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1.41k reviews for:
Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny
Holly Madison
3.45 AVERAGE
1.41k reviews for:
Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny
Holly Madison
3.45 AVERAGE
This was a lot better than I was expecting! I'm not a really big biography person but I've always liked Holly Madison and was genuinely curious after watching some Q and A's on her Youtube channel.
Obviously, this is Holly's story, so it's obviously biased. After a while you do question how she is consistently the victim in her life and why is it always everyone else who does her wrong. However, I believe Holly's version of how Hollywood changes you and how glitz can shadow truly darker intentions.
Overall, this was really fun to read and I wanted to know what happened while she lived with Heff and how filming Girls Next Door went for her.
Is it perfect? Not even close, but she gives the audience what they want to know - all the dirty secrets behind the scenes.
Obviously, this is Holly's story, so it's obviously biased. After a while you do question how she is consistently the victim in her life and why is it always everyone else who does her wrong. However, I believe Holly's version of how Hollywood changes you and how glitz can shadow truly darker intentions.
Overall, this was really fun to read and I wanted to know what happened while she lived with Heff and how filming Girls Next Door went for her.
Is it perfect? Not even close, but she gives the audience what they want to know - all the dirty secrets behind the scenes.
emotional
hopeful
informative
fast-paced
Im not sobbing right now... this book was so good, I listened to the audiobook & had no regrets about it (this was my first audiobook & im thrilled it was!) To hear what Holly & the other girls endured while at the mansion was so sad but to know how much Holly fought to leave & build a life for herself is so amazing to hear. I loved that she wrote this book & feel like it shows a side we would have never known otherwise! She is well spoken & the book is so well written. Id recommend this book to anyone & the audiobook especially! Also, Holly if you're reading this, please narrate Alice in Wonderland so I can listen to it!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Sexual content, Pregnancy
fast-paced
This book is a horribly hypocritical rendition of "feel sorry for me cause I'm the victim and everyone else is awful" while also tearing down other women. Not to mention the massive pat on the back in the last half for being apparently so successful that E! and a Vegas stage show just couldn't possibly go on without Holly, but of course, everyone else were epic failures, lazy etc.
Absolute drivel.
Absolute drivel.
Although I had of course heard of Hugh Hefner and his hoard of young, blonde girlfriends, I never personally watched Girls Next Door or either of their spin-offs. I was curious about why someone would "date" him, and what the whole Playboy/Hefner experience was like. I think this book fulfills its purpose. I found it interesting, entertaining, and it answers the questions I had about life in the Playboy mansion.
There were parts of this book that I really enjoyed and parts that I found quite distasteful. I really enjoyed her openness in talking about her experiences in the mansion. Hef is clearly a narcissist. He was also financially and verbally abusive to these poor girls and I really applaud Holly for being open to talking about that. It was fascinating to hear what went down behind those walls.
I one huge thing I didn't enjoy was Holly's hypocrisy when talking about the other girls. She begins the book by talking about how none of the other girls liked her. They made fun of her, pulled catty stunts with Hef, and tried to get her kicked out of the mansion. She said it made her life miserable and she sunk into a deep depression. She refers to them as 'mean girls'. Suddenly, in the very next chapter, she's doing the same thing to Kendra! She's bashing Kendra left and right. She's making snide comments about Kendra's work ethic, her boyfriend, her lifestyle. She has this 'holier than thou' attitude towards pretty much all of the other girls except Bridgett.
She does such a good job unraveling the PTSD that her relationship with Hef gave her, but she stops just one step away from having that same compassion with the other girls. She seems to realize that Hef deliberately stripped her of her confidence and was putting a wedge between her and the other girls by intentionally causing drama and jealously but isn't able to apply that logic to what the other girls did towards her. In her mind, her actions towards them come from a place of insecurity but other people's actions towards her are viewed as malicious and willfully hurtful instead of seeing them as reactions to Hef's interference.
Come to find out at the end of the book that there wasn't even any legitimate reason for her feud with Kendra! Apparently Kendra tweeted that she was never friends with Holly. That's it. And that apparently gave Holly the right to tear her down repeatedly in this book. It seems to me like Holly has some internalized misogamy she should be dealing with.
I one huge thing I didn't enjoy was Holly's hypocrisy when talking about the other girls. She begins the book by talking about how none of the other girls liked her. They made fun of her, pulled catty stunts with Hef, and tried to get her kicked out of the mansion. She said it made her life miserable and she sunk into a deep depression. She refers to them as 'mean girls'. Suddenly, in the very next chapter, she's doing the same thing to Kendra! She's bashing Kendra left and right. She's making snide comments about Kendra's work ethic, her boyfriend, her lifestyle. She has this 'holier than thou' attitude towards pretty much all of the other girls except Bridgett.
She does such a good job unraveling the PTSD that her relationship with Hef gave her, but she stops just one step away from having that same compassion with the other girls. She seems to realize that Hef deliberately stripped her of her confidence and was putting a wedge between her and the other girls by intentionally causing drama and jealously but isn't able to apply that logic to what the other girls did towards her. In her mind, her actions towards them come from a place of insecurity but other people's actions towards her are viewed as malicious and willfully hurtful instead of seeing them as reactions to Hef's interference.
Come to find out at the end of the book that there wasn't even any legitimate reason for her feud with Kendra! Apparently Kendra tweeted that she was never friends with Holly. That's it. And that apparently gave Holly the right to tear her down repeatedly in this book. It seems to me like Holly has some internalized misogamy she should be dealing with.
This book was entertaining. It was interesting to hear the inner secrets of the playboy mansion. I personally feel like Holly sounded whiney about the lifecshe chose, but you do see her in a vulnerable stage of life. I am glad she came out of everything that she went through as a better person and it seems like she is Web un a better place.
dark
informative
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
lighthearted
fast-paced
I’ve been listening to Holly and Bridget’s podcast Girls Next Level and thought I should reread this to compare new feelings with old ones. I was a big Girls Next Door fan when it aired. I especially loved Bridget and Holly (Kendra always gave me bad vibes) and I liked how fun the show was at its core even though these women were living a lifestyle I definitely couldn’t relate to. As I get older, it makes sense that the reality of the situation didn’t match up to the reality show.
People can debate all they want about the truth of Holly’s words but now that she and Bridget are doing this podcast and doing interviews with people who were also in the Playboy circuit, I think their stories of mistreatment are pretty credible. Note: Kendra fans will probably not enjoy this.
There are a few editing errors that jumped out at me but it wasn’t terribly distracting from Holly’s message. She does repeat herself at times and the allusion that her life had similarities to that of Marilyn Monroe seems a little grandiose but I think that overall I’m glad she seized the opportunity to tell her story and hold very little back.
People can debate all they want about the truth of Holly’s words but now that she and Bridget are doing this podcast and doing interviews with people who were also in the Playboy circuit, I think their stories of mistreatment are pretty credible. Note: Kendra fans will probably not enjoy this.
There are a few editing errors that jumped out at me but it wasn’t terribly distracting from Holly’s message. She does repeat herself at times and the allusion that her life had similarities to that of Marilyn Monroe seems a little grandiose but I think that overall I’m glad she seized the opportunity to tell her story and hold very little back.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body shaming, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, Alcohol
I really just read this book out of curiosity. It’s a light-hearted read or listen- I had the audiobook. It’s certainly not literary brilliance as the writing style seems immature and simple but I enjoyed the BTS gossip of the playboy mansion!
When I was a teenager Playboy was having a resurgence in popularity (albeit, not with the emo/skater/hipster scene I fell into) and has a 00s pop culture obsessive, Holly Madison's book on her time in the Playboy Mansion has been on my wishlist since it was announced. But it was also on my list because Hugh Hefner has always creeped me the fuck out, so I wanted to hear what one of his ex-girlfriends had to say about it.
The book didn't disappoint - even if nothing in it shocked me and the Playboy Mansion is as seedy as you would expect. It's also a story of someone escaping and having her happily ever after which, again, isn't exactly a surprise from a book of this nature. Saying that I love it and recommend that every pop culture aficionado puts in on their shelf.
The book didn't disappoint - even if nothing in it shocked me and the Playboy Mansion is as seedy as you would expect. It's also a story of someone escaping and having her happily ever after which, again, isn't exactly a surprise from a book of this nature. Saying that I love it and recommend that every pop culture aficionado puts in on their shelf.