Top Girl

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Top Girl is a true story about how Danielle grew up in London surrounded by gangs, crime and addiction. The book takes us through her journey from her childhood to her adulthood where she became involved in a London gang which was rife with harrowing stories of her experience. Heartbroken, Danielle spirals deeper into gang life and becomes a key player in a sprawling county lines operation, running drugs to satellite towns all over the UK from the gang’s London HQ. The Harrods shopping sprees, designer handbags and hedonistic lifestyle are the envy of her friends, but the good times and cash mask the grim realities of her life.

The final chapter though, made me cry. Danielle does care, even though she doesn’t show it. She has turned her life around, and that’s what counts. It would have been so easy for her to carry on with the life she had: dealing drugs, and living the expensive lifestyle she craved. In 2012, critic Benedict Nightingale included Top Girls in his list of Great Moments in the Theatre, writing that many of Churchill's plays "seize and startle, asking key questions in dramatically daring ways, but none more than that modern classic, Top Girls. [24]" I genuinely think that this book should be available in comprehensive schools up and down the country. The passage is from Of the Nature of Things (Latin: De Rerum Natura) by poet and philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus. " Top Girls Study Guide" (PDF). Guthrie Theater. p.26. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 December 2015. An English translation of the passage is here.Lady Nijo is a thirteenth-century Japanese concubine who enters the play near the beginning of act one and proceeds to tell her tale. As the most materialistic of the women, she is influenced more by the period of time before she became a wandering nun than by the time she spent as a holy woman. It may be suggested that it is her social conditioning that Churchill is condemning, not her character, as she is brought up in such a way that she cannot even recognize her own prostitution. She is instructed by her father to sleep with the emperor of Japan and reflects on it positively; she feels honored to have been chosen to do so when discussing it with Marlene in Act 1. In relation to Marlene, this may suggest that Marlene, like Lady Nijo, has not questioned the role given to her by society and merely played the part despite the consequences; as she does whatever it takes to be successful in an individualistic business environment.

It is quite a frustrating book as the reader sees Danielle building up to yet another bad choice and shaking their head thinking,"don't do it", which is exactly why it's such an important book. The supposed glamour of the gangs and easy drug money is shown to be a squalid ,dirty and dangerous business ,not least for impressionable and naive young girls.. Lady Nijo is a real-life, thirteenth-century concubine-turned-Buddhist-nun. Lady Nijo was raised from birth to live a life of sexual service to the Emperor—her own father gave her over to the Emperor, and instructed Nijo to…A fascinating book into the world of UK drug dealing and county lines. This is an amazing story of a young girl from a London estate who goes to a grammar school and ends up being a drug dealer. This is a very honest and raw account where you get an insight into the decisions that end up changing people's lives. D's belief that she is not a gang member and that she is just spending time with her mates helps explain how a bright, young girl with lots of potential ends up making bad decisions and the impact this has on her life including losing her child.