August 8, 2009

I'm not writing this review of Sienna's book as an independent, unbiased observer: I've been reading her blog for several years, and in that strange virtual world where you can make oddly comfortable friends, she's become, in ways, one of mine. So, with full disclosure, this is as much a review of her book, her blog, and the little I know of herself (as we've never met).

If you're looking for sex inside this book, please be assured you'll find it, in all it's gloriously filthy detail. Orgasm after orgasm, position after position, snatched moments of dangerous and dirty passion in inappropriately delightful places with who inevitably turn out to be inappropriate men. That the woman has an enormous sex drive is no surprise. Most people do, but few are brave enough or able enough to both express themselves so physically and as it turns out, literally, too.

But having once worked in the soft-porn industry myself, it's easy to get bored reading about sex. Which is what makes these diaries so endlessly fascinating. What you're reading here is not a litany of self-indulgent erotica - although that helps ;-) - but of a weighty tragedy that is carried on the shoulders on one young woman moving facelessly through the throngs of London, perhaps as facelessly as so many other women, too, seemingly alone on their shared journey to find Mr Right. But not in a pathetic "I must have a man" way; more of a "I want to be the woman I can be".

Because Sienna wants a baby, and makes no bones about this. She also makes no bones of her scattergun approach in the way she is trying to achieve this. There doesn't need to be one partner at a time; there can be many. Mr Right is the aim, but several Mr Almosts can be on the go at the same time. They won't know who each other is, but they'll certainly know of their existence. And should the right prince come along, bearing genuine intention, reliability, security, a ring and a smile around children, he should - if you follow the script - be Mr Right.

But I don't think he will be. I don't really know if anyone really will be Sienna's Mr Right. Throughout Intimate Adventures (and on her blog), Sienna gives us fascinating, funny and insightful glimpses into the male psyche - be it Tall Boy, Cashmere, Sailor Boy, Pilot etc. How their varied immaturity, stubbornness, infidelity and insecurities have caused her shuddering pleasure and shuddering pain. But there's one character that, for me, lurks through this, almost invisibly, like the black streak that curdles down inside the spine of a prawn.

The Bastard. The "one" who treated her so badly, so disgracefully, but has left such big shoes to fill. From time to time we all pretend to move on from wreckages of relationships to pastures new, wounded but healing, but there are some relationships that no matter how long it has been, you still wince when you allow a blink of them in your mind. Sienna's blink seems to be The Bastard, and for me the true story of this endlessly readable account is of a woman determined to swap the gnarled pain of a bitter ex-partner for the all-consuming love of a child in her arms.

At the start, she says she could be the girl sitting opposite you on the Tube. I loved that idea. Because it reminded me that wherever you are, the strangers around you all have a long, strange, interesting, convoluted, joyous, and sad story to tell - if only you asked them.

Sienna has not waited to be asked, and more power to her for that.

Intimate Diaries Of An Office Girl is indeed a book with sexploits and stockings. But it's so much more than that, too. For men, after you get over the highly erotic sections you'll keep returning to (when the missus is out) it's actually a book that makes you realise they're bloody well on to us. For women, I'd guess it solidly reaffirms what you knew already.

Highly recommended, especially for a holiday read - but gentlemen, not when you're on the beach wearing shorts...