reality in both the early `80s and today. Ultimately, the readers must decide on what answers make the most sense for them. Art isn't simple, and neither is Pretty Little Dirty.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully Brutal, May 2, 2006

By 

Bill Loehfelm (New Orleans, LA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pretty Little Dirty (Paperback)

Every now and then an artist spends the night with the tried-and-true and emerges into the dawn with singular and transcendent results. Clint Eastwood did it with the underdog boxing movie and we got "Pretty Baby". Just this past weekend Springsteen did it with folk music at JazzFest and we got the performance of a lifetime. Amanda Boyden has done it with the coming-of-age novel and "Pretty Little Dirty".

PLD tells the story of two young women's hormone and adreneline-fueled adventures through a labyrinth populated by modern mythological creatures: sexually charged artists, dangerous but alluring music and musicians, poor but nobel hipsters, loving but clueless parents and siblings. These are all familiar tropes, but like the gifted sculptor in her own novel, Boyden renders her subjects in a way completely her own. Revealed from the blank marble of familiar types, Boyden's characters are compellingly and charmingly original. She writes like a scorching blues guitarist, one who makes you think "I've heard the blues before, but never LIKE THAT."

What gives this novel its heart and soul, its juice, is its bold and fearless portrayal not only of emerging womanhood but of friendship. Boyden explores not only the love and loyalty inherent in close friendships but also the envy, competition, fear, and possessiveness that sometimes darkens even the best of relationships. Boyden fearlessly confronts the darkness that lives alongside love.

With her bold and eloquent writing, her bravery, and her impeccable pacing, Boyden's work reminds me of Alice Sebold's, another author unafraid to shine a light into life's shadowy corners. That's where the best stories, ones like "Pretty Little Dirty" often live.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Little Dirty - A Pretty "Satisfying" Account of Adolescent Degradation, May 21, 2007

By 

Ashleigh Johnson "Ashleigh Johnson" (Springfield, VA.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pretty Little Dirty (Paperback)

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Such strong subjects of juvenile overindulgence are not few and far between in this tell-all novel of two best friends and their journey from being awkward, academically gifted sixth graders to cocaine-sniffing, promiscuous young women. While Lisa and Celeste hardly possess qualities truthful to the totality of aging teenage girls, it is no doubt that many will find themselves identifying with certain aspects of the highly scandalous story. It is a rare occurrence when an author can provide such a raw, uncut interpretation of the problems facing female youth, truthfully addressing everything from educational stress and household altercations to "bitchy" acquaintances and the constant underlying pressure to "hook-up," so Amanda Boyden's ability to do so in Pretty Little Dirty undoubtedly earns her respect in the literary world.

Intense, candid diction within and between the girls and those they interact with in addition to the occasionally grotesque yet always blatant visual and tactile imagery used by Boyden is what truly allows her to express the rapid rate at which the girls emotionally and physically developed into everything feared by a proper society. When Lisa had her first intimate experience at Camp Evergreenshade, a simple dare that turned into more than anyone would've expected, I was able to see her sheltered fear and daunted disbelief in a way so real as if I had previously found myself in a similar situation. As the girls bonded through their summers with lazy days lounging by the pool and the desire of something more, I could see my best friend and I craving adventure along side them. And when Celeste dropped out of college and Lisa followed her lead so that they could lead "spontaneous," drug-filled, sexually uninhibited lives, it was as I was a side observer, desperately wanting to save them from their self-inflicted misery but too afraid to intervene. Furthermore, as if the daring imagery and uncensored phrasing were not contributors enough to the development of Lisa and Celeste, Boyden also includes short inter-chapters within the story, ones adding depth through the foreshadowing of lives similar of the ones the girls ultimately succumb themselves to. These sections are shocking to read, as the language is so appalling and deplorable that it makes you wonder how anyone could ever let themselves live in such an unrestrained state of being.

As evident through the obvious theme of unedited intensity within the novel, some may find Boyden's words too much to swallow, but for those unafraid of the realities which she dangerously presents, the story of Lisa and Celeste is one that will leave you yearning for more. As in the movie "Thirteen," an account of two girls following the same life path as the best friends seen in Pretty Little Dirty, the images are harsh to the most extreme level, but do captivate the audience's attention. If being enthralled by a true life account identifying with the universal problems seen among adolescent girls in this day and age, then it will be to your benefit to read this selection; however if you are unable to stomach the realities expressed in such a racy style it will be best to leave this one on the shelves.