The Importance of Music to Girls cover

The Importance of Music to Girls

by Lavinia Greenlaw

The Importance of Music to Girls tells the story of the adventures that music leads us into - getting drunk, falling in love, cutting our hair, wanting to change the world - as well as the darker side of the adolescent years: loneliness, bullying, getting arrested. From bubble-gum pop to classical piano to punk rock, music is at first the key to being a girl and then the means of escape from all that. It is a way to talk to boys and a way to do without them. Lavinia Greenlaw records the importance of music in her life, from dancing on her father's shoes as a child to discovering her parents' records, buying her own, going to concerts and singing in the streets. The personal - her school reports and diary entries, and the girl behind them - is everywhere touched by the music that compelled her generation. Fancying Donny Osmond and his shiny teeth, disco dancing in four-inch wedge heels, wanting to be Joy Division's Ian Curtis - this is a remembrance of childhood and adolescence, filtered through the medium of music.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?