What It Feels Like for a Girl cover art

What It Feels Like for a Girl

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

NOW A MAJOR BBC SERIES

Thirteen-year-old Byron needs to get away, and doesn't care how. Sick of being beaten up by lads for "talkin' like a poof" after school. Sick of dad - the weightlifting, womanising Gaz - and Mam, who pissed off to Turkey like Shirley Valentine. Sick of all the people in Hucknall who shuffle about like the living dead, going on about kitchens they're too skint to do up and marriages they're too scared to leave.

It's a new millennium, Madonna's 'Music' is top of the charts and there's a whole world to explore - and Byron's happy to beg, steal and skank onto a rollercoaster ride of hedonism. Life explodes like a rush of ecstasy when Byron escapes into Nottingham's kinetic underworld and discovers the East Midlands' premier podium-dancer-cum-hellraiser, the mesmerising Lady Die. But when the comedown finally kicks in, Byron arrives at a shocking encounter that will change life forever.

Bold, poignant and riotously funny, What It Feels Like For a Girl is the unique, hotly-anticipated and addictively-readable debut from one of Britain's most exciting young writers.

'Fresh, original, heartbreaking' Reni Eddo-Lodge

'Devastating, hilarious, unlike anything I have ever read. Destined to be a classic' Pandora Sykes

'A must-read ... as mesmerising as it is poignant' Stylist

© Paris Lees 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

 Fiction Gender Studies LGBTQ+ Studies Literature & Fiction Social Classes & Economic Disparity Social Sciences Sociology Witty Feel-Good Funny Heartfelt Inspiring Thought-Provoking

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Critic reviews

Fresh, original, heartbreaking and optimistic. The subtlety of time passing reminds me of Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie's writing. (Reni Eddo Lodge)
Paris Lees is the voice of a generation (Paul Flynn)
Brilliant, brutal and bitingly funny, Lees is going to rip your heart out and show you the ugly truth about kids Britain would rather pretend don't exist. There's never been a book like this (Matthew Todd)
All stars
Most relevant
I loved this book, and Paris’s narration. It was such an emotional rollercoaster - it was at times shocking, sad, hilariously funny, joyful and always honest.

Powerful, funny, sad, incredible

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Paris is an important voice, telling story that needs to be told. The writing is clever and understated. It's immediate. I appreciated that it always keeps us in the moment, making the time and place and feeling so much more vivid.

Among the tragedy there are plenty laughs. But the humour is never forced.

I grew up working class and can relate to so much in this book. The need to conform. The value we place on masculine strength to the detriment of feeling and expression and happiness. The grinding struggle that makes early death an ordinary thing. The one-up-manship of poverty that means as long as you aren't at the bottom, you are alright.

This is so more than a book about being trans. It's a book about being. And a book about over-coming odds that shouldn't be stacked agaisnt you in the first first place.

Well written, well read, well worth it.

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Absolutely loved this audible. Paris has the best way of telling her story and as someone of the same age, who grew up in the same part of the country and got up to a lot of the same things, it made it even more of a special read.

I loved every minute of it and honestly gutted i finished it so quickly. I need a follow up to it ASAP!

Great title! 5 stars!

I didn’t want it to end..

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Enjoyed the story of Byron from start to finish and the ups and downs of his life choices and relationships

Magical Story of Growing Up

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Made me laugh a lot and cry a little.. I’ve reminisced And remembered things I thought I’d forgot such a unique, incomparable read highly recommend.

Incredible book!

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