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A review by em_brebs
How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
How to Build a Girl is shockingly profound, lovely, crass, and painfully accurate. Though Johanna lives a drastically different teenagehood than I did, and all of her feelings and perspectives are specific to her experience, they feel analogous to my own. Reading about Johanna is painful because she is so, so innocent and so, so out of her depth, but she wants it all so, so much. She's a teenage girl and that's incredible but also, my God, the absolute worst.
The first 90% of the novel is brilliant and packed with smart writing: funny jokes, insightful lines, and incredibly specific, well-drawn characters. I can't even say everything I love about it. Johanna's voice is the best. But also her brother and her mom and her dad and her other brother and her incredible, life-defining crush.
The last 10% I didn't like quite as much: it felt like Moran was struggling to pull together an ending with the gravity and clarity that a novel of this sort demands. How to Build a Girl is essentially a classic coming of age novel, and so it feels as though Johanna should really come of age at the end. Instead, there's a bit of a stall and some mildly cliché platitudes. Additionally, in the sort of tormenting last couple chapters, Johanna self-harms she cuts her arms and legs for the first time in the story. The self-harm felt gratuitous and as though it lacked meaning to the story. How to Build a Girl is FULL of behavior that is self-destructive and harmful, but at least the rest of it felt considered and thoughtful. I'm sure Moran thought about including that scene, just because the rest of the novel is so intentional, but it doesn't feel that way.
There were also some sections in which the Johanna's clear, decisively teenage voice faded away into a much more adult and measured narrator, which felt especially disconcerting given how consistent Johanna's voice was elsewhere. We know who she is, so when she disappears it's weird. Also, I feel like Moran's project is clear. As a reader, I at no point thought Johanna was RIGHT about literally anything at all, so I don't feel like Moran had to be quite so explicit about the fact that, obviously, Johanna is super wrong about everything.
I want to again underline that I LOVED the first 90% and only struggled with the last maybe 5-10%. If you have to choose between reading and not reading, ABSOLUTELY read!!! It's just that Moran didn't entirely stick the landing. But I promise it's MORE than worth it to live through Johanna's honesty for a bit: 89%
The first 90% of the novel is brilliant and packed with smart writing: funny jokes, insightful lines, and incredibly specific, well-drawn characters. I can't even say everything I love about it. Johanna's voice is the best. But also her brother and her mom and her dad and her other brother and her incredible, life-defining crush.
The last 10% I didn't like quite as much: it felt like Moran was struggling to pull together an ending with the gravity and clarity that a novel of this sort demands. How to Build a Girl is essentially a classic coming of age novel, and so it feels as though Johanna should really come of age at the end. Instead, there's a bit of a stall and some mildly cliché platitudes. Additionally, in the sort of tormenting last couple chapters, Johanna self-harms
There were also some sections in which the Johanna's clear, decisively teenage voice faded away into a much more adult and measured narrator, which felt especially disconcerting given how consistent Johanna's voice was elsewhere. We know who she is, so when she disappears it's weird. Also, I feel like Moran's project is clear. As a reader, I at no point thought Johanna was RIGHT about literally anything at all, so I don't feel like Moran had to be quite so explicit about the fact that, obviously, Johanna is super wrong about everything.
I want to again underline that I LOVED the first 90% and only struggled with the last maybe 5-10%. If you have to choose between reading and not reading, ABSOLUTELY read!!! It's just that Moran didn't entirely stick the landing. But I promise it's MORE than worth it to live through Johanna's honesty for a bit: 89%
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm