Caitlin Moran: The Ending. Or is it?

So we've come to the end of this book, and this readalong.  Maybe.  The original idea was to post about the last section and do a wrap up all in one day, but part of me is feeling a little bereft that we're at the end.  Thus, I propose that those of us who want to continue our conversation about Johanna and her family and her awakenings can do so next week, right here.  I'll put up another Linky and we can go from there.

So...Section Three.  When we left off last week, Johanna had recently discovered that rather than being critical and smart and pointed in her music reviews, she was just being a dick.  Now she's worried that she's been a dick to John Kite, and maybe THAT is why he hasn't been pursuing her, even though she's been writing to him about her swashfuckling sexual adventures (I am so glad to live in a world where swashfuckling is a word).  And we can all rest easy that John Kite is an upright kind of fella, not some pedo, and that maybe, just maybe, they will get together when the time is right.

In the meantime, though, two other major things are happening. One of which is Johanna comes to the realization that her relationship with Tony Rich is abusive and then leaves him.  I wonder how metaphorically we're supposed to take this. That is, Johanna finally gets that Tony's sexual sadism isn't doing anything for her and that not only does he hurt her during sex, he treats her pretty shabbily, too.

While I wish her telling him off would have been as mean as her music reviews, I love her self-realization afterwards: "I feel excitingly...free. Things were going to happen to me last night that I did not like -- and I stopped them. I have never prevented my own doom before! I have never stood in the path of certain unhappiness and told myself -- lovingly, like a mother to myself -- No! This unhappiness will not suit you! Turn around and go another way!"

The other major reveal is we learn why the family's benefits were cut 11%: Johanna left school full time.  I have to admit, I didn't see that coming at all, and I was both surprised and impressed by the way her parents handled it.  And this: "I'm learning a whole new thing: that sometimes love isn't observable or noisy or tangible. That sometimes love is anonymous. Sometimes love is silent. Sometimes love just stands there while you're calling it a cunt, biting its tongue and waiting."

A few bullet points for other things I responded to this week:

• When Johanna mispronounces a word that's only ever seen written out, never heard spoken: "This is the terrible thing about learning everything from books -- sometimes you don't know how to say the words. You know the ideas, but you cannot discuss them with people with any confidence."
• When she plays her dad's mix tape for the guys at D&ME and what plays is a song called "Sit Down" by James.  My senior year in high school, my very serious boyfriend did a year abroad in England and he made me a mix tape of that song.  I loved it.  And I thought I was endlessly cool because nobody else in my school had access to it, or to the music of The Wonder Stuff.  

I still like the song, but I can't separate my nostalgia for it from any actual merit it might have.  I especially like the last bit, where the singer invites people who feel a breath of sadness, who are touched by madness, or who find themselves ridiculous to sit down next to [me]. Here, go listen it to it for yourself:

• Incidentally, I found out later that the same boyfriend's parents sent him away for a year as a Rotary Club exchange student because they worried we might be having sex. Remember when I said I had a fucked-up attitude toward sex and wish I could have been more like Johanna? That's because where I lived, it was healthier to send your 18 year old son away for a year than to deal with the fact he might be having sex with his steady girlfriend of two years. (Incidentally, we weren't.)
• OMG.  How does Johanna not know that Krissi is gay? 

Overall, I've had so much more fun with this book than I thought I would. I mean, I expected it to be fun, but I mostly thought it would be of the frivolous sort.  This book is far more substantive than a casual glance would indicate, chock full of wry social commentary, class issues, and above all, feminism. Beneath the humorous, and even raunchy, veneer, the heart of Caitlin Moran's first novel beats time with the age of feminism.

Part of the fun has been the readalong aspect, so I'd like to thank all of you who have been participating.  Some of you are old internet friends, but the rest of you are new ones and I'm glad that we could all come together each week to hang out there.  I'll miss this! It's been a tough week and I'm otherwise gif-less, but I couldn't end the readalong without letting you know how I feel about y'all:

NB: We wouldn't be gathering here without the help of Harper Collins, the American publisher of How to Build a Girl, who has provided the galley in physical or e-galley format to all of us participating.  I'd also like to give a shout out to Caitlin Moran herself, for writing such an entertaining and provocative novel.

Caitlin Moran Readalong: How to Build a Girl part something-or-other

Hi, everybody! It's the fourth week of our pre-publication discussion of Caitlin Moran's upcoming novel, How to Build a Girl.  Through the generosity of HarperCollins, Moran's publisher in the US, we've all been given access to the book, and if our blogposts (or accompanying GIFs) pique your interest, then consider pre-ordering the book here.  Please beware that all of our posts will be spoilerific.

Okay, y'all. I inadvertently spoiled some of you last week because I got confused where the reading was supposed to end.  VERY sorry about all of that.  This week I'm copping out a bit because it's inventory at my store, and I'm working veddy long hours (12 Sunday, up to 15 on Monday), so I'm going to take a lot of what I said last week and just say it again. 

I dog-eared more pages in this book than any other book I can recall reading.  In fact, I took a photo of my book to share with you. And those are just the top edges.  Often there were parts on the verso/recto of the same page, so I dogeared the bottom pages for those circumstances.  I also made lots of pencil brackets in the margins for the parts I liked best, and many pages have multiple brackets. 

I don't usually abuse my books this much

I'm not saying that there aren't great YA books out there that deal with all kinds of tough things (death, suicide, divorce, break-ups, cutting, eating disorders, bullying, etc), But where are the frank explorations of sex and sexuality? Why, as a reading culture, are we still so collectively hung up on virginity? Why do parents not care if their daughters are reading about killing other children in ritual games, but they don't want them reading about sex? And why should feminism have to be defended amidst the pop culture against idiots like Shailene Woodley and Taylor Swift, who frankly do not understand the privilege they were born to?

There is definitely something about Moran's book that lends itself to the humourous gifs that we've been using each week, but I almost don't want to use any because I fear they will distract from its importance. You see, this is a book that fills a gap that has been open in literature for a long time.  This is coming of age like we've not seen in a long time, if ever -- it's the equivalent for older teens of Judy Blume's Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, the book that set the bar for the genre in 1970 when it was published, but which has become all but irrelevant for the last two decades.  But because Moran is writing for adults, there are no holds barred, which is not always the case in the world of YA, and therefore gets down to the nitty-gritty.  The fact that it's interlaced with social commentary about the class system? Well, that's pure gravy.

It's the story I wish I had been able to read when I was in my early twenties (I was a much later bloomer than Daisy/Johanna), and it's told in a language and style I wish I was brave enough to use myself. And if it had been available to me when I was a teenager, I think there's an excellent chance my life would have taken different direction.  As it is, reading this book in my forties is still an utter revelation. In other words, this book is 100% my jam.

You betcha.  It's also a fucking book.

Johanna spends this section still in love with John Kite, honing her skills as a writer, learning how to have sex, and learning how to be mean and snarky in print. We follow Caitlin Johanna/Dolly through her first kiss, her first sexual experience, and the various levels of professional self-assuredness that she climbs.  She spend quite a lot of time on an episode when she sleeps with a man with a large cock and the recovery thereof. Lots of puns in this section, but it also left me curiously prurient.  I mean, just exactly how big was this Big Cock?  Are we talking length and girth here? 

In the end, she learns the  difference between cynicism and just being plain mean. She tries for so long to be edgy and hard that it takes a disaster to make her realize that 

"It is a million times easier to be cynical and wield a sword than it is to be open-hearted and stand there, holding a balloon and a birthday cake, with the infinite potential to look foolish. Because I still don't know what I really think or deel, and I'm throwing grenades and filling the air with smoke while I desperately, desperately try to get off the ground: to get elevation. Because I haven't learned the simplest and most important thing of all: the world is difficult, and we are all breakable. So just be kind."

Amen.  Be kind, indeed. I don't believe I'll use any more gifs, because that's the note I'd like to end on.  This book is so damned funny that it's easy to forget the hard truths that it drives home. 

P.S.   Swashfuckler. That is an excellent word. I will never not laugh when I see it or think it.

Just like that. But with a different kind of sword.
I guess I lied about not using any more gifs.

P. S. Please don't forget to leave a comment here and when you visit other bloggers' pages.  It's fun to keep the discussion going that way, and I've noticed that not everybody comments on every participant's post.  Basically, please readalong well with others!

Caitlin Moran Readalong: How To Build a Girl

Hi, everybody! It's the third week of our pre-publication discussion of Caitlin Moran's upcoming novel, How to Build a Girl.  Through the generosity of HarperCollins, Moran's publisher in the US, we've all been given access to the book, and if our blogposts (or accompanying GIFs) pique your interest, then consider pre-ordering the book here.  Please beware that all of our posts will be spoilerific.

Okay, y'all. Now I've been enjoying the book as we've been going along, but this week's portion?  I LOVED it.  I started reading this week's section around 11:30 pm a couple of nights ago and I was so utterly smitten with the story she was presenting us that I had to read straight through to the end.  Around 1:30 in the morning I finished it, and my mind was racing so much that it was much later before I fell asleep.  Since I had to be at work, that reading was an act of pure devotion. (Don't worry--I won't spoil what happens in the last section this week.) EDITED TO ADD: I AM AN IDIOT. DESPITE BEING THE HOST, I FORGOT THAT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO END AT CHAPTER 15, NOT AT THE END OF SECTION TWO.  I'm very sorry, especially because I do have some spoiler things from the end of section two this week.  Please don't hate me, or if you do, please get over your hatred soon.

I dog-eared more pages in this book than any other book I can recall reading.  In fact, I took a photo of my book to share with you. And those are just the top edges.  Often there were parts on the verso/recto of the same page, so I dogeared the bottom pages for those circumstances.

I don't usually abuse my books this much

There is definitely something about Moran's book that lends itself to the humourous gifs that we've been using each week, but I almost don't want to use any because I fear they will distract from its importance. You see, this is a book that fills a gap that has been open in literature for a long time.  This is coming of age like we've not seen in a long time, if ever -- it's the equivalent for older teens of Judy Blume's Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, the book that set the bar for the genre in 1970 when it was published, but which has become all but irrelevant for the last two decades.  But because Moran is writing for adults, there are no holds barred, which is not always the case in the world of YA, and therefore gets down to the nitty-gritty.  The fact that it's interlaced with social commentary about the class system? Well, that's pure gravy.

It's the story I wish I had been able to read when I was in my early twenties (I was a much later bloomer than Daisy/Johanna), and it's told in a language and style I wish I was brave enough to use myself. And if it had been available to me when I was a teenager, I think there's an excellent chance my life would have taken different direction.  As it is, reading this book in my forties is still an utter revelation. In other words, this book is 100% my jam.

When we left Dolly/Johanna last week, she'd been just offered the gig to interview John Kite. In Dublin.  No big deal or anything.  This week we open with Johanna on the airplane -- her first time ever on a plane, her first time ever out of the country.  Her innocence and insight are precious:

I am getting incredibly high on a single, astounding fact: that it's always sunny above the clouds. Always. That every day on earth -- every day I have ever had -- was secretly sunny, after all. However shitty and rainy it is in Wolverhampton -- on the days where the cloud feel low, like a lid, and the swarf bubbles and the gutters churn to digest -- it's always been sunny up here. I feel like I've just flown 600 miles per hours 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. 

Anyway...to make a long story short, Johanna spends this section falling in love with John Kite, honing her skills as a writer, learning how to have sex, and learning how to be mean and snarky in print. In the meantime, her family's benefits are cut by 11%, and this brings out the social commentary that lends this novel a heft that the surface humor belies:

There are no investments to cash in, to tide you over this 11 percent dip -- no bonds, savings, or shares. There are no "little luxuries" to cut back on, like going to the hairdressers, or a subscription to a magazine. We cut our own hair, and read magazines in the library. There are no grand plans we can temporarily shelve, during this cash lull -- like replacing our car, or decorating the front room. We were never going to replace our car, or decorate our front room.  

And there's no one we can borrow from -- for one of the truths about the poor is that they tend only to know other poor people, who also couldn't afford an 11 percent dip, and can't subsidize ours.  

The truth is, when you are very poor, that 11 percent bites into the very bones of our existence. Eleven percent less means choosing between electricity or food -- electricity and food that is already rationed and fretted over. Eleven percent is not very much, but when you are very poor, it may form the very bedrock of your survival. 

We follow Caitlin Johanna/Dolly through her first kiss, her first drunkenness, her first sexual experience, and the various levels of professional self-assuredness that she climbs.  She learns the difference between cynicism and just being plain mean.  She pursues men (well, one man in particular) who just don't treat her well. And above all, she learns to see *herself* in a relationship, and not just through the eyes of the men she sleeps with. She tries for so long to be edgy and hard that it takes a disaster to make her realize that 

"It is a million times easier to be cynical and wield a sword than it is to be open-hearted and stand there, holding a balloon and a birthday cake, with the infinite potential to look foolish. Because I still don't know what I really think or deel, and I'm throwing grenades and filling the air with smoke while I desperately, desperately try to get off the ground: to get elevation. Because I haven't learned the simplest and most important thing of all: the world is difficult, and we are all breakable. So just be kind."

Amen.  I don't believe I'll use any more gifs, because that's the note I'd like to end on.  This book is so damned funny that it's easy to forget the home truths that it drives home.  I get the feeling, and not only from the narrative"I", but from what I've learned about Moran from other bloggers, that this novel is not just personal, but autobiographical. Reading it makes me want to stand up and cheer. It also makes me thankful that, overwhelmingly, the boys and men in my romantic life have all been pretty decent and, erm, generous to me in ways that the boys and men in Johanna's life have not been to her. I can't wait to discuss the ending of this next week with you all.

P.S.   Swashfuckler. That is an excellent word. I will never not laugh when I see it or think it.

Just like that. But with a different kind of sword.

Caitin Moran Readalong: How To Build a Girl, the Middle, but not the Middling

Welcome to the Great Caitlin Moran Readalong of 2014.  A nifty group of bloggers are discussing her novel, How to Build a Girl, almost in a play-by-play mode.  We're all thankful to Harper Collins, who is sponsoring this pre-publication readalong. This book isn't published in the US until September, but if you like what you see, we'd love for you to pre-order a copy here.  Beware: ahead, there be spoilers, so read at your own peril!

When we left off last week, Johanna had just mortified herself on live television by imitating Scooby Doo, landing her entire family in a world of humiliation and teasing.  She had just decided that she wanted to die. Luckily for us, she meant that in an entirely metaphorical way, and she spends the opening chapter of this week's portion trying to decide what name would best suit her going forward. In her own words, "It's got to work in print -- it must suit black ink -- but it also needs to sound cheerful when shouted across a bar. It must sound like a joyful yell."  Juno Jones, Eleanor Vulpine, Kitten Lithium, Laurel Canyon, Belle Jar, and Dolly Wilde.  Which one will she choose?

Hello, Dolly

Having chosen "Dolly Wilde," she seeks out her fortune amidst the goths of Wolverhampton, only to be rejected. She tries to connect with her goth cousin but that's a no-go: "I shift awkwardly. I'm pretty sure I've read this correctly -- that this is the outpost for loners. That, culturally, this is what I should be filed under...People with no upper body strength, who read poetry. These are my people. I am wearing a black waiter's jacket, black boots, black tights, and so much eyeliner that I look like a puffin. Given this effort, I thought the counterculture would just . . . let you in. I didn't know there was an interview process."

Goth fail

Later at a family reunion, though, that same goth cousin ends up giving her a piece of valuable advice: fake it 'til you make it. The rest of chapter eight is an exploration of Dolly's goth phase and the phrase "I am the bastard son of Brendan Behan," which makes no sense to me because I do not understand the cultural reference, even after doing a Google image search. Help?

Eventually she gets a second piece of valuable advice from an unlikely source: her father tells her she should write, not just talk about being a writer.  Totally obvious on the surface, but *so* much more difficult to live by.  She gives it a pretty good shot, though, and puts together a pretty impressive body of record reviews:

Yup, that's pretty much how she does it

We also get the lowdown on the history behind her father's injuries and inability to keep a job.  I'm telling you, Caitlin Moran can do more with two small paragraphs to sum up a character's backstory than just about any other author I've read recently:

"If you want to know why we're poor, and why Dadda doesn't have a job, here's why: back in our house. By Dadda's bed. A big, white pot of pills. Daddy's pills.  

Daddy was in a band, and when they didn't make any money, he got work as a fireman, and one day -- it was a very bad day -- he got trapped on top of a burning factory. And when he woke up in hospital, they told him he'd broken nearly a quarter of all the bones in his body when he jumped."

In chapter 9, we've moved forward abruptly two years, and the narrative switches (also abruptly, but just temporarily) from Johanna's first person POV to a close third person focusing on Dolly Wilde. In fact, it feels less like third person per se and more like Johanna has simply started referring to herself in the third person as Dolly Wilde.  She goes to an interview in London with Disc & Music Echo (D&ME) for a music journalist position.  She somehow flubs the interview, but in the next chapter she's got the assignment, so I think I missed something, somehow.

In chapter 10, Johanna/Dolly is back to narrating in the first person and she gets her first real gig: covering a Smashing Pumpkins concert in Birmingham.  This leads to her first review being published, her dropping out of school, and her being invited to do her first musician interview...in Dublin.  Things are clearly happening for Dolly, but are they all good?  Can she really just drop out of school like that? And is there not some UK equivalent to the GED that she could sit for?

Tune in next time, when we see what happens in Dublin and beyond!

NB: Y'all, I'm sorry that this post is so simple this week, but we had some troubles with our dog and one of our cats this weekend and the time I had set aside for reading our chapters and then responding to them was otherwise taken up by the animules...

Caitlin Moran Readalong: How to Build a Girl

Welcome to the first week of discussion for the Caitlin Moran How to Build a Girl prepublication readalong!  Thanks to the generosity of Harper Collins USA, a whole bevy of book bloggers will be giving you a blow-by-blow discussion of this book, which will be published in the US in September.  (What ho, you lucky UK folks already have access to it!).

This week we're discussing part one, Blank Page, and I confess that I read part one about a month ago and neglected to take notes, so let me just turn to the dog-eared pages and see what I can come up with. Already on line one, page one, I'm stopped in my tracks.  Her brother is named Lupin?  What?  Is this a case of all roads leading to Harry Potter, or are little boys *actually* named Lupin in England?  Ridiculous.

Moving on.

Um. We arrive at the first moment where the main character and I diverge in a wood and I definitely take the one less traveled.  This teenage narrator is talking about masturbation.  In a rather open and matter of fact manner.  Um, I'm still pretty shy about saying the word out loud, but when I was a teenager, I don't think I ever even thought about it. It was the rural South and a different time and Southern Baptists were ready to run you on a rail out of town for any little transgression. There's a whole lot of wanking in this book, and I mean, bully for her and all that, though it's a little strange that she mentions she's sharing a bed with her little brother at the time.  And while I'm on the subject, maybe my usage is off on this one, but I thought "wanking" was a decidedly, erm, male form of activity.  That gerund just sounds like it's describing a particular hand gesture, and that gesture is not one that I associate with the female anatomy.

Yup, that's the one.

Then again, it worked in that episode of Buffy...

Or not...

Okay, enough with the crude gifs for a little while.

What I think is actually sweet about Johanna is the utter lack of embarrassment she seems to feel for her family, particularly for her parents.  I mean, when her dad roars home drunk from the pub and puts on his agonizing music show for the dude, Johanna isn't all *cringe* and *eye-roll*.  She's more, like, aw, Dadda's at it again. As someone who was pretty much perpetually embarrassed of my own parents for no particular reason, I find that rather sweet. She's so earnest, she even likes his music, though it's clearly awful.

And then when the nurse arrives and confuses Johanna with her postpartum mum, my heart just kinda aches for her when she launches into this:

This is all because I am fat. If you're going to be a fat teenage girl, it becomes hard for people to guess how old you are. By the time you're in a 38DD bra, people are just going to presume you're sexually active, having rough, regular procreative sex with alpha males on some wasteland. Chance would be a fine thing. I haven't even been kissed yet. I want to be kissed so much. I am angry I haven't been kissed.  I think I would be really good at it. When I start kissing, the world is going to know about it. My kissing is going to change everything. I'm going to be the Beatles of kissing (20-21).

Or where she's launching into what she wants in her life:

There isn't a word for what I want to be yet. There isn't a thing I can gun for. The thing I want to be hasn't been invented. Obviously, I know some of what I want to be: primarily I want to move to London, and be hot...I want everyone -- men, women, Minotaurs; I read a lot of Greek mythology, and I'm out for whatever I can get -- to want to have absolute, total sex with me, right in my sex places, in the most sexual way possible. Sexually. This is my most urgent mission (28). 

I'm not judging.

So angry and flippant, yet earnest and full of yearning for what she has yet to experience.  That's adolescence right there, kiddo.

In between Johanna's adolescent diatribes, I also love how she sneaks in wry political commentary, like the industrialization, and then the failed promise of that industrialization, of Wolverhampton: "the city died on their watch, and there is a communal sense of misplaced culpability about it. This is what dying industrial cities smell of: guilt and fear. The older people silently apologizing to their children (22)."

And then, the buildup for her television appearance...I thought any number of disasters were going to happen.  That she might forget her poem at home.  That she might clam up in front of the cameras.  I thought Johanna was home free when she quipped to the tv host that it would be inappropriate for them to go on a date.  BUT WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED THE SCOOBY DOO BITS?

Scooby always pops out of nowhere

Not I.  And I'm pretty sure I actually threw my book on the floor so that I could indulge in some serious cringing on Johanna's behalf.  Because by now, I'm naturally feeling protective of her and I cannot imagine how this story of hers can possibly end well. Bring on part two, I say!

True story: on an only tangentially-related note, there is a persistent idea in pop culture that the five main characters in Scooby-Doo (my favorite childhood cartoon) are based on the five colleges in my area: Smith (Velma), Mount Holyoke (Daphne), Hampshire (Scooby), Amherst (Fred), and the University of Massachusetts (Shaggy).

Blog-alongers: please leave a comment and add your blogpost to the linky list.  Hope y'all are having as much fun as I am!

Caitlin Moran Readalong: Introductory Post

Hi, y'all, and welcome to the pre-publication readalong for Caitlin Moran's novel, How to Build a Girl! I'd like to extend a thank you to Harper Collins for sponsoring our fun; if you're following along and think you'd like to read the book, you can pre-order it here. 

This week we're introducing ourselves before diving into the discussion.  My name is Emily and I'm an independent bookseller by trade, and my blog, which is in its sixth year (egads--I had to look that up just now), is split more or less evenly between books and travel. Hence, my alter-ego Crowe both Flies and Reads. 

Now here's a little confession -- I've never read Caitlin Moran before. In fact, I only recently learned how to pronounce her name: Cat-lin.  But as an independent bookseller, I've sold lots of her books, and as a blogger and a feminist, I've read lots of rave reviews of her earlier books. Many of those reviews are from bloggers participating in this readalong, including What Red Read, Devouring Texts, Reading the Bricks, Reading Rambo, Nylon Admiral, and others.  Mostly I just want to read her because she gets that sexism is one of the hidden "-isms" of this world and I think she's funny and smart and wants all women (and men, too) to realize that feminism is neither a bad word nor an outmoded worldview.

Caitlin Moran herself might be checking in every now and then as we're discussing How to Build a Girl, and she sent me an email conveying her enthusiasm for what we're doing: 

 "...I just want to kiss you from here, because my three hobbies are long country walks, sexual activity and THE REVOLUTION, and every time another woman gets it - when they nod and go "I know what you're trying to do, dude. I'm with you" - it thrills my mascara-stained heart to bits and back.

So yes - thank you: endlessly, properly, and in an oddly un-British way. I hope you like the new book, How To Build A Girl - I wrote it with all the love I could, and I cried like a psychopath writing loads of it. "I'm moving me!" I wept. "I am mining my guts! I must stop talking to me in the third person!" And if you don't like it, let's just pretend it never happened, and move onto the next one. That's even better. It's called How To Be Famous..."

I can't wait to delve into our discussion.  So without further ado, here is the readalong schedule.  This is a comparatively short book, so we should be able to get a lot of mileage out of each section and it shouldn't be too difficult to complete each week's reading.  I'm trying to get something straightened out with the Linky folks, so until the linky appears, please leave a link to your post in the comments instead.  

July 7: intro
July 14: pp. 1-58 (part one)
July 21:pp. 61-128 ( chapters 5-10)
July 28: pp. 128-190(chapters 11-15)
Aug 4: 190-246 (chapters 16-20)
Aug 11: section #3 sends wrap-up

Caitlin Moran's How To Build A Girl: Who Wants to Read Along?

So...a couple of years ago, HarperCollins was gracious enough to let me host a pre-publication readalong for Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue. This year, I've talked them into letting me host a prepublication readalong for another of their authors, and I am eager to embark on this new adventure: Caitlin Moran's first novel, How to Build a Girl.

Since I mostly learned about Caitlin Moran and her contributions to the world of smart humor + feminism for the first time from many of my fellow bloggers, I cannot wait to explore her newest book together.

It's pretty simple.  We will start with an introductory post on Monday, 7 July, and post on a regular schedule every Monday thereafter through 18 August (exact reading schedule TBD). This readalong will be limited to 15 bloggers, most of whom must reside in the US. US bloggers will be provided with a physical ARC, UK bloggers are eligible with an e-galley.  All posts must link back to As the Crowe Flies and Reads and also include a link for pre-ordering the book from either Odyssey Bookshop or another independent bookstore of your choice in the US.

Are you a book blogger who would like to play along?  Please sign up in the comments below.  I will need both an email and a physical address from all of the participants, so please send them to me at emily [at] odysseybks [dot] com.

My sincere thanks to Anne DeCourcey (my sales rep who got the ball rolling) and Stephanie Cooper in the marketing department at HarperCollins who will be sponsoring this readalong!

edited to add: Okay, y'all, I think I have reached the 15-person cut-off (some people contacted me directly, not just via this blog) but I'll come back and let folks know if it opens up for one or two people. I'll also start a waiting list. I'm sorry if you didn't get the chance to sign up in time--I usually give lots more advance warning, but this readalong came together at the last minute.