I wasn't ever a playboy fan but as a 20something  in the naughty aughties, I'm well-versed in Girls Next Door lore and I have read the other girls' books. Didn't Bridget write one? I read Holly's and I didn't read Kendra's cuz it seemed like it was more life AFTER the mansion. 

This book confirmed my suspicion in a failing America honestly. We live in a capitalist pit where men like Hugh Hefner get the glory and girls doing the labor of bedding that old troll get nothing. His "mansion" was infested with black mold. He was controlling to a fault, to an Aviator Howard Hughes degree. And a stunning lack of emotional depth, not dissimilar from our buffoon of a President. This was probably the wrong time for this book to find me; I've been feeling an overwhelming sense of "one voice doesn't matter, against such oligarchy, wealth, and corruption". It was depressing that women are what made his career soar to the heights it did, but Crystal left the mansion after Hef died because he left his money to his kids and his foundation, and sold his house a year before he died, to some Hostess co-owner who let him live out his days in peace. Once he died, Crystal got the boot. She talked about after a few years, she just treated it like a job, and that sounds jarring out of context, but Hef was prone to radical mood swings when attention wasn't on him (sound like anyone else we know?) or when he couldn't have total control. Also pretty unfortunate, the toxic environment of the mansion meant not really trusting the other girls either, tattling was rewarded and there was extreme competition for what felt like limited resources (but was not in any way limited, in reality). Also as an INTJ, my sense of justice was incensed knowing the house staff fell behind for years on mansion upkeep. Like, what we're all those people being paid for? The real house business was churning and burning these hopeful women.