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?
Scroll down to watch a video of Caitlin describing How to be Famous in three words ----------------------------------------------------
'A deliciously funny sequel to How to Build a Girl' - Red Magazine
'This is funny, philosophical, and poignant in equal measure. Glorious and life-enhancing' - Nina Stibbe
'A filthy, gutsy, exhilarating call to arms' - Emma-Jane Unsworth
Full disclosure: I have not read Moran's first novel, which has the same protagonist.
This is definitely less a book about navigating nascent fame and more a book about a precocious, lively nineteen-year-old's pursuit of sexual maturity. Which is fine, but you know I hate when a book's summary misleads me. Anyway, Moran's writing style is delightfully conversational and fresh, and our protagonist Johanna was delightfully absurd. I did love the defense of teenage girls at the centre of the novel, and Moran writes insightfully about the dynamics between men and women (particularly sexual dynamics). That said, it's hard not to think she finds ironic racism kind of funny. (I mean, we all know she does.) And the ending was just... very cliché. Too tidy.
It's a fun, quick read, but it's nothing revolutionary.
