Are you ready to laugh? Are you ready to have your mind changed? Are you ready to change your life whilst trying to make sure you don’t pee your pants. Well sit down and grab a copy of How to Be a Woman. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man, a woman, young or old. Moran is both fabulous, funny as well as bloody opinionated. Not only does she tackle the big issues, but the book is full of her own anecdotes that will have you in stitches, while you feel like you’ve known her your whole life.

When this book came out in 2010 I got myself a copy after reading the blurb, thinking it was going to be some kind of history of feminism, only to find a woman ranting and raving about things that really I didn’t understand or really care about at the time. I was only 15 then, but this time around when it came up on a reading list for next year I thought I might as well read it properly this time. I’m pleased to say that having lived through a lot more of the experiences in Moran’s book, I could fully understand and appreciate her honesty and frankness. She doesn’t stand for any BS and says, what I think most of us are actually thinking.

Talking about some of the great feminist minds such as De Beauvoir and Germaine Greer (even if I don’t agree with her myself) and putting a 21st century spin on it. There is no man hating, she doesn’t tell us to burn our bras or never to shave again, if I’m honest she just talks a lot of sense. I started this book not being sure how I felt but after reading I had this overwhelming need to tell people that feminism was important god damn it. That there were normal women who were good examples, not the ones I’ve been shown, that make me happy to say I’m a feminist, a real feminist. I want equality and , like Caitlin, think men are pretty great.

The book follows Caitlin from the age of 13 to 35 and as she calls it this is ‘part memoir, part rant.’ As a young, probably quite impressionable 20 year old, I read this and laughed, smiled and finally breathed. I’m not  the only one who’s had these things happen to her, I’m not the only one who thinks that heels are torturous devices that we all try so hard to wear but no one actually enjoys. That said, I will give warning that the opinions are not tidy, politely written paragraphs, Moran isn’t interested in that. There’s a lot of swearing, masturbating and frankness which I found myself laughing at so hard my boyfriend thought something was wrong with me…oops.  I don’t agree with absolutely everything Moran says or does, 95% I do but theres 5% I don’t and that’s okay because I’m human. So I’d definitely say if you want to laugh, question and celebrate being a woman this book is for you.

So I’m going to give this 5 stars *****, because I really think this is going to go into my ‘books that changed my life’ list that I’ll recommend to almost anyone who will let me. It’s opened up my eyes to so much and I really could not put it down even if I wanted to.

Review by Chloe Metzger