Since my grandmother frequents flea markets, sometimes she’d buy me a book or something she’d thought interesting. Though it didn’t always align, one book I enjoyed was Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos.

Now I haven’t seen the movie full-through, just the iconic Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend song so I can’t compare the book to the movie but from what I can glean from the movie’s summary, they are pretty different.

For one thing, there is only one protagonist, not two. Loreli Lee, a somewhat ditzy golddigger and her adventures across Europe in search for a wealthy husband. . . And that’s about it.

There’s no great moral, rather a series of light vignettes where Loreli meets Dr. Freud, lies about herself to impress a bevy of men from Prsybeterian minister to a magazine editor, steals a tiara and goes on many many shopping trips.

Now it sounds like the making of an awful girl who gets everything she wants, but it’s not. Loreli is not malicious, just knows what she wants. Plus there is humor in seeing how naive she is about the world which the book amply points out. It’s a satire I suppose about the golddigging flappers of the age but also it’s just entertainment. A good book for anyone who wants to check out the inspiration for the movie.