What It Feels Like for a Girl cover art

What It Feels Like for a Girl

 Preview

Get 30 days of Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30-day free trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options
Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

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

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
Loved this, hope we get to hear the rest of her story in the future

The author is always the best narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If ever a book was made for audio, this is it. Paris Lees’s performance of her own memoir is a tour de force. You won’t want to take your earphones out! Hilarious one minute. Heartbreaking the next. It’s beautifully structured. She draws you in and takes you on a rollercoaster, by turns so beguiling, so touching, so funny, so troubling and so wild that you wonder how it can possibly stay on the tracks. And then you hit the buffers. But in the end it’s her optimism and lust for life that shines through. If this book is not still on lists of essential reading in 50 years time, I’ll eat my hat.

Unearphonesremovable!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Paris has been very brave writing this book. Bits of her life I'd heard about but this really is warts and all. Her fall and rise is emotional, highly recommend.

powerful stuff

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I rolled around queer Nottingham in my teens in the 90's too and thus particularly connected to this story and references. But above all it's a great listen that's funny, tough and completely lovable. A story worth hearing!

Couldn't press stop...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A book full of heart and a reminder of the naivety of youth, and the horrors of losing both.
Several of my childhood friends spent their teenage years like this, so it's not as far fetched as it sounds. Just make sure you come with a box of tissues om stand by.

It gets real

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews