From comedian and TikTok star Kevin James Thornton comes a hilarious and heartfelt story of growing up in a Christian fundamentalist church, turning trauma into comedy, and finding your own way.
Growing up in the 90s in a small town in Indiana, Kevin James Thornton had little notion he would one day make a career as a comedian. Like most kids in his deeply Christian town, his free time revolved around his church community—drinking Messiah Macchiatos at the youth group cafe, bedazzling his jacket with the words “Jesus Is Lord,” and evangelizing in the streets of Spanish Harlem dressed as a sin‑themed clown. But when he started to question his sexuality, life became complicated. Kevin began to realize that the community that raised him might never truly accept him.
What follows is a winding story of self‑discovery, following Thornton from a revelatory summer in New York City to the transformative years of college—where he finds like‑minded people, a knack for performance, and first loves—all the way to adulthood, where he navigates complicated relationships, finds his way into the comedy scene, and forms a special bond with a black cat named Comet (who might just have the power to travel between dimensions). Through it all, he redefines himself again and again, realizing that few things go as planned, and that “driving off into the sunset” is never really the end of the story.
Told in his unique brand of brash but emotionally honest humor, and filled with 90s nostalgia, Big Baby is a coming-of-age tale that speaks to anyone who feels like they don’t fit in.
I almost never read memoirs or autobiographies, but having followed him years ago on TikTok, I was very interested to read his book. Although, I always did find it funny when he would start of by talking about his 'super fundamentalist church,' but then talk about speaking in tongues and listening to Contemporary Christian music. Then again, I knew people were would argue my church wasn't strict enough because women were allowed to were pants, so I guess it's relative. Sliding scale, I suppose. In any case, I'm out of the church and don't have to deal with any of it anymore:)
This was an amazing book and loved it. I would recommend it to anyone, especially to exvangelicals and/or members of the LGBT+ community. However, I think anyone will love this.
Thanks so much to NetGalley for the free Kindle book. My review is voluntarily given, and my opinions are my own.
This is a heart warming memoir of a gay guy who had to come to terms with his sexuality while in a youth group. That led to unavoidable conflict. It's both funny and sad. We then follow the author as he tries to make a name for himself as a comedian. He eventually succeeds. I had never heard of him before, but will look him up! The book works perfectly well without knowing anything of him from before.
I told a friend I was reading this, and they said, “oh! He’s so funny!” And I had to say, “he is! But this book isn’t funny at all.” It’s actually something much better, I’ll call it a balm for the souls of anyone who came of age in the 90s, perhaps more so if you came of age in a 90s Christian youth group and now look back on that time with an unnamable combination of nostalgia and horror. Because how can it be that we all had the same experience? That we all had our sexuality detrimentally suffocated by well-meaning youth pastors? And dealt with the heartache, which we couldn’t name or understand, by sitting late night in a smoke-filled Denny’s?
The ability to write well does not necessarily mean that an author can narrate aloud well, but when one does possess both skills, the resulting audiobooks are a delight. I don’t think I would have listened to Big Baby if it had been read by anyone other than Kevin James Thornton, although I am certain the printed book would have been wonderful as well. Hearing his familiar voice share amusing and often poignant stories from his life felt like chatting with a friend. Kevin‘s experiences are sure to resonate with anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s and struggled with finding themselves. The book contains a strong theme of the healing powers of the passage of time, and it’s clear that time has blunted what must have been painful experiences at the time, and he seems to hold no grudges. One comes away with the impression of a fundamentally kind, self deprecating, very self-aware man who has finally found peace and security but isn’t taking it for granted. It’s a lovely memoir, well written and vulnerable and gentle, and Kevin’s ability to laugh at himself makes it special. I commented on one of his social media posts that I had stumbled across him because of his painting videos but I stayed because I felt like he would have been my BFF in high school, and Big Baby reinforced that feeling.
So, I've enjoyed Thornton's "It was the 90s . . ." stories of surviving a Christian fundamentalist youth group while being gay.
When he announced he was releasing a book, I was happy to purchase an audiobook to listen to more of his stories.
And, if you've enjoyed his tales on social media, I definitely think you'll like these.
Here, you get to know him a bit more - see more of his struggles coming to terms with his sexuality, with relationships, with his various arts, with what it means to be human and whole.
He does it all in an engaging, funny, ribald, and poignant way.
I enjoyed my time wandering through pieces of his life with him as he figured out more about who he is and how he really wanted to spend his life.
As he looks back, Thornton is generous to all who crossed his path, even those who caused harm and suffering. And I found that warm and encouraging . . . how many of us can embrace and release those who hurt us because we know better now?
All in all, a book that sparks hope and belief in new beginnings that will lead to softer, kinder, thoughtful days ahead.
The way I jumped on netgalley as soon as he announced his memoir. My BFF and I had been sharing “it was the 90s” reels so hard over the years that we saw him in Boston together a few years ago. We LOLd all over that place. Big Baby is well written and gives us a glimpse into what it was like for him in the fundamentalist church. His one-liners had me giggling and his struggles had my heart hurting.
Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for this advanced copy.
I've been waiting for this book to come out forever!! COULD NOT STOP LISTENING!! I'd suggest to any of my friends, particularly those who also went to Super-Fundamentalist-Churches when IT WAS THE NINETIES!
4.5 I highly recommend listening to this book. Kevin is a deft performer and, at least for me, I felt like I was listening to a friend. So many of his stories echo stories of me and my closest. I am so glad Kevin found the success he wanted.
I came across Kevin like many others, on TikTok around 2020. He’s hilarious and a great storyteller, so the audiobook is the definitive choice on this one. Some of the dream sequences got a little woo-woo for me but I can still appreciate Kevin’s style of creativity and vulnerability.
I didn’t want the book to end. Perfect balance of humor and vulnerability. Listen to the audiobook to get the full effect. I hope Kevin writes another book!
Thanks to NetGalley & Grand Central Publishing for the ARC!
Kevin James Thornton’s Big Baby: On Endings, Beginnings, and an Interdimensional Cat mutes the author’s delightful social media presence into a drab assortment of personal facts.
It’s a book with weaknesses so pronounced that they feel like a threat to Thornton’s other work.
If you’ve seen any of Thornton’s material—and I assume you have, if this memoir appeals to you—then you understand the charm of a 60-second, vocoded reel affectionately eviscerating the things that people did because “it was the 90s.” You are likely as entertained as I am by Thornton’s sing-songy takes on religious fundamentalism and the way every bite-sized anecdote ends in a playful conclusion that amounts to little more than, Wacky, right?
And it’s great. And we keep scrolling.
The problem is that Big Baby tries to apply that same approach to a full book, and it’s just nothing in this medium. Memoir demands experience, not anecdotes. It’s not enough to just list things that happened—we need to know why they were significant to the author.
Almost every chapter is little more than a page, and each one is structured like it’s building to a punchline. If you’ve seen any of Thornton’s social media presence, you might incorrectly assume that you can imagine the tone, but he has dismissed his good-natured online flippancy in favor of writerly austerity. As a result, the chapters deflate so dramatically that you can almost hear them wheeze through their conclusions:
I realized I was gay. I realized I wasn’t religious. I realized I wanted to do comedy. I realized I was interested in photography.
Any of these statements could fill memoirs in and of themselves, but Thornton emphasizes the first part of each one as if the revelation is that he had a thought. The writing assumes that we already ascribe some weight to the author’s self-mythology, but these epiphanies don’t mean anything unless Thornton tells us why they are meaningful. That said, there’s some meat on the bones when it comes to the tension between his queerness and his religious background, but even that almost feels like an author at war with himself—he doesn’t seem super interested in exploring it, but it’s obligatory as such a large part of his online persona.
It would be unfair to deny the trauma that scaffolds Big Baby’s marketing copy, but Thornton has polished it to shiny oblivion. This is a book that abandons stories in favor of “content.” For example, we witness the proposal and dissolution of a seven-year relationship in about three anonymous pages. There are authors who would be able to tell a whole story with the shape of what they leave unsaid, but Thornton is not one of those authors, opting instead for wistfully vague platitudes about how people grow apart.
Okay, and?
The book literally ends with a page of the effusive-but-empty thanks one might expect from a celebrity instagram post. An apology might have been more appropriate.
More often than not, influencers rise to prominence by algorithmic fluke, not some innate talent. By the end of Big Baby, that’s how I felt about Kevin James Thornton. Everything I previously appreciated about him started to feel hollow. His style seemed like schtick, a gimmick from an app. Without a cheap hook, there’s just nothing here, and it made me wonder if there was ever anything.
To be clear, I don't want to discredit the wonderful career that Thornton has built or his clear talents, but if a book is bad enough to rattle someone's entire public image, it's one that wasn't ready for the public.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but put the book down and open TikTok.
I only have a TikTok account because you have to have one to watch videos that are sent to you; I’ve never gone on the site just to poke around. But I must admit, a few of my friends have forwarded some hilarious stuff, including a short clip sent by my beloved Joe which featured a handsome, middle aged guy, sitting in his guy, speaking into a vocoder, starting off a short anecdote with “it was the 90s” and making himself laugh a little. It was hysterical. I watched it three times then immediately went searching for more. This man is Kevin James Thornton and if you’ve got some time to kill you could do worse than to look him up on TikTok.
So, when this book came up on NetGalley I was thrilled to see it. However, though I enjoyed it because I like reading about people’s lives, the book is definitely autobiography, not comedy. Thornton has lived an interesting life, so I found it well worth reading (that fundamentalist church? He got there on his own, his parents weren’t members.) even though it wasn’t what I expected. For laughs, hit him up on TikTok, for for a compelling look at a gay man who grew up a fundamentalist and found a true calling (career-wise) late in life, this is good.
I’ve seen Kevin James Thornton on Tik Tok a few times and I’ve always enjoyed his content. His Tik Tok page is more funny than this book. This is more of an autobiography, but it still has humor sprinkled throughout. His humor is clever and still touches on topics of being raised in a religious community in the south while discovering sexuality while being sheltered from knowledge. I was raised in church with youth groups in the 90s so I got a lot of the references. I think he handled both sides of the coin very well while still showing some respect. It’s always hard to rate an autobiography because how do you quantify entertainment value in someone's life story? But at the same time all books, even autobiographies/memoirs depend on star ratings to help move a book forward. I enjoyed my time reading this. It is humor filled coming of age while coming out in a community that doesn’t share that value. I think it was brave for him to write this and it was well done. It has a lot of heart in it and I know a lot of people in my personal life that I’d recommend this book to.
Thank you, NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for allowing me to read this early. The opinion in this review is my own.
Thank you to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for an early digital copy of comedian Kevin James Thornton’s memoir, BIG BABY for review.
I adore Kevin’s whole vibe. I was expecting BIG BABY to be hilarious - much like his autotuned “It was the ‘90s!” TikToks - and parts of it certainly made me grin, but overall I was surprised to find that it’s more honest and soul-baring than funny. This memoir is a coming of age story, but also a story about adulthood and change, and the ways life surprises us with its unexpected twists. Sometimes, it doubles back and leads us to the beginning, but it always moves forward.
I have lived a completely different life than Kevin: I didn’t go to a super fundamentalist church in the midwest, I haven’t traveled widely as part of a tour of fringe festivals, and I was never made to feel ashamed of my sexuality. But that doesn’t matter: this memoir was still impactful and, most importantly, interesting. I blew through it in 24 hours. I really resonate with the idea that we are constantly redefining ourselves, and BIG BABY makes me reflect on what is really important in life. I’m not a cat person, but Comet really stole the show.
Equal parts heartfelt, comedic, and sad, this memoir of finding oneself over and over again is a beautiful ode to the human spirit and the power of just starting over One. More. Time. I have watched and enjoyed Kevin James Thornton’s Tiktoks and Youtube videos since the pandemic and have deeply resonated with the way that he tackles difficult subjects with enough humor to take the bite out of them, but enough seriousness that the weight of the matter isn’t lost.
Kevin is a wonderful storyteller. His prose is funny and interesting, and I enjoyed my time with his memoir. For any fans out there who aren’t sure if they’ll get anything new from his book due to seeing his shows and videos, there is a great deal of new content here, although you’ll recognize some old favorites, like the “cinnamon rain on the naked lady lamp” and others.
Even if I wasn’t already a fan of Kevin’s, I still would have enjoyed this heartfelt journey through what it means to be true to yourself and to continue to try things until something works. At the end of the day, our willingness to keep trying is all we have control of.
I have been following Kevin James Thornton's work for several years and was so excited when he announced he was writing a memoir. In his true self-deprecating fashion it seemed like he was a bit embarrassed about the whole thing. He didn't need to be (although I can only imagine how vulnerable it must feel to bare your soul in print for anyone to read).
Some of his funniest anecdotes are in there. Some of his most heart-wrenching ones are too. Plus some very personal memories that he either hasn't shared before, or I just missed them).
This is a full circle journey, and the kind of book that we would all do well to read in order to continue building on the idea that sitting with other people's stories can help us cultivate empathy.
Damn dude. This was so sad. I am glad you made it through but damn. It's definitely not just your "repackaged tiktoks". Also I am irrationally mad at closeted high school you for hurting all your friends by the "pregnancy incident". Dude... DUDE... that was a really bad choice and I know adult you knows that but DUUUUUUUUUDDDDDEEEE. Thanks for being so open and vulnerable though as we all live in glass houses and shouldn't be throwing stones... and thank you for sharing what it's like to live with a lying addict. It's important for your young followers who might not have relationship experience to know the signs. I wish you the best and continued growth.
I love Kevin's TikTok stories, but for me the book lacked the charm and bubbliness of his videos. It felt like someone telling a story followed up with "You had to be there." I can see where others might have a good time with "Big Baby" though and will definitely continue supporting the author on social media.
**Thank you to the author, publisher and Net Galley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.**
Unputdownable! I was a fan before the book, but now I’m a Superfan. I’m a straight white girl who was never particularly religious, so why do I feel so incredibly connected to this gay white man who was very religious back in the day? Is it the “white” part?? Nah, just kidding…….it’s not that we’re both white, (and black cat owners)….it’s just how his charisma, humor, and thoughtfulness come through. I’m just so glad that he chose to give us the gift of more of himself. Loved, loved, loved it.
I love this book so much. I am not typically a re-reader, but I will read it again. I loved his “It Was the 90’s” videos first, and that’s why I bought the book. It is a story of growing up in a “super fundamentalist Christian church,” then moving around to many different places, through many different jobs and relationships, and eventually finding himself. And let us not forget the interdimensional cat. He really ties it all together. Highly recommend.
I've followed Kevin James Thornton for a while and enjoyed this funny, thoughtful memoir of his evangelical adolescence ("it was the 90s!!!") and pursuit of a career in comedy. He has truly lived several lives. As a fellow late bloomer, I'm thankful he shared his story and am glad he's found much-deserved happiness on his own terms.
Breathtakingly relatable and side-splittingly funny. Kevin James Thornton has created another masterpiece, this time in the form of a sometimes wacky, often profound set of stories that comprise this compelling memoir of his experiences with religion, sexuality, shame, and the hard-won freedom of becoming yourself. A MUST read!
Within the first minute of reading this book, I knew I was going to enjoy it immensely. I really appreciate Thornton‘s writing style and rhythm. His language and descriptions are refreshing and innovative, and I like that the reader can’t always see around the next literary and spiritual corner in his life story. Well done.
I love Kevin on TikTok, of course for the funny, but especially the deep. And I think this memoir has more of the deep. I'm also nosy and maybe parasocial because I was very invested in the in-depth stories about Kevin's life, this book gives you more insight than his short videos. I also think this is very well-written. Sincerely recommended, 5 stars.
I loved this book. I love hearing about the experiences and the paths life’s experiences have put them through. This book gave me even more empathy for those who live on the margins and struggle with self worth and finding a way to have peace while navigating such tough terrain. Highly recommend.