How to Be Famous

A Novel

By: Caitlin Moran

Narrated by: Louise Brealey

A hilarious, heartfelt sequel to How to Build a Girl, the breakout novel from feminist sensation Caitlin Moran who the New York Times called, "rowdy and fearless... sloppy, big-hearted and alive in all the right ways."

You can’t have your best friend be famous if you’re not famous. It doesn’t work. You’re emotional pen-friends. You can send each other letters - but you’re not doing anything together. You live in different countries.

Johanna Morrigan (aka Dolly Wilde) has it all: at 18, she lives in her own flat in London and writes for the coolest music magazine in Britain. But Johanna is miserable. Her best friend and man of her dreams John Kite has just made it big in 1994’s hot new BritPop scene. Suddenly John exists on another plane of reality: that of the Famouses.

Never one to sit on the sidelines, Johanna hatches a plan: she will Saint Paul his Corinthians, she will Jimmy his Pinocchio - she will write a monthly column, by way of a manual to the famous, analyzing fame, its power, its dangers, and its amusing aspects. In stories, girls never win the girl - they are won. Well, Johanna will re-write the stories, and win John, through her writing.

But as Johanna’s own star rises, an unpleasant one-night stand she had with a stand-up comedian, Jerry Sharp, comes back to haunt in her in a series of unfortunate consequences. How can a girl deal with public sexual shaming? Especially when her new friend, the up-and-coming feminist rock icon Suzanne Banks, is Jimmy Cricketing her?

For anyone who has been a girl or known one, who has admired fame or judged it, and above all anyone who loves to laugh till their sides ache, How to Be Famous is a big-hearted, hilarious tale of fame and fortune - and all they entail.

©2018 Casa Bevron, Ltd. (P)2018 Penguin Books, Ltd.

Wonderful sequel

I’m so glad Caitlin Moran wrote a sequel to How to Build a Girl. She creates such wonderful, likable characters. A job well done!

Amazingly awesome

Oh. Holy Gosh! I must admit I returned the first book in this series and I am beyond thrilled I was guided to this. It should be required reading. If you feel the #metoo needed a manifesto and teaching manual which will make you laugh and cry( more than ones at the same time!) Get ready. This is the perfect way to dive into 90’s, or visit this era of my childhood/youth.

AMAZING , but not for the faint of heart

I just finished galloping through this audiobook--it kept me laughing and engaged all the way through summer traffic on 495 and 95, and it kept me up till 11 (11! ME!) last night. I'm already a Moran fan, and Louise Brealey, the reader, is fantastic.

But the book is more than just a well-read story with a few glitches and one or two spots where perhaps/maybe just maybe/possibly an editor might have convinced Caitlin to trim a bit, which most of the reviews I read (Guardian and something else) mentioned. It's more than just a continuation of the story Moran's building based on her own life (which readers of her other memoirs, collections, and/or novels will recognize). What blew me away was Moran's clear-eyed effort to address the experience of being female in the world--in the novel, 1990's Britpop Europe, but her honest observations ring true in 2018 America as well. And they ring importantly true: Moran (in the voice of Dolly/Johanna) meditates on sex, rape, coming of age as a woman, sexism, relationships, shame (amazing descriptions of shame), sex-shaming, learning to set limits, finding one's voice--the list goes on and on. Yes, at times her unwavering descriptions made me uncomfortable: if I'd been reading a "real book" during the final chapter or so, I would probably have skipped some pages, but there was throughout a strong, victorious sense of claiming. Through Johanna's experience and no-holds-barred, no-physical-experience-undescribed, no-sexual-act-out-of-bounds storytelling, Moran is honoring and presenting the reality of women's whole beings, as whole beings, as sexual, strong, funny, physical, talented, hungry, thoughtful, contradictory, fearful beings. While the subject matter that's most boundary-pushing is sexual, Moran also discusses creativity, the importance of reading and writing, making an entrance, the wonders of American restaurant breakfasts, and the joys of physical exercise as well as good, bad, terrible, and beginning sex. There are great characters--Jo's dad, Susanne and Julie of The Branks, and, of course, John Kite. There is a painfully-resolved conflict that some may critique as unrealistic, but that I loved.

As I listened, as I laughed and winced and cringed a bit and wished I had a hard copy to mark up some of her strongest metaphors and best one-liners, I realized that How to Be Famous is a revolutionary creation that tells the complete story of a person in a way I have never heard it told before. I want many of my female friends to read it, but I also want my sons to read it as well. If you're up for what a family member once referred to as "risky bits," go buy a copy of this book or listen to the audio, and pay attention

She’s done it again.

I am never ready for the brilliance that is Caitlin Moran.
This is one of my favorites in a LONG time.
Now I have to go back and re-read everything else.
Highly recommended. Especially if you were a coming of age girl in the 90s. So bittersweet.
Thank you, Caitlin.

lovely.

even better than the first one,
heartfelf, funny, romantic.
great narration. just go for it.
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better than the first

I personally think this was better than the first book. Great follow up and nice introduction to newer characters.

Amazing insights, beautiful writing!

Loved the story and the author’s narration. Caitlin Moran has a brilliant way of illuminating truth in life and relationships.

Possibly even better than the first

I put off this one because I loved How to Build a Girl so much that I was afraid it wouldn’t live up—and it very did. Great characters, wonderful story arc for Jo and John, and a really beautiful look at a pre #metoo response to misogyny. LOVE.

I can’t tell you how much I loved this book

Could this be the best sequel ever written? I laughed, I cried, I related so much. I am so fan-girling over John Kite.

The story picks up where the last book left off, ads some marvelous new characters and hail, hail, the gang’s all here.

I’m not worthy!

Brilliant! Went From 3 Stars to 10+

Initially, I had doubts about this book as I struggled to understand the narrator and settle into the story. However, the main character's intelligence started to shine through and I grew accustomed to the narrator's strong accent. Chapter 31 and the one involving the sex tape explanation were especially brilliant and made me very glad to have chosen this book. This book is far, far more than the fluffy rom-com I anticipated. In fact, I immediately purchased another book by Moran. She certainly nailed this one to the extent that I plan to listen to it again in the future--a rarity for me in a library as large as mine.