How to Build a Girl is a vaguely autobiographical coming of age story. Johanna Morrigan completely embarrasses herself on national TV, so she decides to rebuild herself as Dolly Wilde, woman of mystery. She decides the best way to do this is to write music reviews for a popular magazine, so she learns all the new music, learns to drink, smoke and flirt and off she goes. It’s described as being like The Bell Jar written by Adrian Mole.
I’m liking
Johanna Morrigan is supposed to be only a couple of years older than me, so this formative time takes place in the early 90s. Once I got past the disappointment that life in the 90s in Wolverhampton was actually quite different to life in the 90s in Wellington, there was a lot that was familiar to me as a 90s teen! Johanna/Dolly is smart and sassy and funny. I like her humour, and especially her humour when turned on herself.
Things that made me go hmmmm
Now I don’t consider myself a prude at all, but I did find all the sex/masturbation/sexual references a little wearying after a while. I also felt the book was a little long and repetitious, it could have done with a good trimming down.
The conclusion
Caitlin Moran fans will enjoy this novel, particularly picking out the references to Moran’s own life.
