Wags have suggested that in order for a reader to really bond with the premise of a book written in the first person, whether fiction or non-fiction, he or she must like the protagonist. And if not, at least identify with that individual, on some level. Jillian Lauren, in her Some Girls: My Life in a Harem (2010, ISBN 978-0-452-29631-2) seems to be trying mightily to get us to like her, or perhaps she’s just trying to like herself. Instead, the book comes off as being the diary of a self-absorbed neurotic, with precious little insight into the underlying machinations of the harem of Brunei’s Prince Jeffri, brother of the Sultan. 

She was there, for sure, and does offer some tidbits on the petty rivalries among the international set of harem girls. She sleeps with the Prince, does a lot of shopping. Her self-image is a wreck, as she confesses on page 138: “I could read every book in the library and still not walk out brilliant… Not cute enough, not smart enough, not popular enough, not talented enough, not special enough. I was just an average hustler who could sometimes talk my way into getting what I wanted.” Much of the book revolves around an identity crisis surrounded by therapy, pills, booze, sex, a search for her birth mother, identifying with the songs of Joni Mitchell, and getting tattooed. 

Oh, the tattoo. She waxes nearly poetic about getting a snake tattoo that winds its way down to her nether regions and “decorates my entire pussy with thorny monster teeth.” Here at WoWasis, we’re sure the Prince was impressed. 

We finished this 339 page diatribe because we were looking for something — anything really — to hook us on the story. But we couldn’t find it. Or maybe we did. In her brief tales about Fiona, the Filipina mistress who sat on the Prince’s right hand before rejecting a marriage proposal of sorts and moving clandestinely back home, we think we found a compelling character. She should have written the book. 

We found it curious that the book was written in 2010, when most of the events in the book occurred in or about 1993. That’s nearly two decades in the past. We’ve read other books by self-excoriating western females in the Orient. Our favorite was the late Cleo Odzer, author of Patpong Girls, who we would have like to have met. We’re not sure how Lauren turned out, whether she eviscerated her ghosts, or kept on seeking happiness somewhere, from somebody, or some thing. But she’s still got that toothed-pussy tattoo that she’s proud of. When we see her walking down the street, we’ll step to the other side, and pull our zipper up just a little higher. Buy it now at the WoWasis estore, powered by Amazon.