by Julia Fox
First published 2023
Julia Fox grows up caught between her parents' chaotic relationship, splitting time between Italy and New York City while mostly raising herself. She falls into the grip of an abusive boyfriend who deals drugs, his control extending even from his cell in Rikers Island. Fox works as a dominatrix and becomes entangled with a sugar daddy. Heroin pulls her into New Orleans trap houses. Her best friend dies from an overdose. Fox survives her own near fatal overdoses and watches more friends die from drugs and suicide. She enters jail and a psychiatric hospital. A explosive romance with a celebrity she calls "The Artist" dominates tabloids. She marries quickly, divorces, and struggles as a single mother supporting her young son. Through each crisis, Fox fights to transform herself from a grade school outsider into a fashion world figure. Her journey captures the brutal passage from girlhood through womanhood to motherhood, revealing how family bonds, friendships, sexuality, violence, money, and power shape a life lived without apology.
Genres: addiction, abuse, contemporary, memoir
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Italy, New York City, New Orleans
Period: 21st-century
318 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster
Content warnings: abuse, addiction, drug-use