Moranifesto: Oh my god, a change is coming - can you feel it?

Did you know Caitlin Moran is pretty great? If not, maybe get on fixing that. And Moranifesto is quality Moran. Much like Moranthology (exactly like Moranthology?) it's a collection of her columns from The Times of London.

Sometimes I'm on the fence about collections of things published elsewhere. Except now that I've written that, not really. I mean, I guess I'm kind of on the fence about it in theory, but in actually, I will totally buy a collection of essays (or blog posts, what's up Freakonomics: When to Rob a Bank) even if I could have gotten them elsewhere, and I love having them in a single book. Plus I don't have a subscription to The Times so this is pretty much the only way I'm going to read them. So Moran, please keep putting these books out.

Anyway, Moranifesto. As I mentioned in a previous post, I bought this cos, well it's Moran, we have established that love. But ALSO it's a signed copy. Plus I read it right around the election, and this turned out to be the perfect mix of serious and irreverent, something I was looking for in what continue to be trying times.

The book is split into three sections:
The Twenty-First Century, Where We Live (essays include "I Am Hungover Again", "The Rich Are Blithe" and "BACON!");
Feminisms (essays include "Let Us Find Another Word For Rape", "FGM - It Takes Just One Person to End a Custom" and "Why Can't Life Be More Like A Musical?");
and The Future ("The Refugees Are Saving Us All", "The Frumious Cumberbatch", and "To Teenage Girls on the Edge").

She starts the collection with a quick introduction about how she started writing, focusing on pop-culture and being funny and staying away from all things political. Because politics was for Grownups and people who know absolutely EVERY LITTLE THING about a topic* and not just people with opinions. Once How to Be a Woman came out and people started considering her a Feminist Writer. And she realized that you can write about serious things. And fluffy things. Write about ALL THE THINGS and screw what people might say. As she says:

I am going to write about politics now. Firstly, because I think I should; and secondly, because I'm old enough now not to care if people think I can't. I love getting older. You might lose skin elasticity, but you also lose the amount of fucks you give. It's awesome.

And so she does. And the book is a mix of odes to David Bowie and interviews with Benedict Cumberbatch and writing about how she doesn't wear heels anymore, and it's also about rape and abortions and refugees and services for the poor. There's stuff that's in between, such as the internet dismissing people who aren't perfect. The columns are funny and touching and there's a feeling of hope, even when she's tackling dark topics.

Gif rating:

*I believe there have been studies done around this. Where typically women won't apply for a job unless they are 100% qualified. Meanwhile dudes will apply for a job if they're like 60% qualified cos whatever, they'll figure the rest of it out. So while knowing every little thing is great and experts are a good thing, that doesn't mean that you can't have and express your opinions on things. Accept and be upfront about what you know and don't know, but don't stay silent just because you don't know absolutely everything.

Title quote from page 3

Moran, Caitlin. Moranifesto. Harper Perennial, 2016.

I have to die - again. And again, the thought makes me very cheerful

This is it. The last How To Build A Girl post. I'm so sad to be leaving Johanna and our group but I'm also SO HAPPY I didn't have to force myself to stop reading this time. I could just race to the end. And it was lovely.

Thank you again Emily for hosting this readalong and Harper for giving her the opportunity and us the books. AND if you haven't already (which is silly, of course you have) pre-ordered the book, you can do that through this link right here. And support an indie bookstore, which of course you want to do.

One more detail. I have managed to catch a summer cold cos awesome. So if this post will likely make less sense than normal considering cold meds and general cold-fuzziness. Enjoy.

Now, to part 3

I was very happy the last section's message about sex wasn't all

I didn't actually think it would be, but after a lot of the comments that were going around last week I thought maaaaaaaybe I'd be wrong and Moran would bust out something about pregnancy or STD or whatnot. Which I mean, yes, are actual consequences of sex and things that do need to be taken seriously but I was SO SO happy it didn't come up and all of Johanna's sexy time didn't become some big warning that if you have sex you will get pregnant/get chlamydia and you will die.

I was also very happy to see that by the end when Johanna decides to drop some aspects of Dolly but keep other than the drinking and the sex made it on the keep list. Again because while these activities do have consequences and some of them serious that does not mean that need to be given up and hooray to Moran again.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Section 2 ended with Johanna realizing the problems with being so mean. But of course, change doesn't happen right away and she eventually finds that she's insulted about half of the indie rock scene. That certainly makes going to shows awkward and ends with her getting a drink thrown at her. Which leads to her doing speed in the bathroom with the other guys from the magazine. See what meanness gets you?

Then, because things have to continue to get worse before they get better, Johanna has some less-than-fun sex with Tony Rich. First is the light S&M that causes her more pain than fun because Tony Rich hasn't read up on the S&M rules and tips, like not smacking the same place twice. Then she starts questioning what Tony is to her. She thinks he might be falling in love with her but isn't really sure how to find out. I mean, you can't just ASK

Why people are white or in love. Both off-limits

Tony invites her to his parents' for the weekend, along with a bunch of friends so way to go with the mixed signals. Signals get clear later when it turns out Tony Rich is in love with an ex-girlfriend he also invited for the weekend. He's been having random sex with this girl and figured it wasn't a problem with Johanna considering all of her sexual adventuring. Which, honestly, isn't all that unreasonable. But of course this doesn't hurt Johanna less and in order to try to win her way back to top position, Johanna suggests a threesome.

Things do not go well. First, while getting ready for the threesome she overhears Tony's friends referring to her as his "bit of rough". THEN, after forcing herself to be OK with this, she goes down to find out they've started the threesome without her. But Johanna finally gets angry. She's not going to make herself OK with this.

And she realizes while she was worried if Tony was in love with her, she wasn't all that concerned with how she felt about him. What she decides is she wants to be with John Kite.

I'm so so happy Kite ended up being wonderful. I know we were all worried where that would go so hooray for Kite being wonderful and a real friend. Of course things are still not done being terrible for Johanna. While the two of them are very drunk at a zoo, she tells Kite that they have to have sex. She's worried she's ruined everything and Kite won't want to ever see her again after making that suggestion. She reads her latest review tearing apart a band and feels horrible about it. She doesn't know what to do and just knows her experiment as Dolly isn't making her happy and she starts cutting. Or really goes through one night of cutting herself and that is not to say it's not a serious thing but at least it isn't on-going.

At least she has Krissi to talk her out of this and almost necessitate the amputation of her arm but you know, details. This also prompts Johanna to remake herself again.

She stops hanging out with the old D&ME folks. She makes up with John Kite (who doesn't remember her proposition and tells her right now she's too young for him but maybe in the future), she gets her own place in London, good things.

Oh, and she finds out why the family's benefits got cut. It was her fault for leaving school early. She left school early to try to make enough money to help save the family and instead is the reason things got cut. I'm not quite sure why they didn't tell her (and tell her "HEY go back to school so we can get those back" but perhaps that wasn't an option) but there you go.

Things are looking good for Johanna. Not perfect. It's not like things are rainbows and stardust for her and her family, but they're definitely moving in the right direction. And so we leave Johanna as she starts her new, less-cynical life in London.

This book was wonderful. It was so fun and full of so much that teen girls aren't told enough. I don't think this book is going to make it on any school reading lists anytime soon, what with all of the sex and the wanking, but it should definitely be on recommended reading lists. Well, well done Moran.

...please

Title quote from page 301

Moran, Caitlin. How To Build A Girl. Harper, 2014

Your face - it's clearly telling me to slap it

It's Monday and now that I'm back on schedule it's time for another How To Build A Girl post. I'm happy to have read so far because THIS IS SO GOOD, but I'm also sad because we're almost at the end of this readalong. Oh the sads.

Thank you Emily and Harper Collins for making this readalong possible and for those of you not currently taking part in the readalong, do you want to pre-order your own copy of the book? I mean, of course you do because you have been following along with these posts and see how good this is.

Now, to chapters 16-20! (For those of you who know the story, I'm going to use Johanna and Dolly's name interchangeably. Also heads up, there will be spoilers. Which you should probably know by this point.)

This section can best be summed up using Moran's own words from Moranthology: SEX WILL BE HAD!

But before then, we see Dolly's star is rising at the magazine when she realizes eviscerating bands is better than being a fan of them. She makes sure to only review bands that she hates because, as she learned after her John Kite piece, she has to be a reviewer and not a fan. She's spending half her time drunk on power and the other half of the time literally drunk.

All part of her trouble persona.

But Johanna/Dolly's drinking is not causing a problem for her, which is nice to see the book not go to an extreme and go "Look she's drinking AND HER LIFE IS RUINED FOREVER BEWAAAAAAARE."

Before sex will be had, Dolly's first goal is to get kissed. Lucky for her Ali introducer her to The Kisser who can help her out, provided you don't care so much about who you're kissing. As she says:

The Kisser has done his job. I'm grateful for his services. If I needed sheep moving from one field to another, I would have called a shepherd. If I'd lost my wedding ring down the U-bend, I would have called a plumber. And as I needed my first kiss before I got another day older, I used the Kisser. I feel better now.

Drunk on her first kiss and also on alcohol, Johanna returns home and talks with her dad, who is also drunk. He tells her about his childhood for a bit before coming up with the plan that Johanna will review his work in her magazine and then they will be millionaires. Johanna agrees to this, although the only thing she writes now are reviews taking bands down, so this is probably a bad strategy. But since she manages to avoid reviewing her dad's work, at least through the rest of this section, we don't have to worry about that just yet.

Time goes by, Johanna is still taking down artists, but she is spending what seems like an equal amount of time making out with Tony Rich and having sex with a bunch of people, in a section that totally does not shame her for this. Given this is Moran writing I would have been surprised otherwise, but it's still nice to see things be so sex positive. There is a moment when Johanna deals with the idea of being considered a slag and how unfair this is

The only way I can gain any qualifications at this thing - sex - that is seen as societally important and desirable, is by being a massive slag - which is not seen as societally important and desirable. This often makes be furious.

But she thinks of Courtney Love's "Teenage Whore" as her personal anthem and all is right.

The remainder of the section is some funny awkward sex moments, including a mishap involving hot wax and some serious problems dealing with a guy who is a bit too well-endowed. While recovering from this trauma (requiring codeine, cranberry juice, and a lot of time in the bath) she talks with the member of a band who tells her that bands are afraid of her. When she assures him that he doesn't have to worry about a Dolly-review because she actually likes them, Rob asks her why she only reviews bands she hates. Johanna considers this and cynicism and why she decides to do this.

When other people being to bring their guns to the party, it's not a party anymore. It's a battle. Without realizing it, I have become a self-defeating mercenary in a pointless war. I'm shooting my own future. 

She figures she has plenty of time and can be nice later, but the ominously ends the section saying that she actually hasn't got plenty of time and DUN DUN DUUUUN.

IT WAS VERY HARD TO STOP AT THIS POINT. Until next time when we can finish the book and see what's going to happen (although I have assumptions cos really, it's clear Johanna = Caitlin).

Title quote from page 211

Moran, Caitlin. How To Build A Girl. Harper Collins, 2014.

You're making a friend right now! Look at your face, in the middle of friending!

Hello all! First up, HEY LOOK, I'm back! Wedding and honeymoon were amaaaaaaaazing and there will be posts about both of these things (or even multiple ones cos you know, milking it for topics).

Also, sorry that this post is going out late. I was super happy with myself to get the other post done and scheduled before the wedding. It was nice to have something non-wedding related to do for awhile. But of course I didn't get the reading/writing done for this week's post so yeah, this is happening now. This will also probably be a bit short because I read 1/2 of it before the wedding and the last couple chapters a few minutes ago so yeah. BUT before I get into this (and then get around to commenting) some intro information.

Thank you Emily for hosting this readalong and HarperCollins for making it possible. Do you want to pre-order this book? Have you been paying attention AT ALL to this readalong? Because if you have then OF COURSE you want to get this book. Which you can do right here! Unless you've already done it. Then it would probably be a good idea to buy a copy for a friend or something.

Oh also, there will be spoilers for this next section, so, you know. Heads up.

Johanna has been writing for the magazine for a little while now but she finally gets a big job. She gets to fly to Dublin to interview John Kite! (I don't know who John Kite is. Is he real? I will assume no.) Johanna continuos to be adorably enthusiastic (she would have made the WORST goth) and I love her bit about flying.
I am getting incredibly high on a single, astounding fact: that it's always sunny about the clouds. Always. That every day on earth - every day I have ever had - was secretly sunny, after all...I feel like I've just flown 600 miles per hour head-on into the most beautiful metaphor of my life: If you fly high enough, you get above the clouds, it's never-ending summer.

Johanna meets John Kite and is smitten. Not with his looks but he seems to be honestly, fully interested in her. What she has to say, the jokes she makes, what she cares about, the whole deal. It was a wonderful scene and one that I was constantly worried about because I couldn't help but worry that something terrible was going to happen and I kept remembering how young Johanna really is.

My worries were mostly unfounded (SO FAR). Kite doesn't take advantage of her or break her heart or anything BUT he does sort of disappear. He's off doing his tour thing and this is the early '90s so it's not like texting and email and constant connection was a thing so he may not be avoiding this girl who clearly has a massive crush on him. Of course her fangirl piece on the man does cool her work with the magazine. The piece does run but they don't have other jobs for her. Which couldn't come at a worse time because the news that Johanna had been dreading has finally come. The family's benefits are being cut while they are investigated for fraud.

The cuts the family has to make are heartbreaking. No one has to go without a life-saving operation or anything that drastic but things aren't good.
The truth is, when you are very poor, that 11 percent bites into the very bones of your existence. Eleven percent less means choosing between electricity, or food - electricity or food that is already rationed, and fretted over. Eleven percent is not very much - but, when you are very poor, it may form the bedrock of our survival. And now you are standing on so much less than you were before. You are unstable. You are liable to fall...We cannot do anything other than stay very still. We are on 11 percent less of was-never-enough in the first place.

Things are getting harder at home. Her parents are always fighting, Krissi's hopes of going to college are gone, and all of the guilt that I thought perhaps Johanna had been able to let go of is back now.

There are some funny moments. Krissi gets so fed up with Johanna's nightly wankings that he demands his own room and eventually gets the dining room and Johanna gets a desk (the former dining room table which won't be used for dining anymore. Not that it ever was before.) And Dolly gets resurrected.

She finally gets a call from Kenny and is chiding that she needs to sound like a reviewer and not a fan but she's given another chance. She shows up at the offices in Dolly regalia with the addition of cigarettes and MD 2020, which Wikipedia tells me is also called bum wine so well-done, Johanna.

She continues to live by the advice "fake it till you make it" and things seem to actually go pretty well. Who knew that would work so well? AND she gets to see Kite again. And he isn't terrible to her or anything that I was worried about. AND despite her drinking what seems like a whole bunch for the first time she doesn't get ridiculously drunk which...OK, that seemed a little odd. How'd she learn to hold her liquor so well?

This section ends with Johanna told that her legacy is trouble and she seems to decide to live up to that by writing a scathing review of a mediocre band. I'm worried about what's coming just based on Moran's column about her own foray into writing super mean reviews and her own feelings about them. So we'll see what happens to Johanna/Dolly. Till next time!

Title quote from page 135

Moran, Caitlin. How To Build A Girl. Harper, 2014.

Hearing women singing about themselves -- rather than men singing about women -- makes everything seem wonderfully clear, and possible

It's Monday again! That means it's time for another installment of Caitlin Moran's How To Build A Girl. Hooray!

Thank you Emily for hosting this readalong, and thank you Harper Collins for having Emily host this. Good times. Do you want to get in on this and preorder the book? Of course you do. Well you can get it here, so aren't you lucky.

One more thing before we get to the random thoughts/gifs, I am going to be WAY behind on commenting. I'm sorry in advance. It is wedding related and unavoidable but I shall be there to leave tons of comments like a week after everyone has already forgotten all about this post and is onto new thoughts.

When we last left Johanna it was under threat of death. Kinda. To quote Moran (and sorry this is a long one. I tried to cut it down but NO, I love it all)

I am thrilled by the idea of killing myself. It seems like such a gratifyingly noble thing to do. A monster has come to town--me--and there is only one hero who can kill it: me.
I'm not actually going to kill myself, of course. For starters, I suspect I might put up a struggle and fight dirty--perhaps biting--and secondly, I don't actually want to die. I don't want there to be a dead body on the bed, and it to be the end of everything. I don't want to not live.
I just...want to not be me anymore. Everything I am now is not working.

Who hasn't felt this way at some point, especially as a teenager? She continues to be hilarious and heartbreaking all at once, and I know I've said this a billion times but since it is still super accurate I will continue to repeat myself.

Johanna decides the thing to do is to create a new persona. Someone who didn't do an impassioned Scooby-Doo impression on live TV.

She lands on Dolly Wilde and begins to dress in all black. Lots of red lipstick, heavy eyeliner, the whole deal.

She attempts to ingratiate herself to the  goth kids in town, which includes her cousin Ali, but things don't go well. Johanna is too bubbly and sweet and enthusiastic to be goth, despite the wardrobe. But despite this set-back she does find her calling. Dolly's calling. She's going to be a music journalist.

I applaud her dedication because she is spending lots of time at the library studying music press and imagining what these albums she's been reading about sound like (and wanking to them because I HOPE you didn't expect the wanking to stop. Wanking).

I make myself giggle

She's found a radio station playing the indie-alternative music she's looking for. She is far more dedicated to this than I think I've been to anything, which is admittedly pretty sad for me. Which is probably why Johanna/Dolly manages an interview/gig with Disc & Music Echo. Hard work, man. It pays off.

I know we talked about how there are autobiographical moments in the first part of the book. Those continue on here to the actual interview Moran had with Melody Maker, what with the whole mimicking Annie-bit and, OK. That was a hilarious moment from Moran's own story and I did really like it and think it fits with something Johanna would do, but the fact that it was the EXACT same thing sort of took me out of the story a bit. I kept waiting for her to mention the lemon cake she brought.

BUT other than that (and really, I still like the story so it's cool) things go well for Johanna/Dolly. After that initial awkwardness that was honestly inevitable with her, she gets a job and assignments that actually pay! Things are looking good.

Of course there are still reminders about how hard things are at home. Kenny from the magazine calls her saying he hasn't heard from her in awhile and she can't tell him the reason she hasn't called is because no one can use the phone since they haven't paid the bill. When he offers her an assignment she'll need to travel for she panics as she tries to figure out how she'll ever pay to get to the show and the relief when Kenny mentions that she can expense the trip is palpable.

The show goes well and brought back ALL THE MEMORIES for me of seeing Catch-22 the first time at this little...it seems stupid to call it a "club" but I suppose that's the most accurate description, when I was 14. Well done.

Johanna's career is going so swimmingly that, hey! why bother with school anymore? It's really just getting in the way of her being able to get her work done. Her parents are, understandably, not so much into the idea and there is a heartbreaking moment (because there are SO MANY OF THOSE) where Johanna thinks about the fact that her dad left school at 15 and she looks around the tattered house and thinks about how well that worked out for him. Her dad relents, maybe because he realizes if he argues with her about what a bad idea it is, it means he'll have to face the fact that it was a terrible idea when he did it as well.

This section ends with the news that Johanna will be meeting John Kite. I dunno who John Kite is, other than her cousin Ali did a drawing of him/Slash, but given that's where we're stopping, I assume this will be someone important. WE SHALL SEE!

Title quote from page 98

Moran, Caitlin. How To Build A Girl. Harper, 2014.

I wish I was Bill Murray. I hope everything I've read about evolution is wrong, and I eventually evolve into him.

Here we are at the first real post of the How To Build A Girl readalong. Well, the last post was real. It wasn't a fake post. But this is the first one about the book so yeah. Real-er.

Thank you Emily for hosting this readalong. It's already super fun. For those of you who don't get to readalong GUESS WHAT! You could always pre-order the book right here. Isn't that neat? You should probably get on that.

Also as this is a readalong there will be spoilers. You've be warned.

I'm also going to warn you that last week was NUTS, what with getting back from the west coast, work being insane, and we're in the home stretch for that whole wedding thing. What I'm saying is, be prepared for a lot of rambling and things to not make a lot of sense. I'm sorry in advance.

Even if I didn't know Caitlin Moran wrote this book, I'm pretty sure after the first section I could have guessed it. That's not a bad thing. She has a definite style with her writing and well guess what, this book in is in her style. Go figure. 

Not only the style thing, but since I've read both How To Be A Woman and Moranthology, there are similarities between young Johanna Morrigan and young Caitlin Moran. Which I realize she has acknowledged...somewhere. I've definitely read somewhere this book is vaguely autobiographical except now I can't remember where. See my apology above.

Anyway, this starts with a fourteen year old Johanna masturbating while her six year old brother sleeps near by, because why not.

But no really, it's not that creepy or sketchy or Law and Order: SVU-y at all. It's just sort of, this is something teens do and sometime teens are gross. But look, her brother would WANT her to be happy. So.

This section is really introduction, setting things up for the rest of the book. I assume. Cos really everything that happens in this first part feels like it's summed up on the back cover.

There are some troubles at home. The family seems mostly happy and to love each other, but given her dad disappearing for days on end, sporadically returning with someone in the record biz so he can share his demo and get rich and famous, and her mom is suffering from postpartum depression after the birth of the twins David and Mavid (they haven't been named yet) and isn't all there at the moment, I mean, things could be worse but they could also be better. Given the dad's demo which seems to be a12-minute avante-garde song complete with robot noises,

I'm not going to expect that record exec to turn things around anytime soon.

But really things are set in motion when Johanna goes to visit an old woman in the neighborhood whom she hangs out with/eats all of her cookies and accidentally mentions that her father collects disability. Well she doesn't accidentally mention but the woman comments about how Joanna's dad is working on the car and doing other non-disabled-looking things and shit. What if Violet tells on her family and then they don't get the money and listen, that robot song isn't going anywhere so they need that money.

I know this is a serious situation and all, but how great his her prayer?
Dear Lord Jesus, I know I haven't believed in you lately and I hope you don't take that personally, but as you are probably already aware, given your monitoring system, which I imagine to be comprehensive, things are quite bad here, and I want to offer you a deal. If you make it so that they don't take our benefits away, I will...Jesus. If you get us out of this -- like, really totally clear this up -- I promise I will not wank for 6 months...A month. Definitely a month. I will not touch myself for a month. Not even idly whilst in the bath. Not even after looking at the picture of two hippies doing oral sex in the Whole Earth catalogue, where you can see him put his fingers inside. This will be my holy sacrifice to you, oh Lord...I'm going to say 'Amen' now. This is a deal now. We are square on this. You will sort this out. Violet will not rat on us. Amen

I mean, how can you NOT love Johanna? I pretty much picture her as a British Tina

Johanna is determined to save the family after failing to keep her deal with Jesus, but she did make it 9 whole days so, you know, kudos.

She stands watch hoping to intercept any letters about their benefits before the rest of the family can see, while at the same time trying to figure out how to get money. Which eventually leads her to a poetry contest which she wins! Hooray! The theme is friendship and she writes a poem about her dog and it's sweet and the prize is £250* and a chance to read the poem on live TV. Live TV always goes well!

She sort of gets flustered and starts talking in the Scooby-Doo voice about how much she loves her dog and things get awkward and people are now calling the family and making fun of them and yeah.

After this Johanna decides she has to die. That's how the section ends. I'd be more worried with an ending like that, except for the fact that while the first part has a lot of serious themes, it's fairly light and funny so I don't think she's actually going to kill herself. Also the back cover says she reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde, so I'm not worried.

Part 1 down, and was a success (as if there was any doubt...). Onto part 2!

*I had to Google how the hell to type the £ symbol for this post. See the work I put into this?? Do you see? (For those of you not in the UK [as I assume your keyboards have it] and also on a Mac who want to type it, it's option+3).

Title quote page 48

Moran, Caitlin. How To Build A Girl. Harper, 2014.

How To Build A Girl readalong - Introductions

Hiiiii everybody

I am super excited to take part in this How To Build A Girl readalong. Thank you Emily for hosting this.

For those of you who don't know me already, hi! I'm Alley. Or Red. Whichever. I've been writing here at What Red Read for a long time now. 4 years? Maybe more. It feels like forever at this point. Anyway, like I'm sure most/everyone taking part in this readalong, I write about books. I know, you never would have guessed if I hadn't told you. I tend to read contemporary fiction (according to my reading stats) and love funny/quirky books the best. I tend to rave a LOT about Christopher Moore and similar stuff.

When Emily mentioned this readalong was going to be a Caitlin Moran one I was ALL OVER THAT.

I'm pretty sure it was Laura who convinced me to read Moran's book How To Be A Woman. Which yay for that because that book is soo good. Have you read it yet? If not, you should probably get on that. Sometime later I read Moranthology, a collection of her columns from the various publications she's written for. Is it even better than How To Be A Woman? Yes, kind of. It's very different, but it's one that I find myself re-reading a lot in little bits. It's easy to read a column here or there. And I could read her reviews of the Sherlock episodes over and over (and over) again. Yeah, after those, I NEED more Moran in my life.

For those of you not taking part in the readalong, you can pre-order the book from Odyssey Bookshop.

Until next week when we can begin discussing the book and sharing the gifs. Oh, the gifs.

Walking a marathon is much, much, much harder than running one. Because everyone thinks it's easy.

Ever since reading How To Be A Woman, I've wanted to read more Moran. But for whatever reason I was being stubborn about reading Moranthology. Which is stupid. I don't have a good reason other than everyone (well Alice aka Reading Rambo and Laura aka Devouring Texts) told me to and apparently my reaction to being told I should read a book that I will love is "SHUT UP, don't tell me what to do!" Before I went on my trip I realized I was going to need some books so I may as well download this one. I mean, I was going to be in London and Moran is over there and would be referencing English things. PLUS this is a collection of essays meaning they are short and you can feel very accomplished as you speed through them.

I sort of loved this book. More than How To Be A Woman? Maybe. I haven't entirely decided. And to be honest, it's hard to compare the two since HTBAW had a theme running through it and Moranthology does not. Believe me, I mean this as a compliment. Her essays are all over the place in a wonderful way. There are serious essays ("I Know What It's Like To Be Poor. They Took Away the TV and We Cried"), ridiculous essays ("I Am a Dwarf Called "Scottbaio"), essays about celebrities ("Come Party with Gaga"), feminist essays ("Burqas: Are the Men Doing It?"), relationship essays ("Call Me Puffin"), essays review TV shows I have not watched but really want to based on Moran's descriptions ("Downton Abbey Review 2: 'SEX WILL BE HAD! SEX WILL BE HAD!'"). Just look at those essay titles, and try to tell me you don't want to read every one of them.

The only problem with this set of essays (and the fact that I read this on a Kindle) is it was over so quick, and without warning. It's not like with a story where you can tell you're coming to the end. The essays could have gone on and on and I would have been happy to keep going with them.

I have a hard time whenever I'm writing a review of a book I liked. So, as is my normal solution in times like this, here are a bunch of quotes to help convince you that you should just read this:

In many ways, this book might as well be called "Deduce THIS, Sexlock Holmes!" with a picture of me licking his meerschaum, cross-eyed and screaming. 

The last time I felt so embarrassed about the visible contents of my handbag was last spring, when I was carrying around a gigantic book on the history of the Ku Klux Klan. For two long months, that book made me want to shout, "I'm reading this because I know they were bad -- not to get tips!" to any halfway full train.

 Parents drinking is the reason you came into the world, and if we didn't keep doing it, then by God, it would be the reason you went back out of it.

Even this semi-review took me awhile to write because while looking for quotes to include I wanted to just start reading it again. And it's so easy to do. "Oh I'll just read one or two essays" and then suddenly half the book is done. If she'd like to come out with a follow up to this that is just MORE of her essays printed elsewhere, that'd be cool. I'd be all for that.

Title quote from page 49, location 859

Moran, Caitlin. Moranthology. Harper Perennial, 2012.

I'm neither "pro-women" nor "anti-men." I'm just "Thumbs up for the six billion."

I want to be BFFs with Caitlin Moran. We'll drink vodka and she'll explain to me how to be a woman and it will be wonderful.

Laura said it best when she described Moran's book How To Be A Woman as "part memoir, part feminist manifesto, all awesome". I'm also pretty sure that I first heard of this book from Laura because Moran is British so the book came out over there WAY before I could get it. I just jealously sat by reading reviews not only about how great this book is but also an interview between Moran and Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess, aka Let's Pretend This Never Happened author). So there was a lot of build up. It not only met but exceeded expectations.

Moran writes about feminism from her personal experiences. Her chapters use that personal experience as a jumping off point to talk about larger topics, such as the pervasive porn culture in the chapter I Start Bleeding!*. And she is hilarious. It's not like reading a textbook about feminism, it's like talking to your friend about all the shit that being a woman entails. And part of that is not backing down from difficult topics. She talks about sex and marriage and abortion in a very straightforward, very honest way. An honest and hilarious way. Because that's the reason I would want to have these conversations with her (or in this case cos it's a book, listen to her talk). She can take a serious topic, keep it serious and thought provoking but crack you up. I think people are much more receptive to deep ideas when they're laughing. Your defenses are down and you don't even realize what you're taking in and suddenly BOOM, feminist.

Her main point, her main moral is that you should just be polite. Be nice. Sexism? It's not nice, don't do it. Because ultimately everyone is just trying to get along. Thumbs up for the six billion, indeed.

I already want to re-read this. I try to underline passages or mark down pages I want to talk about, but with this book I didn't really do that. Because I couldn't break myself away for 3 seconds to actually get the post-it and mark the page. So I've been flipping through it trying to find examples or ideas of what I want to talk about and I keep having to stop myself from finishing the page or the chapter. I feel like I haven't said too much here, so you should probably go read Laura's review. Or you could just go read this because this is the best.

One quick thing for Americans checking this out. As I mentioned, Moran is English so there are English-y moments. My copy however was clearly meant for the American audience, as it explained things like Wombles as a footnote. So don't worry about not understanding some references because the message is universal. And kick ass. Everyone appreciates kick ass.

I've had the hardest time writing this. In part because writing about a book I love is 1,000 times harder than writing about a book I hate or was lukewarm about and also because the TV keeps distracting me, and of course I could go to another room or something, but that's not going to happen. I will continue to write this and watch the VMAs while I try to figure out at exactly what point did all of the music start just sounding like noise. Then I'm going to chase some kids off the lawn.

*Her chapters are all SUPER EXCITED like that, based on (I assume) the way she wrote in her diary when she was young.

Title quote from page 128

Moran, Caitlin. How To Be A Woman. Harper Perennial, 2011.