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What It Feels Like for a Girl

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What It Feels Like for a Girl

By: Paris Lees
Narrated by: Paris Lees
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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

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

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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!

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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

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Oh my goodness, what a great book! Now I may be biased as I’m from the area (I too was brought up in Hucknall on a street with the Lord Byron pub at the end of it, albeit at right angles to Paris’s street!), however the use of this particular regional accent/dialect really brings it to life. Although I’m sure that it’s just as polarising as Paris herself can be. I listened to the audio book, which Paris actually narrates, and it really does bring something else to it. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and everything else in between.

Some of the content may be a bit on the wild side for some, however that is the life that was lived. Someone came into the room when I was listening to it, and said ‘what are you listening to, radio porn?!’ Of course it’s not porn, just a different experience of life. I’m sure it’s no worse than some romance novelists, just a different version of it.

I think the thing I loved most about it is the format, the way it is written not as a traditional autobiography as in ‘I did this and then I did that’, but as a story, bringing characters to life along the way. I was totally submerged in the life being lived, definitely felt like one of the gang. I also loved the way that Paris addresses the issue of mental health, how things seem as a teenager and how she comes through it/sees things differently as a young adult.

I know that this is only a snapshot of life, and really hope that there is more to come. An inspiration for so many, not just as a trans role model/icon but as a truly remarkable person, I’m looking forward to seeing all that Paris goes on to do in her life.

Not just a trans role model/icon, a truly remarkable person

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Paris Lees I salute you for your devastatingly honest story ….I really do know what it feels like for a girl …so funny… so painfully sad …so brilliantly narrated .
Genius




devastatingly


Absolutely perfect

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