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Girl in the Making

Girl in the Making

Summary

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

Reviews

  • 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

About the author

Anna Fitzgerald

Anna Fitzgerald was born and raised in Dublin. Girl in the Making is her first novel.
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