5 out of 5 stars
I’m giving this book five stars for a number of reasons,
most of them personal, so bear that in mind if you read it and disagree. Also,
I’m not going to list all my reasons (because who cares), but I’ll share a few.
First, I’m at a lifestage that sucks super hard, and I have
a really hard time finding anything that holds my attention and doesn’t annoy
me. Yes, I know that’s on me, but bottom line, when a book gives me the gift of
looking forward to reading again, that book becomes elevated in status! Also,
it’s LOL funny throughout, so bonus there.
Second, despite the unlikely intellectual attributes and
humor being wielded by a poor, adolescent high-school dropout, which might put
some readers off (think author John Green and how witty and self-aware all of
his YA characters are…and then you talk to some YAs who mostly just grunt and
shrug at you, and you’re like, “John Green’s wonderful young people are all
cyborgs!”), I’m giving it a pass, because it’s just so damn fun to read. Plus, HTBAG
does give a really palpable glimpse at what it’s like to BE an adolescent girl.
For this reason, I believe adolescent boys and men should read it. It also
paints a stark picture of inescapable poverty, and for this reason I believe
every Republican should read it too. (Even though it’s set in England.)
Third, it’s a bit of a feminist manifesto in its own way.
Moran tackles a lot, including as one reviewer noted, the double standards and “harmful
paradoxes about modern sex education and the way we police women’s sexuality.”
Word!
Fourth, HTBAG is one of the most readable and quotable
books I’ve read in a long time (“swashfuckler,” lol!) I want to quote pretty
much the whole book (but I won’t); it’s really hard not to share passages with
whoever’s nearby. “Ha! Listen to this…” and then everyone on the quiet train
car whips their heads around to glare at you. Hours of fun!
The humor could make readers not take the book seriously,
but I think it and the occasional flippancy are essential—Johanna's humor keeps the grit and
the grey drudgery of life in the projects of Wolverhampton, England in the
1990s from becoming a character that would distract you too much from Johanna’s
story.
Fifth, it really is a pretty good story. Despite her
flaws and vulnerabilities (or because of them), Johanna/Dolly is so likable, you
really can’t help but root for her. By the time she’s fifteen, she’s dropped
out of school and bluffed her way into a writing gig at the Disc & Music
Echo. As her alter ego, Dolly Wilde, she’s a music critic and becomes a
carefree drinker, smoker, and Lady Sex Adventurer. Then she goes back home to
her life of quiet desperation as a “potatotarian” (they eat a lot of potatoes) with
her loser father, depressed mother, and four siblings, three of whom she shares
a room with that is furnished with bunk beds and the concave bed her grandma
died in.
While there are several spots where you might start to
hear ominous music (like when she’s sex adventuring and could easily become a
statistic), Johanna’s older voice pops in as a sort of reverse foreshadowing
(aftershadowing?) narrator to assure us that everything’s going to be OK.
Again, at this point in my own personal timeline, I was glad for it, because I
don’t need more things to worry about, even if it is fiction.
So it’s a story of survival to be sure, but maybe also a
reminder that most of us reinvent ourselves more than once, and that whole
journey and the lessons you’re hopefully learning along the way about yourself
and how the world works, are worth it.
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