Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: The proposal seemed very interesting at first and the book's review gave the impression that it was about the sexual history of somebody who had lived its sexuality at the up most and have something to share with us about it.However, the book fails to deliver that. It seems more the result of the author's fertile imagination than the register of real history. She managed to turn the narrative timeless (it's not possible to know when the facts happened and at what age), the names may have been changed for privacy purposes and the link between one history and other sometimes is quite confusing. The bottom line is that what regards a reflection about human sexuality this book adds nothing to the discussion.
Rating: 
Summary: A Fine Memoir, If Read for the Right Reasons
Review: It is always fun to have an erotic work presented in a serious way and have it become popular. This was the case with Nicholson Baker's fictional _Vox_ some years back, and of course the short stories of Anaïs Nin. Good old Grove Press has been seriously printing erotic books for decades, and now has produced _The Sexual Life of Catherine M._ (note the ironic homage to _The Story of O_) by Catherine Millet. Millet is the editor of the Paris magazine _Art Press_, and has written several serious books on contemporary art. When her memoir was published in France last year, there were many intellectuals who were nfuriated that she was somehow trying to purge her sexual demons by publishing such a frank memoir about some extraordinary sexual adventures. In the US, her book won't infuriate intellectuals as much as it will infuriate the prudish and those who are offended by a woman of broad sexual appetite satisfying that appetite; but it also may well offend those who buy it thinking that every page will have words to inflame the passion and excite the imagination. This isn't a book for them. Let us be clear: there is plenty of sex in the book. What Millet likes is men, lots of men, often in rapid sequence and simultaneously. Her lifelong hobby seems to have been orgies, swinging clubs, and being passed from one satisfied man to another. She describes plenty of episodes of men, more or less unknown to her, penetrating, licking, caressing; if this is disturbing, one only has to recall that she was enjoying it as were they, and that one has one's own sexual peccadilloes to nurture. The prose here is in translation (by Adriana Hunter), and so it is hard to tell how much to praise Millet for the words themselves, but in this edition they are vivid but also detached. She is not a seductress. She was simply available: "...this note that a friend put in a diary, which still gives me a glow of pride: 'Catherine, who deserves the highest praise for her calmness and availability in every situation.'" She writes often with sly wit; doing a particular stroke on a partner, "With my back bent and my frenetic arm movements, I must have looked very like a housewife desperately trying to stop a sauce from curdling, or someone proudly finishing up a home improvement." Her availability must have served her well: "I have never had to suffer any kind of clumsiness or brutality, and I have generally been lucky with the attentiveness of my partners." Only fleeting parts of this book could serve as sexual stimulants. Millet has obviously enjoyed her sexual life, and has reflected intelligently on it in a non-euphemistic and frank way. Many of the activities described are exhausting, some depressing, but some are as exhilarating as exploring uncharted lands. To have achieved her status in her career, she must have skills in communicating and getting along with people in other than sexual ways, but little of that is on display here. She has had relations with hundreds of men, and can count only 49 whose faces she would recognize. There is no feminist harangue here, no claim of victory. She does not have the way most women would want to conduct themselves, nor is hers a model to which to aspire. But unapologetic, and lucid, her book gives a fascinating look at woman fulfilling her life in a unique way.
Rating:
Summary: Sorry, this isn't erotic or even interesting
Review: I don't usually post bad reviews....if I don't like a book I just move on. But this really made me angry becuase its not erotic, or even interesting its boring. Skip over this one.
Rating:
Summary: I feel sorry for her
Review: Given the positive pre-press I read about the English-language version of this book-and there was SO much!-I felt I was predetermined to enjoy it. I was wrong. I wanted to read a memoir about a woman with whose sexual life I had something in common, even knowing I had not experienced quite such a level of, um ... activity. I wanted to learn what drove her to be so promiscuous: Physical drives? Insecurity? A need to please? A desire to be dominant? Or submissive? Perhaps just a motivation to live 'la vida loca' or trump everyone else's adventures? Even having read the book, I can't answer these questions. I certainly knew it wouldn't be erotica, but I was interested in how an accomplished woman of her cultural and socio-economic status might relate her experiences to her place in our times. After all, she is of an age to have been exposed to feminism. Amazingly, even given her self-absorption, she turns out not to be introspective in any manner that enlightens readers. I finished this book not understanding her motivations yet suspecting, sadly, that they had something to do with self-annihilation. (She writes disturbingly about disassociating herself from her sexual encounters--and who wouldn't, if you let a line of Parisian workers have a go at you in the back of a corrugated metal municipal van that leaves your backside raw)? And dare I, as an American, say it without sounding close-minded or ethnocentric?--the intellectual posturing was so "French". There was NOTHING intellectual about the author's reminiscences about her escapades. Such intellectualism would imply cultural context--and there was none. There are no clues about the years in which she lives or the cultural pressures/dictates by which she might be influenced. If readers can't draw broader conclusions from her experience that might relate to their lives, why read this?
Rating: 
Summary: If you think Norman Mailer can write, read this book
Review: A woman needed to write this book. This book makes Norman Mailer look puny.
Rating: 
Summary: Lacks True Insight
Review: Some have termed this book courageous for its inside look into the free (of responsibility and emotion) sexual life of a woman. I plunked down $ hoping to gain some unique insight into the emotional consequences of such a lifestyle and perhaps learn something I could apply to my own life. Instead, I felt like a voyeur who was only treated to the mechanical/physical side of a strange wanderlust with no insight into emotion or inner transformation. It provided neither insight nor erotica if one is looking for that. I have read novels such as Shade of the Maple by Kirk Martin that force a more thoughtful examination of one's relationships and self-concept, and which hit home very personally.
Rating:
Summary: Bad Writing
Review: I love good erotic writing. The champion, of course, is Henry Miller. So, I've got no axe to grind about erotica or porn. This woman hasn't got a clue how to tell a story. Wooden prose, indistinguishable characters, failure to convey the sensual aura of a setting -- you name it. She can't write for her life. That said, the book does provoke interesting responses because it touches on a taboo subject. The reviews are more interesting than the book. Reviewers are almost desparate to separate themselves from the subject matter, to prove that they are properly moral or feminist. One of the most interesting and often stated opinions is that the author is "passive." This is an extraordinary statement. The author is about as driven to find sexual partners as can be imagined. What those who call her passive actually mean, I believe, is that she wants to do what men want to do. In the feminist age, women are supposed to assert themselves by refusing men and by insisting that sex should be staged solely according to the desires of women. Forget the book. Read what others are saying about it. It's a litmus test. Five years ago, I predicted to my wife that women would tire of fashionable feminism and reverse field. This is the book that sets the new fashion, and it will be just as boring and hideous as the feminism nonsense.
Rating:
Summary: What a waste!
Review: I really think this was either a ploy to make a quick buck or a planned hoax.Poorly written and gives the reader little insight of a seriously flawed woman or an erotic reading.I was suckered by a review in the newspaper.I have read better prose composed by high school students. You have been warned!
Rating:
Summary: Rather dull, all things considered
Review: This book can keep one's interest for about the first 100 pages, but that's about it. After that, you will have become thoroughly maddened by her writing style. You will find out by that point that she's not going to tell you very much about herself other than she likes/liked sex a lot, and as one other reviewer wrote, the letters in American men's magazines are better. As for the reviewer in Switzerland who thinks it's the best piece of erotica he/she has ever read, Switzerland must not have much.
Rating:
Summary: yeah right!!!
Review: I,m sorry, I know we are supposed to take most books at face value, assume they are real; I do not doubt the encounters in this book, I doubt her descriptions of her feelings, there is absolutely no way that you can feel nothing after being f**ked by twenty men on the same night... give me a break, if you wanted to maintain your dignity you should not presume to write a tell all of sexual orgies you have participated in. The only people who could possibly see this book as relevant are sexually immature adolescents.
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