How to Build a Girl - Caitlin Moran

[MimsyBorogroves]

I received an email from Amazon about this today - hadn't realised that she was writing any fiction (or that she'd had her oft-mentioned teenage writing published either). I'm tempted to pre-order - it's out on Thursday - as she does rather make me laugh and the blurb sounds interesting. Anyone else?

[hackmum]

I'll read it. I haven't really got much I want to read at the moment, which is odd, because usually there are about half a dozen things I'm desperate to read!

Quite excited that in the autumn Ian McEwan and Sarah Waters both have new books out, and volume 2 of Alan Johnson's memoir is also coming out. So looking forward to those.

[Southeastdweller]

Reserved it at the library. I'm not a huge fan of hers but like elements of her style, plus practically everyone in my Twitter timeline will be going on about it.

[NuggetofPurestGreen]

Started this today. Have only read a little but don't like it already. Had high hopes for it given good reviews. Will keep going for now but not hopeful.

Anyone else reading?

[hackmum]

I'm reading, Nugget. Will reserve judgement, but my feeling so far is that although it's quite amusing, if you're already familiar with the Moran oeuvre, you'll experience a definite sense of deja vu.

[NuggetofPurestGreen]

Yeah hackmum know what you mean. I've abandoned now after part one anyway.

[senua]

if you're already familiar with the Moran oeuvre, you'll experience a definite sense of deja vu.

That's what I heard in a review - that it's basically a re-write of How to be a woman.

[BOFster]

I was considering reading it, but read a summary and decided to give it a miss. I'm a bit zanied-out by Caitlin Moran, tbh- she can be just the tonic you need sometimes, but I think she's been over-exposed in the last couple of years. I'm not surprised it's been well-received by the meeja posse she so assiduously cultivates all day long on Twitter, but I'm not taking that as gospel.

[NuggetofPurestGreen]

Except not as good senua

[senua]

Did you mean "Except even worse"? [not-a-fan emoticon].

[NuggetofPurestGreen]

Heh. I did consider rephrasing. Wasn't mad about HTBAW either but it felt a bit more authentic. This one seems like an unbelievable exaggeration of her childhood.

[MooncupGoddess]

I quite enjoyed HTBAW - there were a couple of excellent chapters and it's great to see a feminist(ish) bestseller - but the new book sounds like a lazily fictionalised version of the same thing, and God knows CM can gurn for England in literary (and indeed actual) terms.

[PhaedraIsMyName]

I can't stand her. Zoë Williams gave it a gushing review in Saturday's Guardian quoting in support of how funny it is a line about someone looking as if their tie had been put on by an enemy and it was trying to strangle them. A line which was funny the first time I read it but it's hardly original.

[NuggetofPurestGreen]

Yeah I'm really going off her phaedra. I do like se aspects of her style, and agree with her politics in general but it's all very 'samey'. I couldn't read much of Moranthology.

[NuggetofPurestGreen]

*some

[hackmum]

Finished it now. It was very funny, but would have been much funnier, I imagine, for someone who had never read anything by Caitlin Moran before.

Although her personal story is fascinating (working-class kid, brought up in council house in Wolverhampton as part of a large family living on benefits, escapes at the age of 16 to become a music journalist and hence Times columnist), it becomes much less fascinating the third, fourth and fifth times you've read it.

[NuggetofPurestGreen]

I abandoned it hackmum. Didn't find it funny at all.

[Andcake]

Like her as a journo and 'how to be a woman' but the bits I've read and coverage just makes it sound like more of the same. Ten to agree with the above we need something new from her not the umpteenth telling of her story.

[watchingthedetectives]

Agree funny in bits but very samey with previous stuff - fine for a holiday read.

[BringMeTea]

Having read (and enjoyed) HTBAW I have no desire to read this. I mean with Moranthology too isn't it over-egging the pudding? Mind you, it's making her money for old rope so can't blame her. It is just so disappointing.

[Badvoc123]

Was disappointed :(

[MrsCampbellBlack]

I read it, it was utter shite.

[mignonette]

I thought it read more like a YA book than something suitable for an adult woman or man and for a fairly sheltered YA at that. In fact the fifteen year old me would have found it tedious as hell.

To those of us brought up on Erica Jong's Zipless Fuck, Judy Blume's 'Wifey' among many others, this book is not that 'rude', not original at all and hysterically self aggrandising in its authorial promotion.

[CorporateRockWhore]

I liked Moranthology but tbh, if I see one more photo of her pulling a 'zany' face I'm going to fall asleep immediately. For a long time.

[Southeastdweller]

This was one of my must-reads until I read some reviews. I agree that she's over-egged the pudding - this, HTBAW, the Channel 4 comedy last December, and the Times columns. She really does bore me now.