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swaggynikki's review against another edition
I enjoyed this! It's a collection of essays, with each one discussing pop culture of the 2000s, its implications on the climate for queerness at the time, and the connection to the author's experience as a queer person coming of age. It was a pretty light read, and I thought all of the essays were fun and taught me at least something. For me (as someone whom the 2010s made gay, who's like 15 years younger than the author) the most informative part of these essays were the details of exactly HOW people of the time reacted to different pop culture phenomena. Like, I knew about most of the topics of the essays, but hearing details (from the author personally and quoted from news at the time, mostly) about like, how SPECIFICALLY I Kissed A Girl was received by the gay community or the ratings and reviews for The L Word were new to me. Which is cool! I like being able to know my (very recent) history.
A side note though, there were parts of this book that made me feel OLD AS HELL because it would discuss moments in gay culture THAT I REMEMBER! Which was wild! I've been a gay participating in the community since 2017, and literally everything mentioned and dated from that year onward I remember the discourse about, in detail. That's like never happened to me while reading a book before! And I think that experience is going to be way WAY more intense for someone reading this who's Grace Perry's age. Most of the commentary added to the pop culture moments that she discusses isn't like, genius-level insight. If you're gay and involved, you're probably going to have known or thought most of the things she wrote already. That was my experience on the post-2017 commentary, at least. The target audience for this book feels like it's primarily millennial non-queers, and maybe secondarily people like me (non-millennial queers). It probably won't blow your mind if you're a millennial queer and you're not learning about what Dawson's Creek was for the first time.
I thought a lot of the commentary was really interesting, though. It's a cool reflection on how normative American culture viewed sex and gender, the specific directions in which progress has been made, and what progress we really haven't made yet. In particular, I really liked the essay where she talked about how yes, growing up Catholic and going to Catholic school did contribute to her internalized homophobia, but secular American culture did probably just as strongly, if not more. That's a really good take, and it's not one I see a lot! And a book of solidly good analysis of queer history is nothing to scoff at, genuinely. It's well done, and I had fun reading it and thinking about gay things!
A side note though, there were parts of this book that made me feel OLD AS HELL because it would discuss moments in gay culture THAT I REMEMBER! Which was wild! I've been a gay participating in the community since 2017, and literally everything mentioned and dated from that year onward I remember the discourse about, in detail. That's like never happened to me while reading a book before! And I think that experience is going to be way WAY more intense for someone reading this who's Grace Perry's age. Most of the commentary added to the pop culture moments that she discusses isn't like, genius-level insight. If you're gay and involved, you're probably going to have known or thought most of the things she wrote already. That was my experience on the post-2017 commentary, at least. The target audience for this book feels like it's primarily millennial non-queers, and maybe secondarily people like me (non-millennial queers). It probably won't blow your mind if you're a millennial queer and you're not learning about what Dawson's Creek was for the first time.
I thought a lot of the commentary was really interesting, though. It's a cool reflection on how normative American culture viewed sex and gender, the specific directions in which progress has been made, and what progress we really haven't made yet. In particular, I really liked the essay where she talked about how yes, growing up Catholic and going to Catholic school did contribute to her internalized homophobia, but secular American culture did probably just as strongly, if not more. That's a really good take, and it's not one I see a lot! And a book of solidly good analysis of queer history is nothing to scoff at, genuinely. It's well done, and I had fun reading it and thinking about gay things!
flibbityflob's review against another edition
5.0
made me cry at points, revealed a point of weakness in my perception of my own sexuality and identity, and, most importantly, perfect post breakup reading.