Una noia de 19 anys, filla d´una família de hippies, se'n va a Londres a treballar per una revista musical als anys 90,apogeu del britpop. És desinhibida, mol activa sexualment, divertida però també de bona fe. Explica les seves aventures i desventures amb el grup dels seus amics. es basa en la autobiografia de la seva autora. El final és massa convencional. ( )

I had generally positive reactions to Moran's first novel (with some criticism aimed at her protagonist's frivolous behaviour), but this sequel absolutely blew it out of the water! Dolly/Joanna may be three years older, but she still has a lot of growing up to do so her antics remain rather out there. Yet even while she makes some decidedly bad choices in the name of experimentation and not saying no, she begins to do so with some hindsight and consequences. I found her underlying sense of guilt to be a bit of a downer at times, but recalling my last teenage years the feeling was alltoo common as we learn to set boundaries, break down others, and discover the world at large. Through Joanna's eyes we are even more exposed to some harsh truths - we can let the world in and should revel in all the glory it has to offer, but we also have to face up to our mistakes and to not let the mistakes of others define us. If you can get through the slightly more extreme (yet no less readable) shambles that was How to build a Girl, I can promise you that this wonderful gem is worth the effort! Especially because everything works out in the end, yay! ( )

Such funny, original, honest writing, that I didn’t want to finish. I loved her reasoning in support of girls having sex with rock gods: unlike your dad’s mates they’re not going to tell you the stuff they’ve just bought from Wicks.

If you appreciate sentences like: ‘John’s life was like a zoo on fire....I didn’t want to be a sidelined penguin. I wanted to be the whole ark’, then you will love this. ( )

Will you get this if you weren't late teenage in the late nineties? Will you get the burst of nostalgia? For this is the Britain of my youth and Dolly Wilde is everything I would have aspired to be at 19. I love Moran's writing and though she stresses at the start this is a work of fiction, having read her nonfiction offerings Dolly is very Moranesque in her wordsmithery and attitudes to the world, sex and patriarchy. Laugh out loud humour, wonderful moments of cringiness, and some beautifully poetic passages about life. ( )

See my video review here: https://youtu.be/KqHzzCH6n_I

This book fed my soul. I can't express how much I loved it and the first one, How to Build a Girl. It touches on things I've never heard anyone else talk about, and all in the most deliciously humorous British voice.

The first book focused on reinventing yourself, but also covered other topics. One of the most memorable for me was its discussion of the sexism of sex, and how women unquestionably focus on and prioritize what the men want. Though this was an issue I had thought about in the past, this was the first time that I had seen it discussed anywhere outside my head, and that was really meaningful to me. As such, I thrived on this book, which revisits that issue in more detail and lets our main character, Johanna/Dolly Wilde, come to her own sexual enlightenment (with a particularly satisfying climax, if you'll pardon the pun).

Along with sex, this book also tackled the issue of sexism in the music industry. In particular, it challenged musical professionals' dismissal and mockery of teenage girls.

The third major topic this book touched upon was that of fatness, which I think was handled in a beautiful way. I know that some people would not like this book because our main character speaks about how much she hates her body, and while her feelings toward it to evolve and become more complex, she never grows to the point where she is proud of or even necessarily comfortable with being fat in a general daily way. However, I don't share that viewpoint. I think fatness is a complex thing, and denying that it can affect one's health and insisting fat characters have to be comfortable with their bodies is dismissive of the issue's complexities. That is a deep issue that I won't delve into in depth here. What I will say is that, despite hating how she looks, Dolly does grow to acknowledge and respect her body. She pursues exercise--and she even does it for the way that it feels rather than for losing weight (in fact, she doesn't lose any weight that we are made aware of, though she becomes stronger)--and this respect for her body of course continues into themes of sexual enlightenment. Her fatness also doesn't affect her attractiveness to romantic/sexual interests. In fact, when she finally has sex with John at the end of the book (talk about satisfying plot resolution!) I think it's made very clear that he loves her for every inch of herself, and not despite it. There are also several times throughout the book that she looks at overweight men and finds them incredibly attractive because of their size and shape. I thought the whole thing was both realistic and healthy and I enjoyed it immensely.

While this book felt like a solidly wrapped-up conclusion (more so than the first book had), I would still love to read endless books like this about Johanna/Dolly and company. I will absolutely be reading every novel Caitlin Moran writes, and I am interested in exploring her backlog of nonfiction, as well. ( )