Bought

by Anna David

Book Overview

Anna David turns her reporter's eye for detail toward Tinseltown's seedy underbelly yet again and "eloquently and humorously unveil[s] what could be a new subgenre: Chick Lit with a Message" (New York Post).

Tired of gathering banal quotes from the B-list on the sidelines of the red carpet, Emma Swanson publicly yearns for a more substantial career but privately dreams of a hotshot boyfriend to transport her into the beating heart of the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061669180
• ISBN13: 9780061669187
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

I loved reading "Bought"

Bought will take you on a wild ride! Anna David takes us into the world of women who trade sexual favors for gifts. But she was able to bring us into this world through the eyes of Emma, a writer and Jessica, one of these women. The book will grip you from page 1 until the final letter of the final word. Anna spun the story using her unique writing style and helps brings the reader inside the minds of these women. Finally we can look in the mirror and realize that we all do exactly the same things in our own way we all have been Bought and Sold I urge everyone to read "Bought" by the Amazing Anna David !

What a different life!

Emma Swanson is a heroine who has morals and desires a career that lets her use her brain and make something of herself. Emma grabs a chance to write a story about prostitution for the magazine she works for, and her investigation leads her into a world that is something she never thought was so widely accepted. Imagine being taught your whole life about what are socially appropriate aspirations, and then finding yourself rethinking all of that at age 29. It takes some good writing to make an "easy read" a novel that has me thinking for days later about the question of how we all are selling ourselves in some way. I didn't expect to understand the allure of fast-paced LA, having grown up 3000 miles from it, but Anna David put me right in it. It was fun to find myself gradually liking Jessica's bad girl character, and simultaneously wanting to shake some sense into Emma and ask her where her goodness went. I will always wonder about what "work" the beautiful women that I see in the middle of the day might do. But overall, it is a good book when I've laughed out loud many times, not caring that everyone else on their lunch break just heard me.

Dishy, Catty Kept Women, Mean Girls, and The Allure of the Dark Side

Anna David's second novel, Bought, has a secret weapon: a very mean girl named Jessica. Jessica, though ostensibly the antagonist to good girl Emma's journalist, is a riveting character worth you taking this book to the beach ASAP. While Emma's working on a story about "kept women," she encounters a whole other side of LA, where women don't have to struggle to make the rent because they have very generous sugar daddies to support them. What at first horrifies Emma very soon intrigues and she gets sucked far into their world, so far that she's ultimately has to ask herself how far she'd go for a job, for a guy. Like she did with Party Girl, David's created a fast-paced, riveting read. Not everyone is what they seem, and Emma, though supposedly the "good girl," has to lie to her new pals and the guy she's just beginning to admit that she likes. David brings the same eye for social detail, from family pressure to the intricacies of sex and money, to Bought, making it full of players, cattiness, gossip, and drama. Jessica is thoroughly alluring in her lack of conscience, so much so that I almost wanted Emma to be seduced to the dark side. Deliciously dishy and occasionally over-the-top, written by a woman who clearly knows her LA women (and men).

Makes you think....

Great book! This book is so intelligent, but you don't just get that from reading it the first time. Once you put it down and think about the subject, you really start to realize what being "bought" really is. Is Claire really any different from Jessica, other than it's more socially acceptable to be the married girl with a husband? While Claire gets the privy life of being the wife of a successful man, Jessica gets the same high-end lifestyle paid for by her clients. Anna David really makes some fantastic and valid points in this book. It's a great summertime read, but also makes a social statement that everything is not as pretty as it seems from the outside. Basically, everyone is "selling" something and it's just a matter if you want to sell yourself -- in any sense of selling. I couldn't put it down and now I wish it were longer!

It feels good to be bad

Bought is an excellent novel about the world of high class prostitution, and a reporter who falls into it. Trying to get her big break in the magazine biz, the Emma Swanson's world, and the world of high class prostitution start to blur. Anna David creates a great story, with real characters that you can feel for, and leaves you wanting more. A great read, thoroughly enjoyable by both men and women.