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Check It Out: Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny by Holly Madison

This is Michael Maxwell with the Sioux City Public Library and you’re listening to Check It Out.

Today, I am recommending Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny, a memoir by reality television pioneer Holly Madison.

Over the past few years, we have seen a public reckoning over the way society treated young women in the public eye at the dawn of the new millennium. From Britney Spears to Paris Hilton, the stars of the 2000s have spoken out about how it felt to be reduced to a punchline by a largely unsympathetic public with an insatiable appetite for their personal business.

It’s in the spirit of this cultural reevaluation of our recent history that Holly Madison takes us down the rabbit hole of her time spent in the Playboy Mansion as Hugh Hefner’s lead girlfriend during the first decade of the 21st century. Readers may remember Madison from the reality show Girls Next Door, which was one of those early reality T.V. programs that helped set the template for what the genre would become over the following decades. However, readers who remember the whimsical and cartoonish nature of that show will be shocked to learn of the darkness just below the bedazzled velour veneer.

If you enjoy true crime books or books about cults, you will enjoy Down the Rabbit Hole. Madison recounts the absurd level of manipulation and control that simmered underneath the outward glamour and mystique of the Playboy Mansion and its notorious parties. While the revelation that Hugh Hefner was abusive is hardly breaking news, Madison gives readers some pretty unforgettable examples. From banning red lip stick to having Holly trailed by spies, Hefner exerted a cult leader’s level of control over reality.

Check out Down the Rabbit Hole by Holly Madison at the Sioux City Public Library today!

Support for Check It Out on Siouxland Public Media comes from Verde Outdoor Media.

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