Because I am a Girl

Jul 17, 2025 9:33 PM

Author:Tim Butcher,Xiaolu Guo,Joanne Harris,Kathy Lette,Deborah Moggach,Marie Phillips,Irvine Welsh

Because I am a Girl

Because I am a girl I am less likely to go to school

Because I am a girl I am more likely to suffer from malnutrition

Because I am a girl I am more likely to suffer violence in the home

Because I am a girl I am more likely to marry and start a family before I reach my twenties.

Eight authors have visited eight different countries and spoken to young women and girls about their lives, struggles and hopes. The result is an extraordinary collection of writings about prejudice, abuse, and neglect, but also about courage, resilience and changing attitudes.

Proceeds from sales of this book will go to PLAN, one of the world's largest child-centered community development organisations.

Reviews

Edgy and bold...not your standard do-good, feel-good collection at all

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent

A delicious romantic comedy which also serves as a crash course in cultural differences. Stylish fun

—— RED Magazine

****

—— Heat Magazine

escapism par excellence and I definitely recommend it if you're a chick lit fan or just looking for a lovely light read! It's a great debut and I can't wait to read more by this author!

—— Bookalicious-ramblings.net

Fallada assembles a cast of vivid low-life characters, stoolies, thieves and whores

—— James Buchan , Guardian

Visceral, chilling ... has the suspense of a Le Carré novel

—— New Yorker

A classic study of a paranoid society. Fallada's scope is extraordinary. Alone in Berlin is ... as morally powerful as anything I've ever read

—— Charlotte Moore , Telegraph

First published in Germany in 1947 and evoking the horror of life in Germany in the Second World War. A rediscovered masterpiece that makes you want to seek out more works by this great chronicler of events in my own lifetime.

—— Barry Humphries, Books of the Year, Sunday Telegraph

The other fictional high point of 2009 was Alone in Berlin ... Hans Fallada's 1947 portrait of an ordinary German couple stung into a life of protest by the death of their soldier son is harrowing and masterly.

—— David Robson , Books of the Year, Sunday Telegraph

[This novel] suggests that resistance to evil is rarely straightforward, mostly futile, and generally doomed. Yet to the novel's aching, unanswered question: 'Does it matter?' there is in this strange and compelling story to be found a reply in the affirmative. Primo Levi had it right: This is the great novel of German resistance.

—— Richard Flanagan

'What Irène Némirovsky's "Suite Française" did for wartime France after six decades in obscurity, Fallada does for wartime Berlin.'

—— Roger Cohen, New York Times

'[Alone in Berlin] has something of the horror of Conrad, the madness of Dostoyevsky and the chilling menace of Capote's "In Cold Blood"'.

—— Roger Cohen, New York Times

'Fallada's great novel, beautifully translated by the poet Michael Hofmann, evokes the daily horror of life under the Third Reich, where the venom of Nazism seeped into the very pores of society, poisoning every aspect of existence. It is a story of resistance, sly humour and hope'

—— Ben Macintyre , The Times

'an extraordinary novel'

—— Daily Express

There's plenty here to pull you in and, it must be said, I do really like the cover

—— meandmybigmouth Blog

Stories, generations and nationalities collide in what is an entertaining and superior novel

—— Lesley McDowell , Independent on Sunday

Previous Article：The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights Next Article：Jack Sheppard

Comments

Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.