Rating: 
Summary: Why i no longer have to write a book about stripping...
Review: Reading this book was so bizarre. I feel like i've been living paralell lives with Lily Burana. I'm also a journalist/writer who's stripped on and off over the last ten years.The want to go back to stripping that Lily describes in Strip City is quite accurate. Everytime i get a real job - no matter how fantastic and well paid it is - i always miss stripping. There is so much i relate to in this book - situations and stripper-isms, like "go-go head" ( I had a bad case of that in the club last night!). I have been toying with the idea of writing a book about my experiences in the industry, but now i don't have to - Lily Burana has done it for me. It's all in this fantastic book that I would recommend to anyone in the industry or interested in the industry. I loved strip City so much that I have bought copies for all my stripper friends. It has also inspired me to make my own coast to coast stripping journey accross Australia. Thankyou Lily Burana for writing this book!
Rating: 
Summary: The story of an egomaniac and her cowboy.
Review: Strip City was an amusing read, simply because the author was absolutley in love with herself, and the seedy subculture of the strip joint. Lily Burnana decides to go on a nation wide tour of strip joints, so she can "sow her oats" as far as stripping goes before she ties the knot. Her finacee' reluctantly agrees. She is HIGHLY addicted to the stripper lifestyle. The smoke filled rooms, the tanning salons, the work outs, shopping for sexy little outfits, and inventing fun strip girl names for herself for each different city. Lets, see, Vegas this week, so I'll be "Candy", and so on. She is bugged by the fact, that in order to make any real cashola, she's got to let the desperate men grope her and she doesnt care for that, rather preferring to take their hard earned cash by teasing and taunting, strictly hands off. She turns it into a serious power trip/game, "we are in control now", ect, when she is the one gyrating naked in front of a 65 year old obese man. I personally find strip joints a big joke. If I'm going to spend cash on a woman, it's going to be on a real date, not to watch her dance for twenty bucks. But I know plenty of fools who frequent these houses of desperation, and blow wads of cash in the ever hopeful dream that they'll get "lucky" with one of the sexy little honeys. Not unless your name is Bill Gates, fool.
Rating:
Summary: A smart, honest look at an interesting world
Review: This book is unique because it is so intellectually stimulating, rather than just trying to be titillating. Burana has a gift for storytelling and also makes a great narrator. I'd love to read whatever she writes next . . .
Rating:
Summary: dead-on.
Review: i'm a stripper, too, and i loved this book. very few books about stripping manage to be intelligent without being preachy or mopey or self-righteous or all three, but this one managed to do it. so many things in this book (the reflection on stage names, the anatomy of the french manicure, her take on the word "honey") are strikingly similar to the memories that i will take with me when i eventually leave the business. cheers to lily burana / barbie faust for finally getting it right!
Rating: 
Summary: slow moving
Review: I expected a lot more from this book. I thought it would give me an insight into a lifestyle and the type of individual that partakes of that lifestyle. Instead, it provided dull details of her so-called "farewell tour". I was troubled when I first read the book and she provided ... and unbelievable reasons for the journey. To me, it was clear that she did the "tour" (if you can call it that) as an excuse to write a book. Why not just admit it? If she wasn't upfront and honest about why she did the journey to start with, how was I to believe any other "personal insights" (not that much insight was provided). Don't bother with this one.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing
Review: As a young woman I have always been fascinated by the world of stripping. What compels women to do this and how can they do it? This book tells an amazing tale of a woman comfortable with herself and confident in her abilities. She is intelligent and beautiful and not afraid to show that to the world. If you've ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes or what goes through a woman's mind when she's on that stage, be sure to pick this book up!
Rating:
Summary: It almost makes one WANT to strip.
Review: Strip City was a very good novel detailing the author's experiences in the exotic dance industry. It was fairly light reading, although far more articulate and witty than I orignially expected. It's intellgent. It's not a completely smooth read, but it's still utterly intriguing. The best parts are the stories of her (mis)adventures in clubs and with clients.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written but.............
Review: Although Strip City is very well written, Burana's insights are often frustratingly simplistic. There's no bigger picture here, in terms of both herself and the human condition. I still have no clue as to what truly drives her journey, other than it being a vehicle for her to get a book published.
Strip City has an immature quasi-honest feel to it- most "confessions" coming too easily and predictably. I finally had to put the book down at the halfway point - I was so irritated. Granted, the second half of the book may have improved enormously, (although I saw no signs of that) but I don't think that makes it worth suffering through the first half. Burana is obviously very bright and articulate, but she needs to dig a lot deeper.
Rating:
Summary: Cross-Country Strip-a-thon
Review: Lily Burana's book is excellent- well written and enjoyable. If someone is interested in a cross-country romp filled with ineteresting people/exploits then this is the book for them. If, however, one is looking for something that attempts to tackle the complexities and realitites of the stripping world this is probably not the right book. Elisabeth Eaves wrote a book called "Bare" that delves more into this territory... but for a fun stripping romp Burana is spot on.
Rating:
Summary: Get your porno elsewhere....
Review: (This is part review and rebuttal to previous reviews written about this book.) Lily Burana's "Strip City" is not pornography.But then again neither are topless bars pornography, no more than the beaches of the French Riveria.
People who want this to read like a titillation treatise on the "underworld" of topless bars, because they have not spent any, or enough, time in one are basing their expectations and subsequent letdown on the preconceived notions fostered through rock videos, Heidi Fleiss's exploits or E's "True Hollywood Stories," will be disappointed. This book demystifies the topless dancer and gives them a voice to offer understanding, not total acceptance to what they do. "Strip City" is a girl's path to-from-back and finally away from topless dancing.
Customers,not the people who drive by and wish they had the nerve yet wonder went on inside, know there's nothing physically sexual involved at these bars. Fantasy and fun-yes,porno-no. It's more rock show than porno movie: lights, music and smoke, only with pretty girls-not Mick Jagger.
Some people read war books for the strategies and the reasons why and others read them for the tales of atrocities and gore. "Strip City" is a book of reasons why, not gore.
Because topless bars are not a regulated industry (laws of operation and codes of conduct vary not only from state to state, but also from county to county, city to city) there are situations that are going to occur that are not of the norm and usually have more to do with the customers, not the girls, they are not industry wide. Like any business, there are those who will do anything to maximize the bottom line-girls included, and "Strip City" does touch on this without bogging itself down with the explicit details.
Lily does a great job in explaining the different rules and regulations that follow her throughout her "farewell tour" across the country, the variety of club owner's management styles, girls encountered and how it all shaped her ultimate view of the industry and her role in it.
"Strip City" isn't written as a complete handbook or industry whistle-blowing tome, but as a woman's coming of age journey through it all and able to walk away a little more wiser. "Strip City" is more about a woman not an industry.
If you want titillation and pornography read "Penthouse Letters", but if you want insight and to feel what Lily (and these girls) go through emotionally, physically and ultimately mentally in the course of doing their "job" then read "Strip City."
"Strip City" offers perspective to the outsider, who never sets foot in these clubs yet holds on to their prejudices and to the customers, who can put a story behind the pole.
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