One of the best propulsive forces in literature, the force that keeps me turning pages as I read a novel is the question “Where on earth is this going?”
And that question kept coming back to me as I read a very exciting debut novel called “How To Be A French Girl” by Rose Cleary, a young British writer. In the book, a twentysomething young girl who’s given up on a promising art education to work a boring temp job in London in order to survive starts to develop an unhealthy obsession in an elegant French colleague called Gustave (you’ll hear that name a few times in the interview) . Inspired by tropes driven by our technological world, she tried to transform herself into the titular & idealized French Girl.
Her romantic pursuit & evolution twists & turns in ways that are increasingly uncomfortable but potentially, maybe justified? Overall, this novel felt to me like the secret love child of Bridget Jones and Fatal Attraction, with a touch of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. 
Anyway, this is a fun book, it went places that were genuinely surprising and uncomfortable and I recommend it. In this episode, Rose Cleary and I go through some of the themes featured in the book like power, identity, technology, art, class and all the other themes that populate this great novel. 



Favourite book that I’ve never heard of: Siblings, by Magnus Florin (2021)
Best book she’s read in the last 12 months: “Near Distance”, by Hannah Stoltenberg
The book that she would take to a desert island: “Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace (1996)
The book that changed her mind: “Super-Sad True Love Story”, by Gary Shteyngart (2010)


Find Rose:
Website: https://rosecleary.com/
Instagram: @rclearyrcleary
Buy her book: https://amzn.eu/d/fij3FI8

Follow me ⁠⁠⁠@litwithcharles⁠⁠⁠ for more book reviews and recommendations!