My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC! 

I enjoyed this trippy, dreamy little novel a LOT! I don’t think I fully grasped the ending (were we supposed to?) but I enjoyed the ride there so much that it barely matters. 

Ruth, or Baby, is a stripper and dominatrix living with her (amicable) ex boyfriend and their dogs in San Francisco. Newell works/worked as a dominatrix, so her depiction of the sex work industry is imbued with such a staggering authenticity. It felt like reading someone’s diary, almost voyeuristic. I absolutely loved Ruth, her vulnerability. The way Newell described her relationships with Dino (who mysteriously goes missing later in the book), the pups, Ophelia, was just so alive. You feel like you know them. And her nights at the club and shifts in the dungeon were just fantastique, glitter practically falls out of the pages. It’s gritty and tender, hard and soft, I just loved it.