SYNOPSIS:

Jolene Bittersmyth’s overweight, her fiancée just dumped her, she just lost her job, and she's in credit card debt hell. Her best friend, Carry Goetz, pulls her into a fitness class to start a badly needed makeover process; but Jolene wasn't expecting the exercise class to be a strippercize class, nor did she expect to become good at it. After a few weeks of intensive training, Jolene has dropped the extra weight and is now a radiant beauty. Baxter Abercrombie, a prim and proper university professor, is more than mildly interested in Jolene. He helps Jolene secure a part time job at the university library. The pay is good but not good enough to clear her monthly bills and pay her debt. The strippercize instructor owns a strip club that runs a contest each year to find the best amateur stripper. Jolene is a sure winner and the prize is $10,000. Jolene reluctantly agrees to enter the contest that runs over several weeks. As Jolene and Baxter date, her ex-fiancée, Jake, also renters her life in hopes of getting Jolene back. And still, she dances on, winning week over week; hiding her dancing from everyone. In the library, she is Jolene – but on stage, she is Marian the Librarian, who pulls out every dance she knows and gives it a stripper’s touch. From tap to modern and jazz, no dance is sacred. The audience loves her spin on strip, but she’s made enemies with the other dancers, and Cherry Bomb is out to get her. But as all good things do end, Jolene loses her anonymity when Baxter, her boss, and several university students show up at her last dance. Cherry Bomb gives Jolene an drug-laced cookie and Jolene’s last dance is over the top. She taps and strips and crawls her way to number one. She wins and then passes out. Jake, who has been sitting in the front row watching her, takes her home. The next day, Jake tells Jolene that he wants her back and that he just can’t be in the same city without her. Jolene feels something for him, but there’s Baxter to consider, and he did ask Jolene to marry him. Jolene rushes to the library to work, but gets fired for her on stage performance. Then, Baxter shows up and dumps her. She’s back to where she began. In one of her many visits to her grandmother, Jolene tells Gran of the outcome of the past few days. Jolene’s depressed – but Gran sets her straight. Stop wallowing in self pity and be glad that you are free to make your own decisions and live a life worth living. Jolene takes her Gran’s advice and reinvents her life. She’s the new dance and strippercize instructor at Big Apple Fitness. Jake decides to stay in town with hope that Jolene will marry him….someday. And Jolene’s okay with that. It is, after all, her life.

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