Calling Maggie May: Book Review

Calling Maggie May

Written by Anonymous

Number of pages: 256

Average Rating: 3.79/5 stars

My Rating: 1/5 stars

Published on June 23, 2015

Read in February 2017


Summary according to Goodreads

She had a normal life, until one small decision changed everything. Suddenly, there were new possibilities and new experiences. 

But not all of those experiences were good.


My Thoughts

Note: I completely understand that teenage prostitution is an ongoing problem in our society, and I am not trying to say that it is trivial or unimportant. This review is based on the author’s writing style and the plot that they have written - not any connection it could have to a real-life event. 

I received a copy of this book for review, but that does not affect my opinion.

Going into this novel I was excited because I had read others like it, but this one fell very flat. I felt no emotional connection to this novel because I did not feel as though the characters were real. In my experiences reading diary-style novels, they are less descriptive but more real. 

I did not like our main character at all. She was very impulsive and extremely naive. At the beginning of the novel she was getting straight A’s and had life ambition, and yet she continued to make dangerous and unintelligent decisions. There was not a justified reason for her getting into prostitution, and I felt as though her relationship with her parent’s was an extreme form of a “first-world problem”. She was doing well in school, was participating in extra-curriculars, and after losing her V-card in a one-night stand decided selling herself was a good first job? Most teenagers I know find their first job in fast food not prostitution. She changed personalities so often, she was incredibly hard to follow.

This book took me forever to read - the plot moved very slowly. I have read the other books by Beatrice Miller or “anonymous”, but this one felt so disconnected from the others in more ways than one. The entire story transpired in about 10 months, and it felt like it took that long to read. She was living a fast-paced world and the entries would jump around so much that it was very hard to keep track of the timing that had passed. It was never descriptive enough to get excited in her life moments or feel nervous for her, as it felt almost as though she was just stating things that had happened with no further background. It is really hard for me to describe the plot except to say a teenage girl decides to prostitute after seeing a girl at school with fancy things, and even after bad things happen, she decides it’s worth it.

There was a brief editors note attached to the end of the novel, and I am not sure how I feel about it. It genuinely surprised me enough that I had to read it a couple of times to fully understand what happened, but I think it was just a way to try and make up for the lack of plot throughout. I would have rather seen 100 pages taken out of the middle of this book, and a final chapter on the afterward. 

Overall this instalment in the author’s “series” was the slowest of the bunch, and the least interesting. When I first finished this book I gave it two stars, but now that I have thought about it further I dropped it to one - I strongly disliked this novel.