Review: How to Be Famous by Caitlin Moran

I’m Johanna Morrigan, and I live in London in 1995, at the epicentre of Britpop. I might only be nineteen, but I’m wise enough to know that everyone around me is handling fame very, very badly.

My unrequited love, John Kite, has scored an unexpected Number One album, then exploded into a Booze And Drugs HellTM – as rockstars do. And my new best friend – the maverick feminist Suzanne Banks, of The Branks – has amazing hair, but writer’s block and a rampant pill problem. So I’ve decided I should become a Fame Doctor. I’m going to use my new monthly column for The Face to write about every ridiculous, surreal, amazing aspect of a million people knowing your name.

But when my two-night-stand with edgy comedian Jerry Sharp goes wrong, people start to know my name for all the wrong reasons. ‘He’s a vampire. He destroys bright young girls. Also, he’s a total dick’ Suzanne warned me. But by that point, I’d already had sex with him. Bad sex. 

Now I’m one of the girls he’s trying to destroy. 

He needs to be stopped.

But how can one woman stop a bad, famous, powerful man?

 

Review: There are so many things I loved about this novel and, for a sequel, I think I loved it even more than the first one. 

Firstly, I loved revisitng Dolly, or Johanna, again because she is an awesome character. I love that she knows so much about the world as well as knowing so little about the world at the same time. The fact that she is a younger character gives her that innocence and naivety, but her exploits from the first novel mean that she knows a thing or two about the way the world of live music and music journalism works. 

Secondly I love the massive amount of feminist manifesto in this novel. I loved that Johanna asks why there are so few women at an award show, that so few women are represented in her field and why men's response to her at the time, and the other women around her, is to do with their physical attributes and the possibility of sex. 

Thirdly, I love the fact that this is set in London but has a whole host of characters who are not Londoners. I think that Johanna looks at the world differently because she is from the Midlands and didn't grow up in a middle class household. Some of the other characters are from Wales, Scotland and other parts of England and I think that this is much more Representative of the media industry in London, it really is a a melting pot of accents and backgrounds and this author has shown that here!

And lastly of course I loved the storyline. So much happens and so much that you can't even imagine happening as well, except that you can because it is music in London in the 90s. Its great and made me laugh out loud loads, as well as making me think and making me cheer. Obviously there are tons of awesome 90s references and I can't wait to read whatever Caitlin Moran comes out with next. She just rocks and I will read anything that she writes!

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