Rating: 
Summary: Bright Light in a Dark World
Review: As a dancer, I "get" this book completely. It expresses things about the job that I instantly recognized as my own feelings and reactions. ... Strip City rocks, it hurts, and it blows away any other mainstream book on the subject (though the indie "Lusty Lady" by Erica Langley is good, too).The rush is real, and so is the anger and exhaustion. ... Someone who reads this hoping for a slob's tour of stripping will come up disappointed .... This book is about what it feels like to do the job of creating sexual fantasy, not a conintuation of the fantasy itself. ... I'll recommend this one. And hope for a sequel.
Rating:
Summary: Bright Light in a Dark World
Review: As a dancer, I "get" this book completely. It expresses things about the job that I instantly recognized as my own feelings and reactions. Hate to say it, but this girl beat me to it, as I had wanted to write my own book on stripping life. Strip City rocks, it hurts, and it blows away any other mainstream book on the subject (though the indie "Lusty Lady" by Erica Langley is good, too). The rush is real, and so is the anger and exhaustion. I saw my stage name on her hilarious list. I have my own tanning addiction, and a nice manicure no matter what! The similarities would be embarrassing if they weren't so funny! Someone who reads this hoping for a slob's tour of stripping will come up disappointed (can't ya tell in some of the bitter one-star reviews here?). They can go to an actual strip club if that's their wish. This book is about what it feels like to do the job of creating sexual fantasy, not a conintuation of the fantasy itself. So, now I can't write the book. But I'll recommend this one. And hope for a sequel.
Rating:
Summary: A Stripper's Review of 'Strip City'
Review: "What can I tell my sister? I could lie, say I was meant to do it, a natural-born stripper. I could appeal to the gods of voodoo science. Pop psychology. Astrology. Numerology. Birth order. I could tell her about being so mad at the straight world as a teenager that I felt I owed it nothing. Tell her of walking into the kitchen one winter day and seeing my mother leaning on the sink, with her head in her hands, looking absently out the window, yet again. Wondering Where does she go when she does that? And thinking that if I engineered my life in a way completely opposite hers, maybe I wouldn't end up standing in a kitchen in a suburb, staring into a bleak arch of naked branches. It was a childish idea, but then, I was a child thinking as a child. Yet surely there was a spasm of individuation in my becoming a stripper. Would that answer be good enough?" Lily Burana has done something amazing. She has given us a voice: witty, compelling, thoughtful and lyrical. No sordid tell-all this, but one woman's journey across the country and her soul's pilgrimage into the past. 'Strip City' is to strippers what 'On the Road' was to the Beat Generation. She captures the experience of the ecdysiast with truth and love, painting a keen and affectionate portrait of American life along the way. This is a significant literary work that will establish Lily as a major spokesperson for an entire sisterhood of women, bringing them out of the shadows and into the light. Burana has been a successful New York journalist for several years when she passes through Cheyenne, Wyoming, and into the life of a quietly charismatic cowboy she meets there. As they get to know each other, the moment of truth comes and she tells him, her heart in her mouth, that she used to be a stripper. He passes the test and takes it in stride, she realizes that home is where the heart is and decides to stay, and so begins a charming and unorthodox love story. When they decide to get married she discovers that there are things in her life that feel undone, and that this is probably her last chance to tie up spiritual loose ends and revisit a significant and formative time in her past. She tells her tolerant and open-minded intended of her plan, fills a suitcase with freshly purchased 'va-va-voomery,' and hits the road. What follows is the book that every stripper dreams of writing. From the Pure Talent School of Dance in Clearwater, Florida to PJ"s Showclub in Anchorage, Alaska, the costumes bought, the preparations made ("I'm building my ideal stripper persona from the ground up"), the Miss Topless Wyoming contest and the groundbreaking lawsuit at the Lusty Lady Theatre in which she participated, each aspect of the business and every sister she encounters are described in unpretentious and eloquent detail. Toxic stereotypes are defused and new ideas are offered in their place without a hint of preachiness. Every stripper who reads it will recognize someone she has known, and many will see themselves. Those who are looking into the world of the strip club from the outside will see faces they know, as well. Lily is Every Stripper, approaching her subject with both the freshness of perspective that comes from returning after time away and the comfort that comes from years of involvement; her interpretation of the time she's spent in the business has had plenty of time to ripen. She knows what it's like to be a stripper, and not to be a stripper any more. She knows how she felt about it the first time around, and how her feelings and opinions changed after she'd had a while to look back. She's happy to voice her respect and affection for the business but makes no attempt to hide the pitfalls: her gift to the industry that she called home is honesty. "Sure, I want to show the world that strippers can be capable, thinking, feeling people, able to set boundaries, to care for other people and ourselves. But taken too far, such emphasis on the positive casts me as Paglian caricature - all triumph and no clue. When I think of the times I huffed out, testily, 'I've never felt degraded! I've never been exploited!' I wish I could reach back in time and put a hand over my own stupid mouth." This book is a labor of love, a joyous reintroduction and a final, tender farewell, and in it Lily Burana speaks for me and to me. I live in Strip City: I am her subject and her student and her heartfelt admirer, and the journey on which she takes me is a spectacular one, full of light and color, at once fabulously exciting and as warmly familiar as a worn pair of pumps. - ...
Rating:
Summary: wonderful!
Review: This book is so entertaining and beautifully written, it is difficult to write an interesting review. The story of Lily's stipper road trip is interwoven with tales of her early days in the sex industry and tidbits about her family. She illuminates the glamour of stripping without glossing over some of the more unpleasant realities of the profession. Her conversation with a woman who worked in the industry in the 1970s is chilling in its gory detail, while her descriptions of some of the more compelling performances she's seen are trancendent. For an intriguing adventure, give this book a try!
Rating: 
Summary: Grab your g-string!
Review: Reading Strip City made ME want to have a wild, book writng worthy adventure. Sadly, I'm an old married lady, so chances of that happening are slim. Burana gives readers the nitty-gritty on the strip scene across the country in a compelling, intelligent way. I'm not much of a non-fiction reader, but she had me hooked. Her descriptions of life in the strip club and her fellow srippers are evocative and often poignant.
Rating:
Summary: A fabulous read!
Review: I have now read this book twice. Lily Burana is a wonderful storyteller and hilarious gadabout. Her journey is gripping, insightful, many times so poignant. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment.
Rating:
Summary: Great book about a provocative subject matter
Review: I took this book on vacation and read it from cover to cover in just a few days. I was fascinated by the author's viewpoint on her life as a stripper, an art which is stereotypically dismissed as being demeaning and vacuous. Burana is anything but these--she's powerful, thoughtful, and eloquent about what she does and how she feels about it (to the extent that she can be....clearly she's carrying some ambivalence about stripping but she's honest about that too). I was moved by the passages where she describes her vulnerability in front of the men she dances for and how she comes to terms with it. This is a coming of age story, which all of us have---just an unusual venue. it's sexy, saucy, humorous, and poignant. I was sorry when I had to put it down, I wanted to read more!
Rating:
Summary: Well-written, wry, and honest
Review: This is a terrific book by a born storyteller with a great story to tell. I enjoyed it thoroughly. She has a great eye for detail and a gift for just the right language to bring that detail alive to the reader. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a thoughtful treatment of a subject that most people only THINK they know about.
Rating:
Summary: the best kind of memoir
Review: ...is when you get to ride shotgun for the ride around what has not been your life. Lily Burana provides just that -- the adoring highs, gritty lows, fast money and mornings after. Such smart writing -- honest with a view close up at the tip rail and also the far away binocular view of how what we do to make the rent (stripping or writing) affects every other possibility. Brava!
Rating:
Summary: Strip City deconstructs stripping
Review: For anyone who has ever wondered what it is like to be a stripper, or how one becomes a stripper--look no further! Lily Burana lays it all out on the table. Her writing is witty and honest, as she discusses issues of body image, sexual politics, the history of stripping, how she became a stripper and how she got out of the business. This book is so engaging, one has the feeling of riding shotgun on this journey as Lily tells her story, and the stories of other women she meets along the way. She doesn't make excuses for, glorify, or denigrate the business of stripping--she just tells it like it is. It is easy to see how she moved into a career in journalism.
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