Caitlin Moran, The Times (London that is, not New York) columnist who is known primarily for her non-fiction writing (How to Be a Woman, Moranthology), excessive eyeliner, and very big hair, has published a novel for the first time since she was 16. How to Build a Girl is the semi-autographical story of teenage rock critic Johanna Morrigan, who lives in a cramped council house with her wannabe rock star father, post-partum-depression-suffering mother, and a gaggle of siblings. Johanna dreams of ways to drag herself, and ideally her entire family, out of poverty. While deciding to become a writer like many of her literary heroines seems an obvious choice, achieving success as one proves to be a bit more difficult. After her initial authorial public appearance on a local TV show to recite a poem results in her utter humiliation, Johanna decides to reinvent herself as a music journalist. By requesting albums from her public library and sending unsolicited reviews of them to a rock magazine, Johanna is able to land a job reviewing concerts and new albums. Not only does Johanna entirely transform her look and taste in music to better reflect her new rock 'n' roll lifestyle, she dubs herself Dolly Wilde and becomes a bit of a cult figure herself due to her many sexual exploits, the close friendship she develops with a philosophical yet hard-drinking musician, and the sharp-witted and entirely mean-spirited reviews that she writes. The whole time, despite some outward appearances of success, Johanna is very conscious that the Dolly Wilde identity she is building for herself is a facade that never sits quite naturally on her.
The novel is hilarious, the plotline rollicking; it's breezily written yet densely packed with Johanna's insightful realizations about life and how best to live it, and above all a lot of fun to read. Though the plot of the novel closely mirrors many aspects of Moran's early life, she insists it is not entirely autobiographical and that Johanna's journalistic exploits are more closely based on those of another famous teenage music journalist turned novelist, Julie Burchill (author of Sugar Rush). For those who enjoyed How to Build a Girl or, like me, would read absolutely anything Moran writes, we have the pleasure of knowing that Girl is the first in a trilogy—Moran plans to continue Johanna's story in two follow-up novels, How to Be Famous and How to Change the World.