3.75 stars
As someone who watched The Girls Next Door in the late 2000s, I've been fascinated by these tales from the Playboy mansion.
I've already read Holly Madison's first memoir, which is why I was immediately intrigued when I saw that Crystal had released a book too.
I always find it tricky to rate personal memoirs like this, particularly when it has a subject matter such as this one.
So I've given this 3.75 stars and would definitely say that it is worth a read, especially if you're interested in the whole allure of Hugh Hefner and the mansion and what it was really like behind the famous doors.
I'm not sure that Crystal comes out of this in the most positive light, especially when there are quite a number of contradictions.
Parts were also rather repetitive but I'm not sure if this is from
It does give an interesting insight into this world, however.
I also wanted to note that this proof copy was tricky to read in parts due to missing letters and repeated sections. So, hopefully this has been addressed in the final edit.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

At just twenty-one years old, Crystal Harris’ life changed forever when she attended a party at the notorious Playboy mansion.

Picked out of the crowd by Hugh Hefner, she became one of his infamous “girlfriends,” attending glamorous Hollywood parties and travelling the world. Yet this seemingly alluring lifestyle had a dark side.

I grew up surrounded by the Playboy logo on so many items of clothing, all the bags, and all the TV shows and was easily a number one fan of The Girls Next Door! I've seen so many documentaries and reality TV shows about these women, that this was always going to be high up on my list to read!

I loved watching the TV show Girls of the Playboy Mansion on e growing up. So when I saw Crystal Hefner had released her own memoir, I knew I wanted to read it. And what a powerful read it was.

Crystal rips away the gloss and hairspray to give you a in-depth and truthful look at what really went on in the Playboy Mansion, how the girls were treated and proves that money doesn't buy you happiness (even if a TV show tries to show you different).

It was also great to have another perspective on events and treatment that Holly Madison has been speaking up about for years. Definitely worth the read.

An interesting read. It’s very easy to make judgements but this is literally, “don’t judge a book by its cover”. Well worth a read

I was an OG viewer of the Playboy mansion programme back in the Holly, Bridget and Kendra days.
Back then I really enjoyed it and envied the girls and their lifestyle. Oh how times have changed!
I'm conflicted about this book, on the one hand it is obvious she was preyed on due to her understandable issues but on the other she chose to go back and chose to partake in finding other girls for Hef and leading them into the lifestyle she so struggled with.
If one thing comes from all of this then hopefully we will never see the likes of Hugh Hefner again.

I wasn't aware of Crystal before reading Only Say Good Things. I read it with an open mind and with intrigue. The book is Crystal's account of her life growing up and in the playboy mansion. It's easy to see that Crystal was abused by men long before she went to live in the mansion. Her reasons for marrying Hugh Hefner are odd to say the least. It is an interesting account and I did enjoy reading it, although there is a fair bit of repetition.

Only Say Good Things, Crystal Hefner

Wife of the late Playboy mogul Crystal Hefner opens the doors the real story behind the glamorous mansion and finally speaks her truths without “only saying good things” Hef requested.

None of this book came as a surprise. A brand which has exploited the women inside its pages for years it is however, important that these stories make it out of the ether!

I have very mixed feelings on this book, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to express them fully, and/or clearly. But I think that overall, my reaction can be summed up in the line “too little, too late”. It should be obvious to many - even without having read her memoir - that Crystal Harris had a difficult child/teenhood, and was coerced into an abusive relationship with a sexual predator. But whilst reading ‘Only Say Good Things’, my surprise was that Crystal herself seems to have known this, even whilst this abuse was happening. So her seeming desire to be absconded from any responsibility in perpetuating the Playboy myth (one which seriously damaged the development and experience of women such as myself, along with millions of others) - to be regarded only as a victim of Hef’s, and not a sometimes willing participant, as she was - jars with me. I’m unsure as to whether this is the fault of the ghost writer (who did a pretty middle-of-the-road job: continuity wasn’t great; there was some repetition; laughable lines include “Charing Cross Road sounded fancy, but also kind of British”…), but it doesn’t make Crystal a particularly likeable figure. She flicks frequently from decrying Hef as a cruel and emotionally-dead captor to heaping praise and gratitude on him - so much so that I’m unsure as to whether she knows even now how she feels about him. It seems like she wants to say more, but doesn’t want to risk the backlash, and I’d rather she have gone all out or not bothered at all. She says good and bad things happened during her time in the mansion, but if the bad things she mentions don’t outweigh all of the good, then she appears to be keeping a lot of stock in money. She spends a great deal of time lamenting poor decisions made, or her own lack of judgement; follows through with what she then learnt from this - before making the same mistakes again and again. There’s only so much sympathy you can feel for someone who has just spent almost an entire book bemoaning her (and society’s) obsession with placing a woman’s value solely on how she looks, to then hear that she decided to have a fourth surgical procedure to alter her image. As I noted at the time, her excuse of “I would go along with it [literally her marriage to Hef] because going along with things was what I did” just isn’t enough for me. The book was interesting in that you get an extremely in-depth view of what living in the mansion and being a Playmate was like (spoiler: at best boring, at worst physical and psychological torture), but that only really made me angrier that this was all then spun into a claim that Hef was some kind of sexual pioneer, and Playboy bunnies were the height of female sexual liberation. Near the end of the book, Crystal goes to the storage facility where Hef’s three thousand scrapbooks (don’t get me started) are kept, and we are told of two letters she finds immortalised and shown off in these books. The first is from a 12 year-old girl, telling Hef that her dream is to live in the mansion, and asking what one has to do to get in there; the second, “from a young man thanking Hef for teaching him how to treat women”. So forgive me - a woman who has been treated that way by a lot of men - if I think that a book which, yes, does go someway to revealing the “truth” behind Hef/Playboy doesn’t do enough when it comes from a woman who also spends much of her memoir trying to humanise and defend him.

I’ve always been intrigued by what goes on at the Playboy mansion and Crystal Hefner’s book lifts the lid on life there. I found it a real page turner and fascinating, though also quite depressing in parts. I felt Crystal’s voice was strong in telling her story and I feel the book is written well.

A fascinating read and look into a world that was so often glamorised.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for a review.

An amazing insight into the lives of Crystal and the girls. Quite scary to think how many girls wanted to be them and believed in the front they all managed to show, so upsetting we live/lived in a world that girls found this a great ideal life. I hope nothing like this place can ever happen again. I’m glad women are starting to see their worth. Good luck to Crystal in finding her peace.




Arc was very poor to read. Lots of missing letters and large chunks repeating making some parts difficult to keep up with.

Only Say Good Things is a difficult read at times, but it’s definitely an eye-opening one. Prior to reading Crystal’s memoir I knew very little about Playboy and its culture, and I can’t say I wasn’t shocked at everything I learned. The abuse and coercion she faced from Hugh Hefner was disgusting, and how it all went on for so long is beyond me. It shows how easy it is for people to abuse their power, and how it often never leads to any consequences.

I genuinely felt for Crystal and what I think turned out to be a form of Stockholm Syndrome, with Hefner at one point controlling her whole life from morning to night. I thought she could have escaped this life sooner, but she had genuine feelings for him and treated him with kindness even after everything he put her through. I have no desire to read more about him, and if he’d lived longer I’m sure he would have ended up in prison.

Only Say Good Things is a fast, fascinating insight into Crystal’s life, with intensely sad moments that unashamedly show what her life was really like. She’s a brave lady to put her story out into the world, and I hope she continues to compartmentalise and move on from all the horrors she witnessed, both in the Playboy mansion and out of it.

3.5/5.

An insightful look into what it was really like to live in the mansion. I still don’t understand how Hugh managed to convince everyone that he was this sex positive, liberating women icon. He was just a creepy old man who found a way to make a lot of money out of taking advantage of young women.

For anyone who doesn’t understand why Crystal stayed this book shows how difficult it was for her to leave. It shows that when you’re put down enough and told how lucky you are to be there a prison becomes your safe place and you don’t know how to exist outside of it. It also gives you an insight into all the different emotions at play.

Some of the writing does go off on a tangent and it is a bit repetitive in places. It’s an interesting read though and reveals the dirty behind the scenes on a lot of what was celebrated back in the early 2000s.

I received a copy of the ebook via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I'm not sure how to rate it as I wasn't a fan of the storytelling. Playboy is a controversial topic: it was the top of mysoginy and chauvinism and a the magazine that published some of the most interesting articles.
I saw a number of true crimes documentaries about what was being a playmate or living at Hefner's house.
According to the book it was really boring.
I think that the ghost writer did a good job in turning the memories into a book but there's also some contradictions.
The picture of a past that I hope is gone forever
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This was such a good glimpse into life in the playboy mansion, I was a big fan of the Girls next door when it was on tv and enjoyed the books that followed from some of the girls. I didn't really know Crystal as it all kind of ended around the time she met Hef and so to read about life at the mansion from her point of view was incredibly interesting. What a weird world to be a part of and to be honest seeing in from a different pov than the glossy shiny one shown on tv is really eye opening.

Great book!

Although this proof copy was difficult to read …letter missing and parts repeated I was intrigued by this story . I think Hugh Hefner was an iconic figure and the Playboy mansion escapades were legendary. This book tells you the reality of the mansion and what really went on behind closed doors … intriguing sad in parts which I really enjoyed

Only Say Good Things by Crystal Hefner

I remember High Hefner making the newspapers and tv for being a millionaire playboy that in the 70s/80s stars flocked to his mansion to be in the company of his ( ! ) bunnies.

Fast forward to now and that type of lifestyle and the way the women were treated is now ( thankfully ) a world away as being seen as something or someone to aspire to.

Crystal came to the mansion and Hugh at the very end of that era and by then he was an elderly man and the lifestyle he kept as tawdry.






I

This book feels like an honest account of one woman’s experience in the most famous mansion in the world. This is a warts and all book but not just an excuse to blame all on one side but show the open faults on everyone involved and also how easy it is for those lost out there to believe that attention and fame are substitutes for love and affection. What ever your views on the man this book just made my heart cry for this poor girl who all threw her life had been used and abused by men and who thought that it was what she was worth. I hope she now has peace and love in her life.

I remember watching the E! show The Girls Next Door and was mesmerised by the lives of the Playboy bunnies and Hef's girlfriends. There was something naughty and frivolous about their lives, something a little bit plastic and not real that made it such an entertaining show. After reading Holly Madison's book about her time at the mansion, I gained an insight into the seedier, darker side of the Playboy mansion and the man obsessed with power and control - Hugh Hefner. Crystal Hefner has always been a bit of an enigma. The woman who convinced Hef to marry again (or so the world thought) and became his sole companion up until his death. So when I heard she was releasing her story, I knew I had to read it.

Crystal doesn't shy away from any aspect of her life before, during and after Hugh Hefner. She documents that fateful night she's chosen by Hefner to join him at the mansion, as well as adding context to her life growing up and loosing her father, and her first love, at such a young age. She arrives at the mansion as a young, impressionable and broken girl. And Hugh swoops in and takes advantage of this. As Crystal says, 'he always kept the ones with broken wings'. And their relationship is a complicated one. Hugh constantly undermined Crystal, reminded her she was lucky to be there, to the point where she believed it. She was to be seen, not heard, the good girl looking for her knight. Hugh became her jailer, yet she cared for him deeply too and did everything he ever asked of her. When he was gone, and she was finally free, he left a big hole in her life and she felt lost. She had to find herself again.

A frank and eye opening read about time in the Playboy mansion, where sexual liberation is at the whim of powerful men. I only hope that times have changed and we never get anything like the Playboy legacy ever again.

I knew nothing about Crystal Hefner before I started this book and I was really surprised by some of the stories. While I didn't think the Playboy house was the centre of female empowerment, its even more shocking than you'd imagine. After a party at the Playboy mansion, Crystal was asked to move in and take on the role of Hef's girlfriend. The girlfriends were expecting to observe curfew, look perfect and never speak negatively about Hef. Crystal eventually married him although it wasn't what she wanted. It's a fascinating insight into a whole other world and a quick read.