Back on Top

Image credit: Hachette Australia

The first one was so juicy it was way too easy to jump into the second! 

Back on Top tells the story of all that happened to Amanda/Samantha after the fame and attention of coming out as an escort. The soaring business end as well as the dramatic love story between her and a client, named Big. 

The book takes on a much more girly tone, truly like that of Sex and the City and other romantic comedies. The major difference is that there is a clear love story running parallel to the raunchy boudoir tales in the Samantha chapters. True, it’s a little clichéd, but it still does the trick and makes for a fast-flipping power read. What’s particularly nice about it is that there’s a bit of a stronger sense of chronology and flow that sometimes was missing from the first book. 

While Hooked was more a story of empowerment and bravery, in a sense, Back on Top is a redemption story and a narrator’s journey, exploring the empowerment that other people can give you, not just the strands found within the self. It might seem to be all about Samantha/Amanda, but there are more situations in which neither of them is in control and it’s sort of interesting because it has this humbling affect on their strong-willed characters we’d come to know in Hooked. 

Samantha’s voice definitely has a bit of a different tone in this book: a little more snobbery and privilege, an understandable change that comes with the higher class lifestyle that she’s privy to. 

And it’s interesting to see that the roles of the characters have been completely reversed. Where Samantha was the one in potentially dangerous and harmful situations, it’s Amanda that ends up in serious trouble, ironically having to be rescued from a man not by a man. 

Image credit: Daily Mail

The likeness to Sex and the City is a lot stronger here, namely because of the character of Mr. Big. Samantha, straight off the bat, admits that she’s borrowed the name for two reasons: to protect the man’s privacy, and create an apt depiction of his character. Just like the show, I spent a lot of time during the Amanda chapters openly voicing what a dick Big is, wondering why Amanda put up with the gaslighting and abuse, and hating the fact that I was doing all of this. So there you go. It might be girly and clichéd, but it’s still effective. 

Back on Top doesn’t have the same sassy and vivacious vibe that Hooked did but then again, it is telling a different story. Like its predecessor, it’s easy to power through and is an open window into a real world that many people don’t understand or accept. That’s what’s especially great about it. 

Author: Samantha X 

Published: Hachette, 2017