What It Feels Like for a Girl
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  • Published: 27 May 2021
  • ISBN: 9780141995687
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download

What It Feels Like for a Girl

Formats & editions
Paperback
5 Oct 2022
EBook
25 Feb 2021
Audiobook
27 May 2021
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'I don't know what it is about heights. I'm scared of 'em. Dead scared. But not of fallin'. I'm scared of jumpin'. Coz whenever I'm high up, I get this overwhelmin' urge to just... leap off.'

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 selfishly pissed off to Turkey like Shirley Valentine. Sick of the people who shuffle about Hucknall 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 discovers the Fallen Divas Project and 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.

Unflinching, hilarious and heart-breaking, 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.
  • Published: 27 May 2021
  • ISBN: 9780141995687
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
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About the author

Paris Lees

Paris Lees was born in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire. She is a Contributing Editor at British Vogue, and has written for the Guardian, VICE and the Telegraph. She has received multiple awards for her journalism and work as an anti-bullying campaigner - and an honorary doctorate from the University of Brighton. She was the first openly trans woman to present on BBC Radio 1 and Channel 4 and also the first to appear on Question Time. This is her first book.

Praise for What It Feels Like for a Girl

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