The Hop

A Novel

De: Diana Clarke

Narrado por: Taryn Ryan, Olivia Mackenzie-Smith, Adam Verner, Laura Petersen, Carolina Hoyos

“The Hop is a fresh ode to sisterhood and sexual agency that crackles with verve and wit. I couldn't put it down.”—Gabriela Garcia, author of the New York Times bestseller and Good Morning America Pick Of Women and Salt

A gripping feminist novel that tells the story of a poor scrappy girl from rural New Zealand who grows reluctantly into a sex icon, the face of a movement, and a mother, all at the same time.

Kate Burns grows up wanting attention from her Ma, but her Ma wants only money and Kate learns how to get both. She and her childhood friend, Lacey, run kissing lessons for cash in the janitor’s closet of Fenbrook High, and just like that, they find themselves in the sex work industry. From there, they go on to work at The Purple Panther, a strip club in Auckland. When Ma dies of cancer, Kate discovers that the men her Ma was always inviting over to their home were, in fact, clients. Ma was no stranger to sex work either.

Following in Ma’s footsteps, Kate heads to Nevada where she picks up a job at America’s most prestigious brothel: The Hop. In her new life as a Bunny, Kate searches for an identity she can perform—the other Bunnies include a goth, a housewife, a cheerleader, a rebel, not to mention Betty, a trans beauty queen, Mia, a Japanese cosplayer, and Rain, a dominatrix. Kate becomes Lady Lane. The girls at The Hop are more fantasy than fact, and performance is always more perfect than the real. Kate is a natural and quickly rises through the ranks to become the bestselling Bunny and the owner, Daddy’s favorite. But when ten street hookers are killed in a nearby city, just bodies with no names, Lady joins her sister Bunnies in mourning and begins to see things in a new light.

Lady’s success breeds scandal and unwanted fame, deeply affecting her, transforming her life and The Hop forever. Diana Clarke’s provocative second novel is subversive in the very best way, an unforgettable work of fiction with a radical message about women that couldn’t be more important.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Diana Clarke (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Reads/Listens like a Reality Show

I really enjoyed the story, though. I don’t love the “interview style “chapter by chapter. Every chapter sounds like a confessional booth from a reality show. It was not annoying enough for me to return the book because I really enjoyed the story.

Very engaging

This book hooked me right away and held my attention the whole way through. In my experience, this was one of the only books that centers sex work as a choice and not something to pity. I would read another book just on the stories of the other workers at the Hop.

Character accents were terrible

Story was weak and not believable. Light reading but somewhat entertaining. Like bad reality tv as a book.

Performance is good, writing is bad

I didn’t finish it. The performances were good. That’s probably why I downloaded it. But the writing is terrible.