3.5 stars 
 "And, like all the best quests, in the end, I did it all for a girl: me." 
 So this seems to be a very well-loved book, and I do see why - it deals well with issues such as feminism, sex, teenagers having sex, and does it well. I feel like Caitlin Moran is making a point of talking about things that many other writers seem never to mention - she talks about periods, and feminine hygiene products, multiple times and not in a weird way but in an honest way- she writes them as part of Johanna's everyday life, as they are part of the everyday lives of real people, in the real world. I appreciated this greatly, as well as many other aspects - how many books deal with sex in a way that is neither pornographic nor vaguely mentioned but never really talked about? How many books talk about women having, and wanting to have, sex? 
 There are many other ways in which this book is unashamedly truthful and unashamedly feminist and that really is brilliant - it's also, at many points, really funny, although that's likely amplified by my ridiculous sense of humour. 
 "Because I haven't yet learned the simplest and most important thing of all: the world is difficult, and we are all breakable. So just be kind." 
 Now for me to be moany moo and talk about why this book only warranted 3 1/2 stars (and it was only just). 
 On paper, the characters are well-designed - they are flawed and rounded and have different facets to their personality but, ultimately, I didn't find them all that believable. This especially goes for our main character, Johanna - through the whole book, she doesn't really feel like a person, more like a design of a believable character. She's like an over-the-top, bubbly, embarrassing character from a children's book. I just didn't believe her; she didn't feel like a real person. She most certainly doesn't feel her age - she's 17 by the end of the book and, although she is treated as a 17-year-old, and the book has quite mature themes, her voice feels more like that of a 12 or 13-year-old, at best. 
 Another issue is that there are parts, especially towards the end, where nothing really happens - not that a book needs a constant, fast-driven narrative to be good, I'm generally more keen on character-driven stuff myself, but there were whole pages that were just Johanna having profound thoughts and I just didn't find it all that interesting. There were also an awful lot of references to musicians. I get that this is relevant to the story and you don't need to know who all these people are to follow the story at all, but there is a whole paragraph at one point that's just references to musicians I've never heard of - I'm sure it would have been very profound if I'd had any idea what she was talking about. Apart from a strange obsession with Michael Arden's rendition of Run Away With Me, I knew very little about music - I personally think silence is very underrated. I know some people really like pop culture references in books but I just think it makes them inaccessible. 
 One other point - there's a character that it's (very) heavily implied is gay but Johanna is spectacularly oblivious to this. The way this is done makes it feel like it's a joke - haha, he's clearly gay and Johanna has no idea. I'm probably being precious but was this really necessary? Could it not just have been stated that he's gay? Why does it have to be a big joke? I didn't find it funny. 
 So, on the whole, I had very mixed feelings about this. I don't think I'll be reading any more of Moran's fiction, but I think her strengths suggest non-fiction may be more her thing so I think I'll be giving that a go. 
 I never really know how to end reviews. 
 Peace out. 
 "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."