I was prepared to dislike Belle De Jour, I had noticed the hype and seen the online references to how utterly wonderful she is and how well she expresses working. I read similar things about Tracy Quan and was quite disappointed.

I had only dabbled in Belle De Jour's online journal and was expecting to be disappointed in her too, yet I found her immediately likeable. She launches straight into her experiences, opinions and frailties with a humour that I do tend to identify with the English. Perhaps that only from so many English SitComs as a child, but it works for me.

I had a moments concern when she started so quickly explaining her masochistic fantasies (and realities), wondering whether it was a good idea for a sex worker to be admitting to that, surely it would only feed the stereotypes? -but then I decided that I worry too much, and given the moral right will say whatever they like, there's no reason why an escort shouldn't mention her own preferences.

Belle De Jour also introduces immediately 'the boy', her partner, and discusses with a neat back-and-forth timeline their current relationship and the earlier stages of getting together and dealing with her work. We watch that interaction over the course of the book and her struggles with relationships seem very familiar. In fact, most of the book seems familiar, as we get snippets of gatherings and lunches with friends, and the conversations are so similar to ones people really have but never bother writing about.

Because ultimately this isn't a novel, it's a journal. There isn't a plot, because there's a life. We meet the four A's, friends who become confused mentally because it's too hard to keep track of them individually with only 'A1' etc to distinguish them. It's hard not to think that this is deliberate, as someone of De Jour's obvious intelligence wouldn't have failed to notice the effect.

Intermixed between these entries about friends and domestic scenes she relates short anecdotes about her bookings, her clients, which contrast neatly with the rather mundane everyday life of an escort. It creates an impression of the bookings as events out of time, out of the normal run of things. There is also an A-Z of London Sex Work at the beginning of each month's entries.

While it has definite voyeuristic appeal, it is much more than that, and I think the best way to sum it up is 'witty'. She has a talent for setting a scene to highlight the ridiculous, and her humour is sharp and clever. It's a book to be enjoyed, and while the subject is obviously controversial, she is not defensive, there is no seeking of approval.

The closest she comes is her insistence that office work is dull (and who wouldn't agree) and that if she did that, she'd be 'selling out'. After all, she's doing something that she enjoys now, and suits her, but the other options for a graduate in London just aren't appealing.

Many have insisted that Belle De Jour is obviously not an escort, because no escort could write like that. That she must be a writer, playing with an idea. If the idea of intelligent prostitutes disturbs you, then believe that if you want, I doubt it would make any difference to her. But you would be denying yourself the richness of her writing by only viewing it as an intellectual exercise. She is real in a way that very few writers are, even autobiographers, and the only disappointment is that she has obviously published before 'The Intimate Adventures of a London Callgirl' have finished.