How to Build a Girl: A Novel
(OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen)
Now a major motion picture starring Beanie Feldstein!
The New York Times bestselling author hailed as "the UK's answer to Tina Fey, Chelsea Handler, and Lena Dunham all rolled into one" (Marie Claire) makes her fiction debut with a hilarious yet deeply moving coming of age novel.
What do you do in your teenage years when you realize what your parents taught you wasn't enough? You must go out and find books and poetry and pop songs and bad heroes—and build yourself.
It's 1990. Johanna Morrigan, fourteen, has shamed herself so badly on local TV that she decides that there's no point in being Johanna anymore and reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde—fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero and full-time Lady Sex Adventurer. She will save her poverty-stricken Bohemian family by becoming a writer—like Jo in Little Women, or the Bröntes—but without the dying young bit.
By sixteen, she's smoking cigarettes, getting drunk and working for a music paper. She's writing pornographic letters to rock-stars, having all the kinds of sex with all kinds of men, and eviscerating bands in reviews of 600 words or less.
But what happens when Johanna realizes she's built Dolly with a fatal flaw? Is a box full of records, a wall full of posters, and a head full of paperbacks, enough to build a girl after all?
Imagine The Bell Jar written by Rizzo from Grease. How to Build a Girl is a funny, poignant, and heartbreakingly evocative story of self-discovery and invention, as only Caitlin Moran could tell it.
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
Caitlin Moran. (2014). How to Build a Girl: A Novel. Unabridged HarperAudio.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Caitlin Moran. 2014. How to Build a Girl: A Novel. HarperAudio.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Caitlin Moran, How to Build a Girl: A Novel. HarperAudio, 2014.
MLA Citation (style guide)Caitlin Moran. How to Build a Girl: A Novel. Unabridged HarperAudio, 2014.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 1 | 1 |
OverDrive Product Record
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0293-1/{74DEFD4F-8222-4252-9B11-0E00351F8A6B}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0293-1/{74DEFD4F-8222-4252-9B11-0E00351F8A6B}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0293-1/74D/EFD/4F/{74DEFD4F-8222-4252-9B11-0E00351F8A6B}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0293-1/74D/EFD/4F/{74DEFD4F-8222-4252-9B11-0E00351F8A6B}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062350817
- name: OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
- id: audiobook-mp3
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062350817
- name: OverDrive Listen
- id: audiobook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- mediaType
- Audiobook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Caitlin Moran
- title
- How to Build a Girl
- dateAdded
- 2014-10-14T11:06:00-04:00
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=1942936
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
- id: 1151
- sortTitle
- How to Build a Girl A Novel
- crossRefId
- 1942936
- subtitle
- A Novel
- id
- 74defd4f-8222-4252-9b11-0e00351f8a6b
- starRating
- 3.7
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- duration: 09:31:14
- fileName: HowtoBuildaGirl_9780062350817_1942936
- partCount: 9
- fileSize: 274263330
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062350817
- rights:
- type: PlayOnPC
- value: 1
- type: PlayOnPCCount
- value: -1
- type: BurnToCD
- value: 1
- type: BurnToCDCount
- value: -1
- type: PlayOnPM
- value: 1
- type: TransferToSDMI
- value: 1
- type: TransferToNonSDMI
- value: 1
- type: TransferCount
- value: -1
- type: CollaborativePlay
- value: 0
- type: PublicPerformance
- value: 0
- type: TranscodeToAAC
- value: 1
- name: OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: audiobook-mp3
- onSaleDate: 9/23/2014
- samples:
- source: Part 1
- formatType: audiobook-mp3
- url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-425/0293-1/1942936-HowToBuildAGirl.mp3
- source: Part 1
- formatType: audiobook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=74DEFD4F-8222-4252-9B11-0E00351F8A6B&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- duration: 09:31:18
- fileName: HowtoBuildaGirl9780062350817
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 274225314
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062350817
- name: OverDrive Listen
- isReadAlong: False
- id: audiobook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 9/23/2014
- samples:
- source: Part 1
- formatType: audiobook-mp3
- url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-425/0293-1/1942936-HowToBuildAGirl.mp3
- source: Part 1
- formatType: audiobook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=74DEFD4F-8222-4252-9B11-0E00351F8A6B&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: Moran, Caitlin
- bioText:
Caitlin Moran's debut book, How to Be a Woman, was an instant New York Times bestseller, with more than one million copies distributed worldwide. Her first novel, How to Build a Girl, received widespread acclaim, and she adapted it into a major motion picture starring Beanie Feldstein and Emma Thompson. As a twice-weekly columnist at The Times of London, Moran has won Columnist of the Year seven times. She lives in London.
- name: Caitlin Moran
- role: Narrator
- fileAs: Brealey, Louise
- name: Louise Brealey
- imprint
- HarperAudio
- publishDate
- 2014-09-23T00:00:00-04:00
- edition
- Unabridged
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- How to Build a Girl
- fullDescription
Now a major motion picture starring Beanie Feldstein!
The New York Times bestselling author hailed as "the UK's answer to Tina Fey, Chelsea Handler, and Lena Dunham all rolled into one" (Marie Claire) makes her fiction debut with a hilarious yet deeply moving coming of age novel.
What do you do in your teenage years when you realize what your parents taught you wasn't enough? You must go out and find books and poetry and pop songs and bad heroes—and build yourself.
It's 1990. Johanna Morrigan, fourteen, has shamed herself so badly on local TV that she decides that there's no point in being Johanna anymore and reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde—fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero and full-time Lady Sex Adventurer. She will save her poverty-stricken Bohemian family by becoming a writer—like Jo in Little Women, or the Bröntes—but without the dying young bit.
By sixteen, she's smoking cigarettes, getting drunk and working for a music paper. She's writing pornographic letters to rock-stars, having all the kinds of sex with all kinds of men, and eviscerating bands in reviews of 600 words or less.
But what happens when Johanna realizes she's built Dolly with a fatal flaw? Is a box full of records, a wall full of posters, and a head full of paperbacks, enough to build a girl after all?
Imagine The Bell Jar written by Rizzo from Grease. How to Build a Girl is a funny, poignant, and heartbreakingly evocative story of self-discovery and invention, as only Caitlin Moran could tell it.
- reviews
- premium: True
- source:
- content: This coming-of-age story depicts Johanna Morrigan's transformation as she rebuilds herself and creates the life she wants to have. Louise Brealey is perfect as the voice of Johanna (a.k.a. Dolly Wilde). The story begins with the 14-year-old British teen making a fool of herself on a local television show and deciding to create a new persona--Dolly--and a career for herself as a music critic. Brealey's accent and light tone fit with Johanna's exploits and offbeat style. For her portrayals of secondary characters, however, Brealey varies her volume rather than giving them voices of their own. While much of the story is told through Johanna's thoughts and words, the dialogue of the other characters distracts from the story and takes away from the otherwise great narration. E.N. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
July 7, 2014
“The 1990s are a bad time to be poor and not-famous,” thinks 14-year-old Johanna Morrigan, who lives with her parents and four siblings on a council estate in Wolverhampton. Arguably, the new millennium brought little relief on this front, but for Moran (How to Be a Woman), the gritty British landscape of adolescence, set to a loud ’90s soundtrack of the Stone Roses and the Mondays, is the stage for Johanna’s fabulous reinvention of herself. Adopting the pseudonym Dolly Wilde, Johanna educates herself in eyeliner and contemporary music and begins submitting record reviews to a London weekly. In the process, she grows up, has adventures far beyond the estate walls, and learns to love herself. Moran’s sharp sense of humor comes through in Johanna’s observations. Gratifying, too, are the constant stream of ’90s alt-rock references (Soup Dragons, anyone?) and the portrait of a pre-Internet world, where kids actually had actually leave their houses to find new identities. Unfortunately, Johanna’s voice feels forced, and her exploits seem to surpass what might have been believable chutzpah.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
April 1, 2014
British cultural critic Moran broke out here with 2012's "New York Times" best-selling "How To Be a Woman", an eye-opening look at women today through Moran's own life. Her fiction debut echoes aspects of her life--e.g., joining the music weekly "Melody Maker" at 16--before she became a prize-winning columnist at the London "Times". Here, after an embarrassing incident on local TV, 14-year-old Johanna Morrigan decides to remake herself as out-there Dolly Wilde. Soon, she's drinking regularly, having lots of sex, and writing acidulous reviews of rock bands. But can you really build the perfect girl? With a 75,000-copy first printing.Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from September 15, 2014
Johanna Morrigan, 15, lives with her large family in the early 1990s in a council flat in Wolverhampton, a downtrodden city in the West Midlands of England. The family barely survives on disability payments from the government; her charming father is a drunk and a con artist, a wannabe rock star who despises Margaret Thatcher and pretty much all authority despite the handouts that keep them afloat. Johanna is friendless and extremely bookish, oversexed and desperate to lose her virginity, yet thwarted by her outsider status and complete lack of experience. A voracious reader despite her disregard for school, Johanna gets nearly all of her knowledge from the shelves of the public library. In an attempt to earn some cash for her family and break out of the confines of her narrow existence, Johanna reinvents herself as a rock journalist, bluffing her way into a job at a London magazine, where she creates an entirely new persona, complete with a new name. VERDICT It is rare to find such a brash, hilarious teenage heroine, unapologetic and open about her own sexuality. Moran's (How To Be a Woman) coming-of-age debut novel is both poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, a treat for young adults as well as those who remember the era and its music. [See Prepub Alert, 3/3/14.]--Lauren Gilbert, Sachem P.L., Holbrook, NY
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
April 1, 2014
British cultural critic Moran broke out here with 2012's New York Times best-selling How To Be a Woman, an eye-opening look at women today through Moran's own life. Her fiction debut echoes aspects of her life--e.g., joining the music weekly Melody Maker at 16--before she became a prize-winning columnist at the London Times. Here, after an embarrassing incident on local TV, 14-year-old Johanna Morrigan decides to remake herself as out-there Dolly Wilde. Soon, she's drinking regularly, having lots of sex, and writing acidulous reviews of rock bands. But can you really build the perfect girl? With a 75,000-copy first printing.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from August 15, 2014
From British humorist Moran (How To Be A Woman, 2012, etc.), an overweight, socially inept teen drops out of school to become a rock critic and sexual adventuress. Fourteen-year-old Johanna Morrigan shares a bedroom with both her older and younger brothers, though the frequency of her trysts with her hairbrush might recommend otherwise. The birth of unexpected twin siblings, so far known only as David and Mavid, have made the family's Thatcher-era financial situation more desperate than ever. Her dad's attempts to revive his music career by networking at the local pub have led Johanna to conclude "the future only comes to our house when it is drunk." After a humiliating appearance on a local talk show, the unsinkable Johanna goes for re-invention from the ground up. She renames herself Dolly Wilde after Oscar's niece ("this amazing alcoholic lesbian who was dead scandalous"), assembles a wall collage of inspiring women and sexy men (including "Lenin when he was very young-I don't know exactly what he went on to do but I do know that he looks hot here"), and breaks away from her parents' playlist, substituting Bikini Kill and Courtney Love for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. By 1992, 17-year-old "Dolly" has wangled herself a job writing reviews at Disc and Music Echo magazine, which leads to her encountering and falling in love with a perfectly imagined rock star named John Kite, "the first person I'd ever met who made me feel normal." Their ecstatic, chaste night together is the high point of the book. After that, she weathers the perils of being both the meanest and easiest music critic in town. Hilarious autobiographical fiction debut for Britain's Lena Dunham-if you can forgive a dot too much nasty sex and poignant lessons learned.COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
August 1, 2014
To make money when she fears she caused her struggling family's government benefits to be cut, teen library-junkie Johanna Morrigan submits a poem about her best friend, her dog, to a contest. She wins, nabbing a cash prize and a spot on Midlands Tonight. One on-air Scooby Doo impersonation later, Johanna is wishing she'd never been born until she decides she'll be reborn instead. Nearly overnight, autodidactic freaky fat girl Johanna becomes feared music reviewer Dolly Wilde, her tools of transformation being hair dye, eyeliner, a top hatall blackand her radio. As herself, Johanna is endearinghilarious, pathetic, and wise. Bawdy Dolly adopts a successful fake it till you make it approach, getting known by tearing new bands to shreds and hastily, gleefully, explicitly jettisoning Johanna's many virginities. Almost suddenly, though, Johanna feels she's missed the mark, because what is there to be afraid of, really? In her first novel, comedian Moran's (How to Be a Woman, 2012) characters are huggable and aggressively real; her setting1990s Wolverhampton and Londontouchable; and her depiction of growing up well worth reading. One heartily hopes there's more where this came from.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)
- popularity
- 465
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/74defd4f-8222-4252-9b11-0e00351f8a6b/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- self:
- id
- 74defd4f-8222-4252-9b11-0e00351f8a6b
- starRating
- 3.7
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0293-1/{74DEFD4F-8222-4252-9B11-0E00351F8A6B}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0293-1/{74DEFD4F-8222-4252-9B11-0E00351F8A6B}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0293-1/74D/EFD/4F/{74DEFD4F-8222-4252-9B11-0E00351F8A6B}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0293-1/74D/EFD/4F/{74DEFD4F-8222-4252-9B11-0E00351F8A6B}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: Fiction
- value: Literature
- value: Humor (Fiction)
- publishDateText
- 09/23/2014
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062350640
- mediaType
- Audiobook
- shortDescription
Now a major motion picture starring Beanie Feldstein!
The New York Times bestselling author hailed as "the UK's answer to Tina Fey, Chelsea Handler, and Lena Dunham all rolled into one" (Marie Claire) makes her fiction debut with a hilarious yet deeply moving coming of age novel.
What do you do in your teenage years when you realize what your parents taught you wasn't enough? You must go out and find books and poetry and pop songs and bad heroes—and build yourself.
It's 1990. Johanna Morrigan, fourteen, has shamed herself so badly on local TV that she decides that there's no point in being Johanna anymore and reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde—fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero and full-time Lady Sex Adventurer. She will save her poverty-stricken Bohemian family by becoming a writer—like Jo in Little Women, or the Bröntes—but without the dying young bit.
By sixteen, she's smoking cigarettes, getting drunk...
- sortTitle
- How to Build a Girl A Novel
- crossRefId
- 1942936
- subtitle
- A Novel
- publisher
- HarperAudio
- bisacCodes
- code: FIC016000
- description: Fiction / Humorous / General
- code: FIC019000
- description: Fiction / Literary
- code: FIC043000
- description: Fiction / Coming of Age
