Former supermodel Paulina Porizkova leads an enviable life, with fame, money, looks, and a rock star husband to boot. Turns out all she ever really wanted to be was Judy Blume.

At least that's the impression one gets from Porizkova's debut novel, A Model Summer. Due out in April from Hyperion, it's a coming-of-age story about a 15-year-old Swedish model with a slavic name who is discovered and whisked off to Paris, where she learns about sex, drugs, untimely menstruation, sleazy photographers, and model-on-model betrayal. (Porizkova, who also moved to Paris from Sweden after being discovered at 15, insists her heroine is "purely fictional.") It's the cautionary tale that all America's Next Top Model wannabes should read.

To her credit, unlike most famous-for-being-beautiful types who want to add "author" to their CVs, Porizkova eschewed a ghostwriter. Instead, she entered a beginning-novelists workshop taught by freelance editor Jessie Sholl. Sholl is thanked in the acknowledgments, along with several classmates whose names are also used for characters in the book. "It was kind of an inside joke between Paulina and the class," Sholl tells Radar. "I fear that there may be people who'll pan the book because they're too shallow to get over the fact that a former supermodel is now writing literary fiction. But if her novel is evaluated on its own merits, then it will do well. After all, it's a great book."

Fair enough. Some examples of those merits:

On getting the curse on location:
"What if I made a tampon instead? After all, I'm no longer a virgin. I wad up tissue into a small tight cylinder, about the width of my thumb, and shove it in. I stand to check for blood flow; it holds."

On dirty words:
"For a split second, my brain takes a side road down the street of fuck, registering all its possibilities: as a noun—that fuck; as an adjective—fucking; and as a verb—to fuck. Amazing, a little word that conveys so much that I have until now completely disregarded. Well, no more. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. Fucking asshole."

On getting high:
"I could do this forever ... cocaine is my hero. My heroine. I laugh at my word play and feel an urgent need to share my dazzling thought process."

On the joys of loving:
"I feel him harden again. Back in, back out. This time I count. Five thrusts before it's over. I'm beginning to feel like a mattress with a convenient hole. And it doesn't stop ... This sex thing is truly overrated; even Kafka would be more entertaining right now."