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Girl in the Making

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Girl in the Making

By: Anna Fitzgerald
Narrated by: Heather O’Sullivan
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

‘Adults forget that children can hear’

Jean Kennedy is a gentle, perceptive girl growing up in a very strange world: suburban Dublin in the 1970s and '80s. In the company of her mother, her Aunty Ida, and her little brother Baby John F., Jean experiences love and joy. But home is not a safe place, and Jean is unequal and unprotected. When she speaks just one small part of the truth, she must quickly learn to navigate the dangers and possibilities of a world she scarcely understands.

Jean’s hypnotic, unsparing and ultimately hopeful voice captures the dreams and terrors of girlhood in a brutally hypocritical world, and narrates her encounters with better ways of being. Through it all, Jean’s voice pulsates with life and passion. Girl in the Making is a deeply moving, propulsive coming-of-age story from a major new talent.

©2024 Anna Fitzgerald (P)2024 Penguin Audio Coming of Age Family Life Historical Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic Reviews

This novel captures the dull brutality of a family in thrall to the wrong man. Anna Fitzgerald works through the eyes of a growing child, in a voice that is rich in nostalgic effect and devastating in its content, to show the Dublin suburbs as we have not seen them before. (Anne Enright)
Girl in the Making is a beautiful story that captures the wisdom of childhood. Open this book and step into the world of Jean Kennedy. Prepare to be quietly transformed. (Louise Nealon)
Furious, tender, and redemptive, with a register that lands somewhere between Jeanette Winterson and Sinéad O'Connor – yet Fitzgerald has a voice that's completely her own, writing with such power and control it's hard to believe this is her debut. Girl in the Making is magnificent. (Aingeala Flannery)
Writing this good is a rare thing. Anna Fitzgerald's account of childhood and family in 1970s and ’80s Dublin is a masterful portrait of a place in time. Told with visceral intimacy, Girl in the Making is a powerful indictment of the corrosive effects of toxic masculinity on a young girl's life. This writer has arrived fully formed. (Kathleen MacMahon)

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Profile Image for michele taylor

Beautiful

A magnificent and devastating story. A beautifully told story of a young Irish girl coming of age. Excellent narration.

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