gawd, I love Caitlin Moran. I just finished watching "Moone Boy" for the 8 millionth time, and this served as a way for me to cope with that and was a great near-girls' version (at least for the first part).

Could have used Chris O'Dowd, but otherwise it was perfect and at least 17x more than I anticipated. It's been a stupid long time since I've written anything and this gave me a little jolt. So good.

If you've already read some Moran, there will be many things you're already familiar with. And if you've ever been a teenage rock'n'roll girl (guilty as charged), the amount of things that are familiar might be uncomfortably high. Yet, it is also comforting - maybe you didn't know it at that time, but you weren't alone. And years after, you don't have to pretend you don't know that young girl dressed in black. She got you where you are now.

3.5. Very cute, but also very easy to get bored of, put down and forget about.

This was great. A little over the top, but fun and feministy.

Bright, raunchy and laugh-out-loud funny, Caitlin Moran manages to build a sincere voice throughout the book. The life of the protagonist Johanna/Dolly Wilde could not be more different from my own but what teenage girl hasn't thought of 'killing' herself, in order to reinvent herself in the process? The concept of sex as a redeemer--something that would fix Dolly's life and validate her--is surely a familiar one. As a writer, I was with Dolly (aspiring music journalist) on every step of her journey. The prose is great, with unexpected turns of phrase which keep the reader engaged and, if not laughing, then definitely grinning. It's not all just shallow jokes though, there are paragraphs which are unexpectedly beautiful and wrenching. My favorite:
“Because my biggest secret of all—the one I would rather die than tell, the one I wouldn’t even put in my diary—is that I really, truly, in my heart, want to be beautiful. I want to be beautiful so much—because it will keep me safe, and keep me lucky, and it’s too exhausting not to be.”

This book is such fun to read, and so exemplifies the liminal teenage years, that I would read it again in a heartbeat (if only to appreciate my twenties more). I would recommend this book to get you through the long droughts of public transport :P

* 3.5 stars

I actually really liked this story. It was clever and witty and sex-crazed and REAL. However, while the voice was strong and witty, it was overly verbose at times and made me do a good bit of skim reading at points just to get through it and move on with the story.

The last 100 pages really pulled me in though, and I'm glad I ended up pushing through it after putting it down for about a month. The message was great, and I did love the MC.

I enjoyed every page! So relatable and so SO funny!