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How to Build a Girl: A Novel
Author:
Moran, Caitlin
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Class:
Fiction
Age: Adult
Language: English
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LC: PR6113.O
Print Run: 75000
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ISBN-13: 9780062335975
LCCN: BD14139012
Imprint: Harper
Publisher: HarperCollins
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Pub Date: 09/23/2014
Availability: Out of Stock Indefinitely
List: $26.99
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Hardcover
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Physical Description:
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341 pages ; 24 cm
H 9",
W 6",
D 1.13",
1.1 lbs.
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LC Series:
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Brodart Sources:
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Brodart's Insight Catalog: Adult
Brodart's TOP Adult Titles
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Bibliographies:
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Rise: A Feminist Book Project for Ages 0-18
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Awards:
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Kirkus Starred Reviews
Library Journal Starred Reviews
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Starred Reviews:
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Kirkus Reviews
Library Journal
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TIPS Subjects:
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Humorous Fiction
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BISAC Subjects: |
FICTION / Coming of Age
FICTION / Humorous / General
FICTION / Literary
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LC Subjects:
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Life change events, Fiction
Psychological fiction
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SEARS Subjects: |
Life change events, Fiction
Psychological fiction
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Reading Programs: |
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| Annotations |
| Brodart's TOP Adult Titles | 06/01/2014 |
| The quest to reinvent herself in the wake of a shameful local television mishap leaves 16-year-old Johanna Morgan, now known as out-of-control bad-girl Dolly Wilde, wondering what it will take to truly put the past to rest as she struggles to craft a new identity and become the writer that will pull her family back from the brink of financial ruin. 336pp., 75K, Auth res: London |
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| Starred Reviews: |
| Kirkus Reviews | 08/15/2014 |
| From British humorist Moran (How To Be A Woman, 2012, etc.), an overweight, socially inept teen drops out of school to become a rock critic and sexual adventuress. Fourteen-year-old Johanna Morrigan shares a bedroom with both her older and younger brothers, though the frequency of her trysts with her hairbrush might recommend otherwise. The birth of unexpected twin siblings, so far known only as David and Mavid, have made the family's Thatcher-era financial situation more desperate than ever. Her dad's attempts to revive his music career by networking at the local pub have led Johanna to conclude "the future only comes to our house when it is drunk." After a humiliating appearance on a local talk show, the unsinkable Johanna goes for re-invention from the ground up. She renames herself Dolly Wilde after Oscar's niece ("this amazing alcoholic lesbian who was dead scandalous"), assembles a wall collage of inspiring women and sexy men (including "Lenin when he was very young--I don't know exactly what he went on to do but I do know that he looks hot here"), and breaks away from her parents' playlist, substituting Bikini Kill and Courtney Love for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. By 1992, 17-year-old "Dolly" has wangled herself a job writing reviews at Disc and Music Echo magazine, which leads to her encountering and falling in love with a perfectly imagined rock star named John Kite, "the first person I'd ever met who made me feel normal." Their ecstatic, chaste night together is the high point of the book. After that, she weathers the perils of being both the meanest and easiest music critic in town. Hilarious autobiographical fiction debut for Britain's Lena Dunham--if you can forgive a dot too much nasty sex and poignant lessons learned. 352pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2014. |
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| Library Journal | 09/15/2014 |
| Johanna Morrigan, 15, lives with her large family in the early 1990s in a council flat in Wolverhampton, a downtrodden city in the West Midlands of England. The family barely survives on disability payments from the government; her charming father is a drunk and a con artist, a wannabe rock star who despises Margaret Thatcher and pretty much all authority despite the handouts that keep them afloat. Johanna is friendless and extremely bookish, oversexed and desperate to lose her virginity, yet thwarted by her outsider status and complete lack of experience. A voracious reader despite her disregard for school, Johanna gets nearly all of her knowledge from the shelves of the public library. In an attempt to earn some cash for her family and break out of the confines of her narrow existence, Johanna reinvents herself as a rock journalist, bluffing her way into a job at a London magazine, where she creates an entirely new persona, complete with a new name. VERDICT It is rare to find such a brash, hilarious teenage heroine, unapologetic and open about her own sexuality. Moran's (How To Be a Woman) coming-of-age debut novel is both poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, a treat for young adults as well as those who remember the era and its music. [See Prepub Alert, 3/3/14.]. Lauren Gilbert, Sachem P.L., Holbrook, NY. 336p. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2014. |
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| Journal Reviews |
| Booklist | 08/01/2014 |
| To make money when she fears she caused her struggling family's government benefits to be cut, teen library-junkie Johanna Morrigan submits a poem about her best friend, her dog, to a contest. She wins, nabbing a cash prize and a spot on Midlands Tonight. One on-air Scooby Doo impersonation later, Johanna is wishing she'd never been born until she decides she'll be reborn instead. Nearly overnight, autodidactic freaky fat girl Johanna becomes feared music reviewer Dolly Wilde, her tools of transformation being hair dye, eyeliner, a top hat--all black--and her radio. As herself, Johanna is endearing--hilarious, pathetic, and wise. Bawdy Dolly adopts a successful fake it till you make it approach, getting known by tearing new bands to shreds and hastily, gleefully, explicitly jettisoning Johanna's many virginities. Almost suddenly, though, Johanna feels she's missed the mark, because what is there to be afraid of, really? In her first novel, comedian Moran's (How to Be a Woman, 2012) characters are huggable and aggressively real; her setting--1990s Wolverhampton and London--touchable; and her depiction of growing up well worth reading. One heartily hopes there's more where this came from. Bostrom, Annie. 336p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2014. |
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| Library Journal Prepub Alert | 03/03/2014 |
| British cultural critic Moran broke out here with 2012's How To Be a Woman, an eye-opening look at women today through Moran's life story that spent 18 weeks on the New York Times paperback nonfiction best sellers list and eight weeks on the ebook nonfiction best sellers list; it also won major reviews from venues like People and Slate, as well as significant NPR coverage. Her fiction debut echoes aspects of her life-e.g., joining the music weekly Melody Maker at 16 and changing her first name to Caitlin (pronounced Cat-lin)-before she went on to a nearly two-decade career as a prize-winning columnist at the London Times. Here, after an embarrassing incident on local TV, 14-year-old Johanna Morrigan decides to remake herself as out-there Dolly Wilde, ready to support her offbeat, struggling family with her writing. Soon, she's drinking regularly, having lots of sex with various men, and writing acidulous reviews of rock bands. But can you really build the perfect girl? With a 75,000-copy first printing. 352p. LJ Prepub Alert Online Review. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2014. |
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| Publishers Weekly | 07/07/2014 |
| "The 1990s are a bad time to be poor and not-famous," thinks 14-year-old Johanna Morrigan, who lives with her parents and four siblings on a council estate in Wolverhampton. Arguably, the new millennium brought little relief on this front, but for Moran (How to Be a Woman), the gritty British landscape of adolescence, set to a loud '90s soundtrack of the Stone Roses and the Mondays, is the stage for Johanna's fabulous reinvention of herself. Adopting the pseudonym Dolly Wilde, Johanna educates herself in eyeliner and contemporary music and begins submitting record reviews to a London weekly. In the process, she grows up, has adventures far beyond the estate walls, and learns to love herself. Moran's sharp sense of humor comes through in Johanna's observations. Gratifying, too, are the constant stream of '90s alt-rock references (Soup Dragons, anyone?) and the portrait of a pre-Internet world, where kids actually had actually leave their houses to find new identities. Unfortunately, Johanna's voice feels forced, and her exploits seem to surpass what might have been believable chutzpah. (Sept.). 336p. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2014. |
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9780062335975,dl.it[0].title
| Review Citations |
| New York Times Book Review | 10/12/2014 |
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