How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran: book review.

I'll be blunt: not many things keep me up until 3am, stifling giggles under my duvet. David is one of those things. Black Books and Flight of The Conchords are two others, and now How To Be A Woman, a memoir slash rant slash advice book by Caitlin Moran, who writes for The Times is a third. It was recommended to me by both my mum and Kate, so I was pretty stoked when I find it amongst my presents on Christmas Day.

I never considered myself a "feminist" per se, merely someone who considered equality to be a good thing and with a passionate, slightly weird love for the poetry of Adrienne Rich. However, a few chapters into this book, Moran invites me to stand up on a chair and shout "I AM A FEMINIST!" over and over. Much of the book is concerned with feminism, what it is, how it's doing and, well, how to get by "patriarchal bullshit"!

First things first: this book is completely and utterly mental. It's not for the faint hearted. The first chapter deals with early teenage madness: periods, masturbation (lots of masturbation, good lord), feeling fat and, er, having stones thrown at you. The book's chapters have a pattern: anecdote from Moran's life followed by rants and a few little life lessons on, well, how to be a woman. It goes from Caitlin at 13, flying through bras, boys , jobs and lapdancing. We learn about her long haired, horrible boyfriends, her failed attempts at clothes, how she feels about role models (Jordan...well, let's just say that I wouldn't recommend she read chapter 14.) as well as covering serious stuff like love, childrearing and abortion.

The book took my breath away in parts - I found myself giggling nervously over the undeniable TRUTH of some parts, feeling slightly ill at the thoughts of other parts and, more often than not, nodding in agreement, akin to scrolling through a "shit girls do" Twitter account.Granted, from "I get married!" on, I found myself nodding with agreement less - particularly with the abortion chapter, which is really not for the faint-hearted. I, for one, had to scan read it very very quickly for fear of throwing up or bursting into tears.

This emotional roller coaster of writing just proves that it's fantastically written. It's hilarious, thought-provoking and even the motherhood bits are made interesting. I'm definitely going to be recommending this far and wide, particularly to guys - just to see how they react!

4/5 :)