so julia? brat tracks as books

It's brat summer! Time to embrace your inner brat!

But if your average Saturday night looks more like an early night with a good book than taking Class A drugs at a boiler room set, don't fear, you can still get involved.

I've picked the most brat-coded books for you to dive into. Read a few of these and you'll be living your best brat life in no time. Did I say brat too many times?

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‘I’m everywhere, I’m so Julia’

Okay, this one is obvious. Julia just is brat. This whole book is brat. Drugs, partying, insecurity, intense female friendships, generational trauma, fame, more partying and more drugs. I would go as far as saying you can’t really understand brat without reading Down the Drain.

Sympathy is a knife

‘I feel all these feelings I can't control

Oh no, don't know why

All this sympathy is just a knife’

While many people speculate that Sympathy is a knife is about a different blond pop star, I couldn’t help but think of Britney when listening to it.

In her bestselling memoir The Woman In Me Britney shares the insincere sympathy her family voiced when controlling her behind the scenes, as well as the pain constant comparisons to other female pop stars by the press caused her. The more I think about it the more I think Charli and Britney should have a chat.

Talk Talk

‘And now I wanna approach ya

But we've been keeping this a secret

And you're surrounded by friends

And I'm just wondering what they know’

When reviewing Normal People a common complaint from readers is ‘Why couldn’t they just talk to each other???’, having been frustrated by the lack of communication between Connell and Marianne.

I would argue because they’re teenagers/young adults with insecurities and a belief that they are undeserving of the other’s love - but that’s an argument for another day.

The more I thought about Talk Talk the more I realised how perfect it is for Normal People (even the cover is a brat-ish green). Connell and Marianne are often skirting around each other at parties, unsure of what the other wants, afraid of embarassing themselves by saying the wrong thing and therefore saying nothing. If only they’d talk talk to each other…

Von Dutch

‘It’s okay to just admit that you’re jealous of me,

Yeah, I heard you talk about me,

that’s the word on the street,

You’re obsessing, just confess it, put your hands up,

It’s obvious I’m your number one’

When it comes to books about our relationship to fame, jealousy and obsession I’m a Fan is top of my list. While Charli is describing herself as the object of envy and popularity, I’m a Fan is from the perspective of the obsessor - a woman fixated on her ex’s instagram famous new side chick.

While there’s not much partying in I’m a Fan it does capture the intensity of parasocial relationships and the power dynamic between the ‘number one’ with social capital and the people who obsessively hate them/want to be them. Von Dutch looks at this dynamic and says so what? I’m just living that life.

Girl, so confusing

‘Yeah, I don't know if you like me

Sometimes I think you might hate me

Sometimes I think I might hate you’

This was my favourite track to choose a book for, because I’m obsessed with books about girlhood, female friendships and the tension around them.

We Run the Tides focuses on a close but increasingly turbulent friendship between two thirteen year old girls in a coming-of-age story that charts the effects of jealousy, popularity, lies and budding sexuality on their friendship. Ugh being a girl is so confusing.

Apple

‘I think the apple's rotten right to the core

From all the things passed down

From all the apples coming before’

There are so many books I could have picked for Apple because books about family ties and generational trauma are what I gravitate towards.

But On Earth… edged all the others out by 1. being gay and 2. focusing on immigrant parent/child relationships. Despite its catchy melody, Apple is one of the deeper tracks on brat, and Ocean Vuong’s novel feels like a great match.

Mean Girls

‘This one’s for all my mean girls,

this one’s for all my bad girls’

One of my favourite tracks, even though I couldn’t be further from the girlies Charli describes. When I think of feral mean girls, Bunny immediately comes to mind.

Someone on Goodreads described Bunny as ‘the secret history for chronically online tumblr obsessed girlbosses who belong in the psych ward’ and I feel like Mean Girls are those girlbosses: coquette-ish and worshipping Lana Del Rey.

Spring Breakers

'Cause I poured a load of gasoline on the carpet

Lit a cigarette, took a drag, then I just flicked it

Place went boom, boom, boom, boom, clap,

And I just laughed when the bodies went splat’

I nearly picked Penance for Mean Girls, but Spring Breakers has the manic, violent edge that encapsulates the mean-girls-turned-muderous energy of Eliza Clark’s novel.

For a book that revolves around a group of teenage girls gleefully setting fire to a beach chalet with a fellow schoolgirl they’ve been torturing inside (no spoiler), Charli’s lyrics are almost spookily close to Penance - maybe she’s an Eliza Clark fan?