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!