Wednesday 4 November 2015

Lit Nit Wit: How to Build a Girl

In the last few years I was never mad about Caitlin Moran, I'm pretty sure it was because of some tweets mocking people about liking something or someone, clearly it wasn't an utterly big deal or I would remember. I once last an eye over her  autobiography and it really didn't draw me in in all honesty. Recently though Guy Branum of pop rocket shared an article she wrote to men about how women feel about them and it just captivated me with its brutal honesty that men don't know and more than likely don't want to know. When I was last in the library I saw her fictional book how to (blank) a girl and thought I'd sit down and see if her fiction was more to my taste

I have read a lot of coming of age books in my time, usually after I have come of age usually and I am too old for, books such as Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The fault in our Stars and I've always been to old for them. This book on the other hand, is the coming of age book for adults, I never thought I'd see the day. 

This is a first person account of life in the 90's in post Thatchers disembowelment of Wolverhampton and The Midlands in general (I've also recently seen all the episodes of This is England so I know it wasn't a good time to live there, also I utterly recommend all of the This is England episodes, and the Movie). 
The main character is Johanna, the second oldest and only girl of five children who live with their failing pop star of a dad and a post partum mother. Her father has been trying to break the music industry to get them all out of the area and eventually Johanna after believing she has royally ruined her families income decides to write for a music magazine reviewing bands ( the millennial in me scoffed at the fact she knew no one in the magazine and just mailed in reviews for weeks on end and landed a job in no time, and of course worked wearing a top hat).

This story looks at young people trying to figure out who they are,and how they try to be how other people want them to be and expectations from people, which all of us have experienced. Her experience with her sort of boyfriend, as in if I do this this and this that maybe he'll stick with me. It slightly came across as maybe kink shaming a sight but in the book, if you want to do those things you go right ahead, but it shouldn't be done only to keep someone else interested in you. On a separate note it was lovely to see her having a pure enjoyment day with a musician just chilling out feeling pure friendship love for  I have to say her experience of cystitis is so funny, as someone who has been inflicted with that once or twice myself. I would utterly recommend this book,.

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