Scan barcode
A review by mmarlborough
One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In by Kate Kennedy
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
5 ⭐️ alert!!!! Wow. I don’t know if I’ve ever laughed so hard while also feeling so seen in a book in my life. This was the 48th advanced digital copy from Netgalley that I’ve read and the first I’ve ever bought in print after finishing. I had to highlight all of the beautiful and poignant parts that Kennedy put to the page. But let’s be real, I really wanted to highlight the whole damn thing.
Kennedy takes the reader on a journey back to growing up in the 90s, examining seemingly light topics like American Girl Dolls or the Spice Girls with a deeper lock and more critical eye of how we were shaped in these@crucial years. Revealing personal information, this book is part memoir and part essay, delving into the problematic and fun ways we were shaped by the pop culture of our time as millennials.
Kennedy writes this in the novel, which so encapsulates this book’s intent:
“Some of these chapters represent life phases I’ve moved on from, but others represent things I still have to work on every day, and that’s okay too. I wish I came with fewer reflections and more solutions, but the point is that I’m trying to hold space for the ways I didn’t know better, to criticize the ways I was set up, to take accountability for when I should have done better, and, all the while, to allow myself to acknowledge the ways in which it was fun. It’s confusing how I see this time period as a source of personal remorse and also a magical time of generational lore; I’ll add it to the list of my many millennial contradictions.”
While Kennedy in no way is saying she writes for all millennial experiences, it all really resonated with me. From the diet snacks we were told to have in middle school to purity culture, so much spoke to me. I hadn’t been a “Be There in 5” podcast listener prior to reading this, but now I am a big fan of Kennedy and diving into her past episodes.
✨Trigger Warnings: Infertility, Miscarriage, Misogyny
Kennedy takes the reader on a journey back to growing up in the 90s, examining seemingly light topics like American Girl Dolls or the Spice Girls with a deeper lock and more critical eye of how we were shaped in these@crucial years. Revealing personal information, this book is part memoir and part essay, delving into the problematic and fun ways we were shaped by the pop culture of our time as millennials.
Kennedy writes this in the novel, which so encapsulates this book’s intent:
“Some of these chapters represent life phases I’ve moved on from, but others represent things I still have to work on every day, and that’s okay too. I wish I came with fewer reflections and more solutions, but the point is that I’m trying to hold space for the ways I didn’t know better, to criticize the ways I was set up, to take accountability for when I should have done better, and, all the while, to allow myself to acknowledge the ways in which it was fun. It’s confusing how I see this time period as a source of personal remorse and also a magical time of generational lore; I’ll add it to the list of my many millennial contradictions.”
While Kennedy in no way is saying she writes for all millennial experiences, it all really resonated with me. From the diet snacks we were told to have in middle school to purity culture, so much spoke to me. I hadn’t been a “Be There in 5” podcast listener prior to reading this, but now I am a big fan of Kennedy and diving into her past episodes.
✨Trigger Warnings: Infertility, Miscarriage, Misogyny