The book had some predictable content but far less than you would imagine. The narrative is candid (sometimes too much so) and a light, quick read. There are some excerpts from Jenna's diary which looked so genuine that I would be very surprised if they forged it. It's also amazing to see how her dad took to the news of her becoming a porn star - very well in fact, although she came from a reasonably "normal" family. Her relationship with her brother is also pretty special.

Some parts of it really surprised me, like how she has included an actual contract to act in a porn movie, tips for aspiring porn stars, etc. Although it was probably very conservative of me to think this, most porn stars make a choice to be where they are. The money is quick, they only work about 20 days a year, and if you make it big, there's no looking back, much like any other career choice.

There are conversations between Jenna, her brother and her dad that's recorded verbatim. They were interesting in the beginning but soon started to drag and get boring.

Wouldn't really recommend this unless you are very curious about how someone would go about becoming a porn star or Jenna's life in particular (it's very detailed that way). The ending is a happy one - she gets married. The book is pretty huge and I gave up after going halfway or so and then skimmed the rest of the pages.

Note: there are some graphic pictures in the book so not something you want to leave lying around the house.

What I like most about the book is Jenna's candor. She has been through so much (dysfunctional family) and it just goes back to the psychology of the abused child, those wounds are hard to heal and for those who heal, everyone heals in a different way. Overall, I found the book enjoyable, but buyer beware: the sex is very "detailed", so if you have children, don't leave on the coffeee table! I think most men (and some women) would probably love the book, especially if you into the sex, drugs and rock n' roll scene of the 90's. :)

How am I going to describe this book? For starters, I'm a porn fan, but not of Jenna Jameson. In porn, she is plastic, superficial and pathetic. This did not dampen my curiosity, however. I am an avid reader of the writings of the porn star Stoya; the difference is that Stoya has an extremely sharp intellect.

Jenna Jameson's autobiography is well-written. It is also frustratingly laid out, much like her life. It is filled with photographs; broken up with interviews; punctuated with comic strips; scattered with sketches. She must have had an outstanding editor, because it hangs together very, very well.

Essentially, Jenna Jameson = porn because: revenge. Which, while being possibility the most un-self-reflective thing someone could write into an autobiography (perhaps the point), is also predictable as fuck. The story of Jenna's life is also what you would expect: total white trash, lots of drugs and bad decisions.

She gives sex work a really bad name. I was hoping to see "I got into porn because I love to fuck". But really she has very little self-respect, and a confidence borne only of an arrogance resulting from diva-dom.

The most interesting parts of this book were those in which Jameson attempts to make sense of her life through writing; the poignant parts of her life are exactly that: poignant. And while I am well aware that abused women tend not to make a lot of sense of their lives and the choices that they make, the fact that she made the SAME mistake, over and over and over again, made me wonder what the hell was wrong with her.

In any case, I pushed through this book to the end. The writing was good, the structure was good, the story was meh, and I skipped a huge amount (really, who reads a split-column biography that interrupts a story for god's sake?), but I still finished it.

And I finished it because of curiosity. So, regardless of all of the utter failings of Jenna Jameson personally (which, let's be honest, is the only reason I couldn't put up with more of her life), this book was pretty good. I'm sure that if I had far lower standards, I would have really enjoyed this book.

Essentially, though, Jameson's personality is as superficial and plastic as her body. That in itself should be an allegory.

I don’t read a memoir or autobiography.
So, when I found this one, I thought why not try again? To Jenna’s credit, because she was in showbiz, her autobiography turned out to be anything but boring.



While reading this book, I constantly resisted looking her up on Wikipedia. As the book is published in 2003, she thought she has her happy ending with Jay, but it isn't true and I am guessing, she will have this book updated in the next few years, who knows?



I've taken the following from Wikipedia –


The book covers her early career from her beginning in show business living with her tattoo artist boyfriend, through receiving the Pornographic Hot d'Or award at Cannes, and wedding pictures from her second marriage. It does not omit sordid details, describing her two rapes, drug addictions, an unhappy first marriage, and numerous affairs with men and women. The first-person narrative is broken up by personal photos, childhood diary entries, family interviews, movie scripts, and comic panels.


The point was that though it has all triggers (TRIGGER WARNINGS: RAPE, GANGRAPE, DRUGS, ANOREXIA NERVOSA, and SUICIDE), they are all handled in such a way, you are not completely grossed out and it turned out to be quite enjoyable reading experience.



What amazed me the most is how many times Jenna lost everything and also found herself in life-threatening situations, but she pulled herself together and keeps moving forward. I’d like to quote from the book itself –

n  
There are people who have suffered terrible abuse and grown up to be lawyers and doctors with stable families. Others suffered some small indignation and turned into violent sociopaths. Ultimately, what really matters is not just the experiences you have at a young age, but whether or not you are equipped – by your parents, by your genetics, by your education- to survive and deal with them.
n



So, do I know the life of a porn star? Yes.

Did I watch any of her movies? No.
And I’m not going to because it doesn't matter. Adios!

There is a German book from the 80' s called Wir kinder von Banhof Zoo by Christiane V. ( We kids of station Zoo ) about grup of German teenagers in city of Berlin who dissolve them totally in the Heroïne they become slightly addicted, they beg and steal to acquire it...Later they get seriously addicted to the stuff and they prostitutie themselves to be able to satisfy their daily dose ...they sell everything they have ...

Then there is book called Scar Tissue written by Anthony Kiedis a frontman of the rockband Red Hot Chili peppers who also suffered from heavy addiction to the same drug. Luckly for Anthony- he had much more money than the poor Christiane V. So he just took one of his precious guitars and went to pawn shop to sell it .

Why I am writing here about brown sugar ?
Why this by majority of the world unknown Berlin junkie and hooker ?!

This should be about Jenna Jameson the biggest porn star on Earth !!!

This should be about Vivid production, Vivid sex , Lesbian sex, group sex story about bright lights, camera and V.I.P's lots of V.I.P's ?!

Or is this not about all kind of sex ...about bright lights ...cameras and V.I.P's ? Did Jenna Jameson and Neil Strauss lied to the readers ?

Yes and No !!!

I have to admit I have not read / listen to something so gripping in long time

Story of Jenna life is journey full of thorns at least that is mine impression when I finished her extra ordinary story.

Yes of course I have read several much more captivating, grim and grishly biographies and autobioghraphies. But that was to be expected. When I am reading that for example person is brought to a concentration camp , prison, or has been kidnapped then I kind of know what to expect and that his / her story is not going to be an easy ride in the Disneyland. But I just did not expected about the same in a story / life of an porn star ...o.k an adult movie actress.

That is why I was compleatly suprised to read / listen to Jenna's live story.

And that is also why I mentioned those two book I mentioned above ...because Jenna's story is the combination of those two. Actually is almost like if John Bon Jovi wrote just for her that song Living on the edge.

Jenna went from Nerdy little girl in the " wink of the eye " into the Superstar. From poverty to Stardom. From nobody to the Item of the year.

.

I have to admit that she did have great amount of luck because there have been countless less fortunate hundreds who have been much less fortunate with dealing with all those problems Jenna did have to deal and they did not survive.

While reading
I sometimes wanted to cry.
Sometimes wanted to vomit.
And sometimes just slap Jenna across her face and scream . You stupid cow how could you do it !!!!
Dont you see this guy / situation / decision that you are going to do is nothing but big truble !!!?

But Jenna is truble
Jenna loves truble
Jenna cannot be without a truble it kind of goes with the territory.

When I finished this " Vivid " Biography / porngraphy
I have to plead

Please put Jenna to the Rock & Roll hall of fame
Although she never song any song and never in her entire life played any guitar or drums
That girl shortly know how to Rock !!!!!

It was cleverly written, but I don't think it was written by her exactly. I feel bad making the assumption that a once drugged up stripper turned porn star/diva couldn't write that well, but it is written in the first person and it's not referred to as an autobiography, either. Plus it says Jenna Jameson with some guy who wrote for the New Yorker.

It was hot though. Cause there was sex in it, that's cool. In a real way and not to knock romance novels, but in a non-romance novel way.

The Good: I was really sort of impressed with Jenna Jameson after reading this autobiography. She's been through so much to get where she is, and she puts it all out there. The book didn't come off as though it had an agenda as some of these tend to. There was no feeling of attention seeking, excuses or seeking redemption - just the uncut story of her life. I, of course, loved the more scandalous aspects of the book - the celebrity tell-all stuff. I also loved how the book showed that not everything about celebrity life it glittery, as much as not all porn is degrading to women.

The Bad: Some aspects of Jenna's early life made me rather uncomfortable. While it was all part of her story and needed to be told, I question why she's chose to share these things. As much as I was impressed by Jenna after reading the novel, it didn't make me love her. It never struck the chord you get in autobiographies where you feel connected to the author. It felt more E! True Hollywood Story than anything else. It wasn't sympathetic which just kind of hit me as strange.

I think if you're going to invest the money and time into reading this book, you shouldn't be ashamed of reading it in public! The most embarrassing part of reading this book for me was that I got it as a birthday present from my fiance's parents after he told them I wanted it -- and they had no idea that it was a biography when they bought it!

I read a lot of other reviews that critique Jenna's writing in this book, but seriously? She's a porn star! Of course she didn't graduate high school or learn how to write a captivating story with great flow and proper diction and syntax!

I went into reading it for what it was (as many other people who gave this 3+ stars): a story about the woman behind "the actress who 'put the star in porn star.'" I thought it was a nice mixture of memorabilia from Jenna's life to give you an idea of where she came from and how she turned out the way she did. And remember that it does have an "X" rating right on the cover!

When I read this book, I was the world's biggest Jenna Jameson fan. I have since dramatically changed my tune since I find her to be full of hypocrisy but at the time when I read the book, I absolutely loved it.

I picked this up on a whim, ages ago, because it had to do with one of my favorite things and it looked well put together, and I regretted it pretty much right away. Did I really need to read 600 pages about the life of a pr0n? How would a pr0n chick even go about filling a 600 page book?

As you might have guessed, there's pr0n - actual pictures of pr0n - on about every other page. This is really a 300 page book expanded out to 579 pages for the benefit of people in prison and people without access to the Internets. But there's nothing really filthy. Mostly just topless - no Penthouse caliber beaver shots, i.e. to the point where you can see her teeth from behind, and certainly no insertion or anything. They probably couldn't carry that in Barnes and Noble, where I found this.

The story itself is kind of a let down. For being arguably the most famous pr0n chick of all time, nothing really interesting ever happened to Jenna Jameson. She was on drugs, then she was off, then she was on again. She of course seems to be off for good by the end of the books. She's had sex with a lot of different guys, but none of it was particularly interesting, because she's been frigid in the way that most pr0n chicks are frigid since the '80s, and she's supposedly only 37. Meanwhile, I'm 31, and there definitely didn't seem to be a mere six years difference in age back when I was like 16, when I first, erm, became familiar with her work.

The things you'd really want to know are all of the things that would be covered in the typical Howard Stern interview with a pr0n chick: what horrific incident of abuse in your childhood led to this career path, what famous people you hooked up with, so on and so forth. All that stuff's in here, but it seems like it's in here reluctantly, for the purpose of selling books, and not all of it quite passes the smell test. The stuff about how she was abused contradicts what she's said in interviews with Stern. I'm not saying it didn't happen, because that would be sexist. I'm just saying. All of the celeb encounters involving actual exchange of bodily fluids involve the kind of people you'd expect to have bang Jenna Jameson - the kind of people whose careers wouldn't be harmed by having that revealed in a book like this. Monsters of rock.

Jameson and ghost writer Neil Strauss compensate by pulling out every trick in the celeb as-told-to book and inventing umpteen new tricks specifically for this book. There's diary entries, comic stips, how-to guides, roundtable discussions with her cracked relatives... all kinds of crazy shit.

Waaaaaay better than I thought it was going to be. I knew I would like it but I didn't realize how much! Jenna tells her story perfectly in such an exciting way that makes you just want to keep reading. I really like how the book is set up in "Books" and then chapters within the books. Any book with short chapters I can usually fly through.

Jenna writes about lots of things in this book from her life growing up with her parents and brother, how she started stripping, then nude modeling, then to porn. We learn all about who she meets throughout her career, and a lot of the names were people I was familiar with and didn't know Jenna had interacted with (like Howard Stern). But this book was actually very educational about the porn industry which has always interested me. It talks all about the good and the bad. She says how it was totally worth it and a career worth having if you are able to put up with all the bad. She also put in a chapter of one of her contracts she had with a porn company which let the readers really get an idea of what would get herself into when she would sign a contract. Not only does she discuss for females how to get into the industry, she also puts in a chapter about males starting porn, with help from one of her male porn friends.

I will say also, I did not expect the amount of nudity in this book. There are about... 100 pictures of a naked Jenna Jameson in this book. Oh, and you'll get GRAPHIC ASS descriptions of actual porn scenes, but if you're prepared for that, this book is realllllllly entertaining.

The book is a bit long, and by the end, I was definitely ready for it to be over. But this was a book I definitley thoroughly enjoyed and will recommend to friends looking for a memoir or interested in learning about the porn industry.

And I will add - I ended up following Jenna Jameson on Instagram after finishing the book, and I'm just so proud of that girl. She is in a really awesome serious relationship with what looks like a really good man and is raising a beautiful baby girl. SO precious.

This was a book club read and I have to say that I was a little scared to pick it up. Not only because I'm totally unfamiliar with the world she lives in, but also because there are like 1000 naked pictures of her in the book and you can't possibly read this anywhere out in public.

Overall I thought it was interesting. She certainly doesn't hold back and there were a couple of things that totally grossed me out. In fact there were a lot of things that totally grossed me out, but a few that I totally could have gone on living happily without ever having read.

Even though I never would have read this book on my own I was intrigued when it came up in my book club. You can't help but wonder what would cause someone to go into this business not only with the hope of making some money, but with the ambition to be the most famous porn star in the business and to think of it as your life's calling. I personally didn't think that anything from her childhood was so outrageous to have pushed her into this sort of thing. Yes, there were things that happened to her growing up that are really unfortunate and difficult for someone to recover from, but those things unfortunately happen to a lot of people and it doesn't necessarily push them into having sex with people on camera for a living. I learned that her and her family are just REALLY CRAY CRAY.

Ultimately I came to the conclusion that Jenna Jameson is just one train wreck after another. It seems like she was about as smart as you can be when it comes to handling herself in the porn industry, but the girl made one bad decision after another.

What was probably the saddest of all is the fact that the book concludes with her fairy tale ending where she FINALLY finds the guy she can trust and she knows she'll be with forever. So they get married and everyone says "awwww that's nice, good for her", and then you realize that "oh wait, she's married to someone completely different now and has been for a while and it's only been 6 years since the book was written." So in conclusion what we've really learned from Jenna is that her life is still just one big train wreck and that the porn industry took away her chance at every having the stable family life that she always wanted.