Steinke doesn't create believable characters. It doesn't seem as though she cares about them herself. What could be an enlightening look at the "seamy" side of life in SanFrancisco, in the end isn't even "provocative," because it's so obvious that she doesn't care about these people as more than cartoon characters doing lurid things she writes about woodenly. What got this book into print and reprinted? Okay, so sex sells...but if you buy this book for that reason, you won't find anything sexy about it. Graphic details are written of in flat, sometimes laughable, prose and what's included between these events is vapid and dull. I don't resent her choice of subject matter. I resent how she doesn't care about it, her characters, her readers, the truth. This is an ugly book