How to Build a Girl: A Novel

Caitlin Moran

Sep 2014 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

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.

Ratings and reviews

I found myself laughing out loud, over and over again, while secretly eating my hidden stash of Girl Scout cookies after the husband and child had gone to bed. This woman is an incredible writer, and I plan to devour whatever she does next, with cookies and milk.

I misclicked on this link from the app market on my way to do my weekly browse of new (dead-end) games; and i just need to take a few minutes to say that this has been the absolute best "misclick" of my life. Caitlin Moran ( sorry if that is spelled wrong i cant see the authors name on this window.) has blown my doors off. Im not an avid reader and honestly havent ever tried a "sample" of a book on the app store before. But i will be buying the full version momentarily.

Great book but that John phillips guy who rated this book is going a little over board. Last time i checked, god decides who goes to hell or not. Not you nigga. I really hate people like you. I dont go to church but i know more then you do

About the author

Caitlin Moran’s debut book, How to Be a Woman, was an instant New York Times bestseller, with more than one million copies distributed worldwide. Her first novel, How to Build a Girl, received widespread acclaim, and she adapted it into a major motion picture starring Beanie Feldstein and Emma Thompson. As a twice-weekly columnist at The Times of London, Moran has won Columnist of the Year seven times. She lives in London.