How to Build a Girl - by Caitlin Moran (Paperback)

About the Book

After she shames herself on local television, Johanna Morrigan reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde-- a fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero-- until two years later, while eviscerating bands as a music critic, she realizes she's built Dolly with a fatal flaw.

Book Synopsis

Now a major motion
picture starring Beanie Feldstein!

The New York Times bestselling author hailed as "the UK's answer to Tina Fey, Chelsea Handler, and Lena Dunham all rolled into one" (Marie Claire) makes her fiction debut with a hilarious yet deeply moving coming of age novel.
What do you do in your teenage years when you realize what your parents taught you wasn't enough? You must go out and find books and poetry and pop songs and bad heroes--and build yourself.
It's 1990. Johanna Morrigan, fourteen, has shamed herself so badly on local TV that she decides that there's no point in being Johanna anymore and reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde--fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero and full-time Lady Sex Adventurer. She will save her poverty-stricken Bohemian family by becoming a writer--like Jo in Little Women, or the Bröntes--but without the dying young bit.
By sixteen, she's smoking cigarettes, getting drunk and working for a music paper. She's writing pornographic letters to rock-stars, having all the kinds of sex with all kinds of men, and eviscerating bands in reviews of 600 words or less.
But what happens when Johanna realizes she's built Dolly with a fatal flaw? Is a box full of records, a wall full of posters, and a head full of paperbacks, enough to build a girl after all?
Imagine The Bell Jar written by Rizzo from Grease. How to Build a Girl is a funny, poignant, and heartbreakingly evocative story of self-discovery and invention, as only Caitlin Moran could tell it.

From the Back Cover

What do you do in your teenage years when you realize what your parents taught you wasn't enough? You must go out and find books and poetry and pop songs and bad heroes--and build yourself. It's 1990. Johanna Morrigan, fourteen, has shamed herself so badly on local TV that she decides that there's no point in being Johanna anymore and reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde--fast-talking, hard-drinking gothic hero and full-time Lady Sex Adventurer. She will save her poverty-stricken Bohemian family by becoming a writer. By sixteen, she's smoking cigarettes, getting drunk, and working for a music paper. She's writing pornographic letters to rock stars, having all the kinds of sex with all the kinds of men, and eviscerating bands in reviews of 600 words or less. But what happens when Johanna realizes she's built Dolly with a fatal flaw? Is a box full of records, a wall full of posters, and a head full of paperbacks enough to build a girl after all?

Review Quotes

"I crammed every word down like Cinnabon!" - Joss Whedon
"Binge-read all of How To Build a Girl in one sitting. Even missed supper. A first. Rose petals where 'ere you walk, Caitlin." - Nigella Lawson
"If anyone knows how to build a girl, it's Moran-she's put adolescence on the page in a book that's humming with authenticity." - NPR Best Book of the Year selection
"Vivid and full of truths.... There's a point in midlife, when you're already built, as it were, when the average coming-of-age story starts to feel completely uninteresting. But Moran is so lively, dazzlingly insightful and fun that "How to Build a Girl" transcends any age restrictions." - San Francisco Chronicle
"A funny, filthy and ultimately touching coming-of-age story.... Raunchy, wry and thoughtful-much like its vivacious heroine." - Minneapolis Star Tribune
"The earnestness with which Johanna goes about constructing a new persona gives the novel an almost irresistible verve, and the reader continues to root for her even during the most embarrassing episodes." - The New Yorker
"Very funny.... Moran never loses touch with what seemed to me an authentic and believable teenage voice.... The joy of this easy-read novel is not just the scrappy protagonist.... Moran makes strong statements about social inequality and gender throughout." - Ellah Allfrey, NPR's Fresh Air
"Brash, biting, comic.... Less a novelistic rendering of Moran's particularly gritty and appealing brand of feminism than an incisive and yet entertaining assessment of class dynamics in post-Thatcher Britain." - New Republic
"[Caitlin Moran is] the UK's answer to Tina Fey, Chelsea Handler, and Lena Dunham all rolled into one." - Marie Claire
"A fresh, funny take on modern feminism that shines a light on issues facing every woman, lovingly boiled down to the basics with insight and humor." - Today
"A hilarious neo-feminist manifesto." - NPR.org
"Phenomenal." - Atlantic Wire
"A feminist coming-of-age tale.... Johanna is an irrepressible narrator, telling a mostly-true and funny tale of survival and success." - Washington Post Book World
"A funny book, heartfelt, silly, profane, insightful.... This is human stuff, a smile or laugh in almost every sentence---ften a snort, giggle, or guffaw--and you learn a lot about how girls get built." - Philadelphia Inquirer
"Rallying cries will always have a place in a yet-unfinished movement like feminism, but sometimes storytelling is more effective. The fictional Johanna Morrigan never drops the F-word, but readers can see she's asking all the right questions." - New York Times Book Review
"A smart, splendid, laugh-out-loud-funny novel." - Boston Globe
"Very funny." - Time
"Rowdy and fearless ... sloppy, big-hearted and alive in all the right ways." - New York Times
"The best stuff in How to Build a Girl is the same as the best stuff in How to Be a Woman: the attitude, the fearless confessional honesty, the Moran persona itself, with its big heart and unabashed appetite for all of life's pleasures." - Salon
"Uproarious." - Elle
"Wonderfully wise and flat-out hilarious." - People, Book of the Week
"A feminist coming-of-age tale.... Johanna is an irrepressible narrator, telling a mostly-true and funny tale of survival and success." - Joanna Scutts, Washington Post Book World
"Very funny." - Megan Gibson, Time
"Rowdy and fearless ... sloppy, big-hearted and alive in all the right ways.... Ms. Moran is often compared to Tina Fey and Lena Dunham, which is fair so far as it goes, though I'd add Amy Winehouse and the early Roseanne Barr to the mix." - Dwight Garner, New York Times
"I have so much love for Caitlin Moran." - Lena Dunham
"There are lots of things to love about...How to Be a Woman....A glorious, timely stand against sexism...that needed to be written." - New York Times
"Moran's frank wit is appealing." - New Yorker
"A must-read for anyone curious to find out just how very funny a self-proclaimed 'strident feminist' can be." - NPR's Fresh Air
Praise for How to Be a Woman: "Scathingly funny." - People 3 1/2 stars
"Caitlin Moran taught me more about being a woman than being a woman did. I'm pretty sure I had testicles before I read this book." - Jenny Lawson, author of Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) on How to Be a Woman
"Brilliantly observed, thrillingly rude and laugh-out-loud funny." - Helen Fielding, author of Mad About the Boy and Bridget Jones's Diary