Box Girl: My Part Time Job as an Art Installation

(Paperback)

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Description

When 22-year-old Lilibet Snellings moved to Los Angeles on a whim, she unintentionally became a "slash" to keep her head above water--a writer/waitress/actress/Box Girl. One night each week, Lilibet would go to The Standard Hotel in West Hollywood, don a pair of white boy shorts with a matching tank, touch up her lip gloss, and crawl into a giant glass case behind the front desk. There, she could do whatever she wanted--check email, catch up on reading, even sleep--as long as she ignored the many hotel guests who would point and ask the staff, "Is she allowed to use the bathroom" (Yes.) Dog-paddling through her twenties, Snellings resisted financial bailouts (for the most part) from her sweet Southern mother and business-oriented dad, while pondering her peculiar position as a human art installation. Was she a piece of art or a piece of ass Was she allowed to read both Walt Whitman and US Weekly as she lounged in an oversized, waterless aquarium behind a hotel concierge desk From misinterpreting a modeling agency interview as a talent audition, to avoiding Bond-girl-style deaths at New Year's Eve parties, Snellings shares and laughs at her many mishaps while living in LA.

Reviews

"This memoir by Snellings is pieced off into small, easily digestible chapters about her life in Los Angeles as a living art installation at The Standard Hotel. Equal parts humor and coming of age, she takes us on her journey as she spends her nights in a glass box where guests can watch her lounge in what is essentially her underwear." --Buzzfeed, listed BOX GIRL as #3 on their "22 Books You Need to Read This Summer" list "a fast, funny, and sometimes touching look at [Snelling's] early 20s in Los Angeles" --Flavorwire "One part Joan Didion, one part Holly Golightly, Lililbet Snellings has given us, in Box Girl, a hilarious and utterly original account of coming of age in L.A. Winsome, witty, and startlingly honest, she takes us on a mental journey that touches on feminism and fast food, voyeurism and advertising, going broke and breaking away. Delightful!" --Dana Goodyear "A funny, whip smart debut. Snellings' expose of herself and Los Angeles gives new meaning to the phrase 'think inside the box.'" --Sandra Tsing Loh "Snelling offers every imaginable detail about her weekly hours in the box" --Kirkus Reviews

Author Bio

Lilibet Snellings was born in Georgia and raised in Connecticut. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder and her MFA from the University of Southern California. For eight years she lived in Los Angeles, where she worked as a freelance writer, an on-camera reporter, a waitress, an extra in a Smirnoff Ice commercial, and a dead person in a music video. Her writing has appeared in The Huffington Post, Los Angeles Magazine, Anthem, Flaunt, and This Recording, among other publications. She currently lives in Chicago with her husband.