“I get lost time and time again, but somehow I end up exactly where I need to be.”

Down the Drain by Julia Fox opens with a raw and insightful look at her childhood. Julia was forced to grow up much too fast, and her life was most deeply impacted and informed by her parents’ neglect. Her childhood and teenage years are defined by a series of consuming girl friendships that inevitably trail off or implode. The memoir explores her millennial emo teenagehood, the craze and rush of teenage girlhood, and the risk created for her by her parents’ absence.

Lacking any guidance or oversight and suffering from a multitude of emotional wounds, Julia falls prey to drugs and alcohol at an extremely young age. This inevitably leads Julia to have an overwhelming number of experiences with sexual harassment and domestic violence. In sharing these experiences, Julia endorses an anti-rape culture ethos, turning the responsibility back on the men who sexualized and took advantage of her. When Julia is placed on probation for her fake IDs, she is finally forced to get a job and ends up turning to sex work, leading her to feel empowered by the sway she holds over men. Despite this, she continues to fall prey to the whims of the men she becomes romantically involved with.

Julia is haunted by her absent and untrustworthy father, with daddy issues echoing behind almost every decision she makes. One of the strengths of this book was the community care and solidarity Julia received from the other sex workers she worked with, who helped her eventually complete high school. Despite the ways she suffered from being objectified, harassed, and sexualized, Julia is buoyed by her female friendships that help her to see her own worth.

While I appreciate Julia’s bravery for boldly sharing her story, there were moments of this that rang as empty or maybe even false to me. Perhaps this is simply part and parcel of celebrity memoirs, but much of this seemed exaggerated. I also wanted more class consciousness and more political commentary. I probably should’ve known I wasn’t going to get that from a celebrity memoir, though.

Down the Drain isn’t a bad book, but it wasn’t for me. It certainly didn’t have much of an impact, earning it three out of five stars from me. This memoir, with its intense focus on female friendships and resilience in the face of adversity, may resonate more with readers who are looking for a raw, unfiltered look at the challenges faced by white women in a world still defined by patriarchy.