SuicideGirls - book discontinued by Feral House - review by Librarian

This is a book that consists of a collection of photographs of "alternative" beauty; mostly, tattooed young women. These photographs were submitted by the female models. They aren't necessarily professional models in any sense, as far as I could tell from the biographies and information provided about the women in the back of the book.

The SuicideGirls website touts itself as "soft porn". I enjoy nude photography books, and this one was fine, but I didn't see any rhyme or reason to the collection of photos, nor the order. It's 2004 publication date doesn't lead me to believe this particular book was "unique" for its time period. There has been quite a bit of alternative pinup beauty, most of these are fairly young women--18 and mid 20s-- and that, to me is a bit disheartening. As a 30-year-old, I would like to see women of my age and older feeling beautiful and baring it all instead of just leaving it as a "young" woman's game.

This would be a good gift book for someone into nude photography who doesn't have much in their collection of alternative women (tattooed, pierced, and slightly pinup-ish style). There's not a whole lot of pinup going on in the imagery, but this is one of the claims the editor, Missy Suicide, makes about the book. That this is about pinups in a way, I could see only in some of the hairstyle, but the glamor wasn't really an overall theme of this book.

To me, honestly, this looked like a photography project wherein a bunch of young women who were tattooed, pierced, and comfortable with their bodies (and they are all of that nubile, thin/somewhat curvy bunch--no one really "large"--though there are some large breasts) submitted photos they, or someone else took of them in a slightly posed setting.

Overall, I simply was not impressed.