About How to Build a Girl
• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harper (September 23, 2014)
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 Brontës—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 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?
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.
Praise for How to Build a Girl
“Hilarious autobiographical fiction debut for Britain’s Lena Dunham.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Moran’s characters are huggably, 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.” —Booklist
“A rambunctious, raw-edged, silly-profound and deeply relatable guide to what your worst mistakes can teach you….Moran’s special trick…is combining her relentless bouncy irony with flashes of heart-on-sleeve straightforwardness, and a general predisposition toward hope.” —The Independent
“So relatable that you might suspect she plucked thoughts from your teenage diary.” — Nylon
Purchase Links
Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble
About Caitlin Moran
Caitlin Moran was named the Columnist of the Year by the British Press Awards in 2010, and Critic and Interviewer of the Year in 2011 for her work at the Times of London. Her debut book, How to Be a Woman, won the 2011 Galaxy Book of the Year Award and was an instant New York Times bestseller.
Connect with Caitlin through website, or follow her on Twitter: @caitlinmoran.
Caitlin’s Tour Stops
Monday, September 29th: BoundbyWords
Tuesday, September 30th: The Scarlet Letter
Wednesday, October 1st: Fourth Street Review
Thursday, October 2nd: Lit and Life
Tuesday, October 7th: The Steadfast Reader
Wednesday, October 8th: Luxury Reading
Thursday, October 9th: Snowdrop Dreams of Books
Friday, October 10th: Bibliophilia, Please
Tuesday, October 14th: Bibliotica
Tuesday, October 14th: Sara’s Organized Chaos
Wednesday, October 15th: guiltless reading
Thursday, October 16th: Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World
Monday, October 20th: Consuming Culture
Tuesday, October 21st: Drey’s Library
Wednesday, October 22nd: The Whynott Blog
Thursday, October 23rd: A Bookish Affair