AUGUST 2018 - AudioFile
Upbeat, spunky, and ambitious, Dolly Wilde is living her best life—that is until her best friend makes it big as a rock star. Narrator Louise Brealey maximizes the hilarity of Dolly's interior monologues. She brings freshness to a delivery that captures the throes of the teenage angst gripping Dolly as she struggles to find meaning in life. Brealey's performance is fast, precise, and full of British accents, from Dolly's proper one to the other characters’ slang, which provide a cross section of British society that adds color to the listening experience. Will Dolly become as famous as her best friend? Listeners will be hoping the answer is yes. M.R. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 05/28/2018
Moran’s rollicking second novel (after How to Build a Girl) characteristically combines nonstop witticisms with razor-sharp, pointed, and timely cultural critique. Johanna Morrigan (pen name Dolly Wilde) is making her way at 19 in mid-’90s London writing for a music magazine and intent on cultural and sexual adventure. As her ambition and wit propel her further into the world of celebrity in the age of Britpop, she encounters unexpected triumphs, but also challenges: workplace harassment; sexual imbalances of power; and the outsized role of gender in art and criticism, fame and fandom. Moran’s depiction of London is detailed and exuberant, and a convincing backdrop for her unflinching exploration of these issues (though the language used to describe them sometimes seems anachronistically plucked straight from 2018 and #MeToo). Better still, her characters are madcap and lovable but nuanced enough to feel real: Dolly’s friend Suzanne is strident and wise but also self-centered and irresponsible; her family is loyal but dysfunctional; and her true but unrequited love, John Kite, is a sweet and genuine musical talent who poorly manages his newfound fame. With Dolly, Moran has created an excellent heroine that readers will enjoy spending a summer day with. (July)
From the Publisher
Wonderfully original…Hilarious summer fare with a feminist twist.” — People
“A joyous, yelping novel about learning to love things without apology or irony... Moran reminds us that playing it cool is a waste of time.” — NPR
“Hilarious.” — Esquire
“Who better than Caitlin Moran to bring fame down to earth with a bump?” — Helen Fielding, AARP Magazine
“Moran’s rollicking second novel characteristically combines nonstop witticisms with razor-sharp, pointed, and timely cultural critique.... Her characters are madcap and lovable but nuanced enough to feel real.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Moran’s semiautobiographical tale of a young writer finding her way in the mid-90s London rock scene pops and fizzes with the energy of those cool Britannia times—but her smart, nervy take on female selfhood and sexuality feels bracingly of now.” — Entertainment Weekly
“High-spirited and hilarious .... Half feminist comedy, half romance novel—a genre whose time has come.” — Kirkus
“Moran’s funny, female-centric writing is a treasure ... this feels just right for 2018.” — Booklist
“A rollicking fantasy...How to be Famous rewrites a familiar near-past heroically, dispensing justice and leaving a rosy, satisfied afterglow.” — The Guardian
“Glorious and life-enhancing... Funny, philosophical, and poignant in equal measure.” — Nina Stibbe, AARP Magazine
“How to Be Famous bursts open the coming-of-age drama and leaves, in its wake, a hilarious, utterly original, unabashedly feminist comedy. Just read it.” — Refinery29
“Laugh-out-loud funny, sweetly romantic and fiercly angry. Often all at once.” — London Times
“A subversive celebration of strong, smart young women.” — The Seattle Times
“Sparkly and joyous…Moran writes with a fierce and tender protectiveness of teenage girls like Johanna, who are chewed up and spat out by the glamorous adult worlds they are trying to make their way into.” — Vox
“Buckle up for the magical mystery tour that is life with Dolly Wilde…Stylewise, Ms. Moran is a breath of fresh air in the often stuffy, overly serious world of women’s fiction. Her sentences cackle with sass but also reveal the vulnerability that lies beneath many a modern woman’s confident exterior…. The heart of Ms. Moran’s feminist fairy tale, however is its celebration of woman as they are, and not how society would have them be.” — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Funny, warm, insightful… Moran has always been a gloriously acute and funny writer, and the combination of memoir and make-believe here gives her plenty of scope to exercise her considerable ability to entertain.” — Financial Times
Nina Stibbe
Glorious and life-enhancing... Funny, philosophical, and poignant in equal measure.
NPR
A joyous, yelping novel about learning to love things without apology or irony... Moran reminds us that playing it cool is a waste of time.
Helen Fielding
Who better than Caitlin Moran to bring fame down to earth with a bump?
Booklist
Moran’s funny, female-centric writing is a treasure ... this feels just right for 2018.
The Guardian
A rollicking fantasy...How to be Famous rewrites a familiar near-past heroically, dispensing justice and leaving a rosy, satisfied afterglow.
Entertainment Weekly
Moran’s semiautobiographical tale of a young writer finding her way in the mid-90s London rock scene pops and fizzes with the energy of those cool Britannia times—but her smart, nervy take on female selfhood and sexuality feels bracingly of now.
Esquire
Hilarious.
People
Wonderfully original…Hilarious summer fare with a feminist twist.
Booklist
Moran’s funny, female-centric writing is a treasure ... this feels just right for 2018.
Financial Times
Funny, warm, insightful… Moran has always been a gloriously acute and funny writer, and the combination of memoir and make-believe here gives her plenty of scope to exercise her considerable ability to entertain.
The Seattle Times
A subversive celebration of strong, smart young women.
Refinery29
“How to Be Famous bursts open the coming-of-age drama and leaves, in its wake, a hilarious, utterly original, unabashedly feminist comedy. Just read it.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Buckle up for the magical mystery tour that is life with Dolly Wilde…Stylewise, Ms. Moran is a breath of fresh air in the often stuffy, overly serious world of women’s fiction. Her sentences cackle with sass but also reveal the vulnerability that lies beneath many a modern woman’s confident exterior…. The heart of Ms. Moran’s feminist fairy tale, however is its celebration of woman as they are, and not how society would have them be.
London Times
Laugh-out-loud funny, sweetly romantic and fiercly angry. Often all at once.
Vox
Sparkly and joyous…Moran writes with a fierce and tender protectiveness of teenage girls like Johanna, who are chewed up and spat out by the glamorous adult worlds they are trying to make their way into.
Financial Times
Funny, warm, insightful… Moran has always been a gloriously acute and funny writer, and the combination of memoir and make-believe here gives her plenty of scope to exercise her considerable ability to entertain.
London Times
Laugh-out-loud funny, sweetly romantic and fiercly angry. Often all at once.
Washington Post Book World
Caitlin Moran is back with more hilarious, sexy adventures.... Think ‘Pippi Longstocking, but with whiskey,’ Moran recommends.... How to Be Famous explodes with the screams of rock ’n’ roll life, but at its heart it’s an ode to the tenacity, energy and collective power of teenage girls.
San Francisco Chronicle on How To Build a Girl
Vivid and full of truths…. There’s a point in midlife, when you’re already built, as it were, when the average coming-of-age story starts to feel completely uninteresting. But Moran is so lively, dazzlingly insightful and fun that ‘How to Build a Girl’ transcends any age restrictions.
New York Times Book Review on How To Build a Girl
Rallying cries will always have a place in a yet-unfinished movement like feminism, but sometimes storytelling is more effective. The fictional Johanna Morrigan never drops the F-word, but readers can see she’s asking all the right questions.
People on How To Build a Girl
Wonderfully wise and flat-out hilarious.
AUGUST 2018 - AudioFile
Upbeat, spunky, and ambitious, Dolly Wilde is living her best life—that is until her best friend makes it big as a rock star. Narrator Louise Brealey maximizes the hilarity of Dolly's interior monologues. She brings freshness to a delivery that captures the throes of the teenage angst gripping Dolly as she struggles to find meaning in life. Brealey's performance is fast, precise, and full of British accents, from Dolly's proper one to the other characters’ slang, which provide a cross section of British society that adds color to the listening experience. Will Dolly become as famous as her best friend? Listeners will be hoping the answer is yes. M.R. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-05-01
A 19-year-old British rock critic contends with big egos, endless partying, a great love, and a sex tape in the 1990s.Dolly Wilde, the pride of Wolverhampton, her alcoholic loser father (a slightly more functional cousin to William H. Macy's character in Shameless), and rock star John Kite, the love of her life, are back in Moran's high-spirited and hilarious sequel to How To Build a Girl (2014). Dolly's quest to become a famous writer and sexual adventuress is going pretty well when she hits a major snag in the form of a well-known young comedian named Jerry Sharp. This misogynist pig of a man, whom she runs into at a concert for which he has no ticket and kindly gets him admitted, manages to get Dolly back to his apartment not once, but twice. It is the second encounter that produces the VHS tape that nearly ruins Dolly's life. New in this continuation of Dolly's story are two wonderful characters, aspiring musician Suzanne Banks and her assistant, Julia. "Most people are built around a heart, and a nervous system. Suzanne appeared to be built around a whirlwind, kept trapped in a black glass jar. She appeared never to think before she spoke, took a drink, or opened a bottle of pills....She was like a bomb that kept exploding over and over." Meanwhile, the levelheaded and embattled Julia has to keep reminding her employer that the guitar is held with the "strings at the front." Some of the best parts of the book are Dolly's writing—articles titled "Ten Things I Have Noticed in Two Years of Interacting With Famous People" and "In Defense of Groupies," and, best of all, a letter to her beloved Mr. Kite explaining why teenage girls are the most important fans of all, "a power grid of energy...splitting their own atoms with love." Set in a time three decades before #MeToo, Dolly's ultra-sex-positive feminism is honed by her experiences with the evil Sharp and her connections with other women.Half feminist comedy, half romance novel—a genre whose time has come.
