How To Build A Girl - Caitlin Moran

For my fifth read of 2020, I needed something that would lighten my mood. And this, was more than successful for that purpose.

How To Build A Girl by Caitlin Moran is a story of a working class girl, Johanna Morrigan from a council estate in Wolverhampton. At the beginning of the book she is fourteen and from the get go, her surge of hormones are very much evident. and when I say that, I mean it. Moran spares no detail. 

This book is perfectly, hilariously vulgar. It was a joy to read a novel that was more explicit about the life of a fourteen-year-old girl. Caitlin Moran explores the more taboo subjects and really exposed the nitty grittiness behind puberty for teenaged girls. 

But the novel is so much more. It really dives into British classism, politics, benefits lifestyle and working class culture. It is set in the 90s and the attitude towards tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher in Johanna's household is very clear. This is a lens for the reader to understand the fear that the working class had (and have) about Conservative governments. In the book itself, it has a passage that states politics will always matter more to people with less money, which is something that really struck me.

Johanna has dreams to make something of herself, she finds feet in the music journalism profession and moves up through this thrilling life she has.

Along the way of her career progress, we see her teenaged explorations. Moran covers every subject under the sun, so us female readers can relentlessly relate and laugh along.

My favourite moment in the novel is when Johanna gets cystitis. Moran makes light and comedy of the situation, yet detailing the agony that cystitis is. Over those few pages, I shed tears of laughter and sympathy for Johanna.

How To Build A Girl isn’t just another chick flick read. This is a novel that will pave the ways for new ways of writing about those awkward years. It’s nothing like any depiction of female puberty I’ve seen or read before. Moran really went there with the topics we’ve been told we shouldn’t delve into in the past. This novel is not just a story, this novel is completely candid and honest. 

This story hit me in many ways. I very much relate to Johanna's character. Coming from a working class family myself, being anti-tory and as someone who is going on to study music journalism next year I thoroughly related to this story of Johanna's life.

The novel sparked motivation in me to make something of myself in the way that Johanna did.

I have a lot of admiration for this novel, it hit really close to home, made me laugh out loud on almost every page and brought me more joy than anything else I have read so far. 

A five out of five star read for sure.