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Girls Can Kiss Now: Essays
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Humor (2022)“Wickedly funny and heartstoppingly vulnerable…every page twinkles with brilliance.” —Refinery29 Perfect for fans of Samantha Irby and Trick Mirror, a hilarious, whip-smart collection of personal essays exploring the intersection of queerness, pop culture, the internet, and identity, introducing one of the most undeniably original new voices today.Jill Gutowitz’s life—for better and worse—has always been on a collision course with pop culture. There’s the time the FBI showed up at her door because of something she tweeted about Game of Thrones. The pop songs that have been the soundtrack to the worst moments of her life. And of course, the pivotal day when Orange Is the New Black hit the airwaves and broke down the door to Jill’s own sexuality. In these honest examinations of identity, desire, and self-worth, Jill explores perhaps the most monumental cultural shift of our the mainstreaming of lesbian culture. Dusting off her own personal traumas and artifacts of her not-so-distant youth she examines how pop culture acts as a fun house mirror reflecting and refracting our values—always teaching, distracting, disappointing, and revealing us. Girls Can Kiss Now is a fresh and intoxicating blend of personal stories, sharp observations, and laugh-out-loud humor. This timely collection of essays helps us make sense of our collective pop-culture past even as it points the way toward a joyous, uproarious, near—and very queer—future.
239 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 8, 2022
662 people are currently reading
34292 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,725 reviews
March 13, 2022
This book was okay, but I’m not the right audience. If you have followed my reviews for a while, you will know I love to throw in a least a few nonfiction books a year. When I saw this book, especially the title, I thought this would be a perfect nonfiction choice for me. I’m sorry to say that it just wasn’t the case. The author made a point that she is an Orange Is the New Black generation of lesbian, while I am a Buffy the Vampire Slayer lesbian. And while the decade between us might not seem like that long, in the case of this book it was. This was very celebrity focused and there were so many people that I either didn’t know much about, or I just didn’t really care to know. I wasn’t a fit for this book but I would recommend it for huge Taylor Swift fans, people that grew up watching all the Disney channel kids that exploded into fame, and/or for people who might be questioning their sexuality.
An ARC was given to me for a review.
An ARC was given to me for a review.
March 22, 2022
4.5 stars bc millennial cringe humor. So fucking amazing and tender and free and honest and vulnerable and inspiring and ahh. Lesbians obsessed with taylor swift and pop culture amen
December 14, 2022
the first half, maybe, was great. there was a lot of pop culture, 2000s nostalgia, and queer shit. but those things kind of dwindled as the book went on and it dragged a bit and i really do not connect with the way the author writes about queerness.
content/trigger warnings; sex, lesbophobia (internal and external), d slur, homophobia, f slur, ableism, outing, mspecphobia, fetishization, sexualization, invasive speculation about people’s sexuality, rape recounted, rape culture, misogyny,
the author consistently uses queer and lesbian interchangeably throughout the book, not for her own identity, but in a general manner. she’ll say something about lesbianism and then list a bunch of queer women who aren’t all lesbians, or she’ll say something about queer women and then list only lesbians. it got very exhausting to read language that amounts to erasure for 200-something pages. and speaking of erasure, plenty of pansexual and bisexual celebrities are mentioned, without ever mentioning their pansexuality or bisexuality. some are mislabeled, too. and a quick look at the author’s twitter shows she knowingly mislabels celebrities on there.
the milf/“step on me mom” essay is super unrelatable to me, and i don’t like the side tangent about how “step on me” is a woman x woman only thing and how “no one cares if you like brad pitt, you don’t get to add violence in your expression of it” or whatever. some queer women are attracted to men and that attraction is queer, so when you see a woman telling adam driver (who the author seems to think only heterosexual women are attracted to) to suffocate her with his thighs, maybe don’t assume she’s a straight woman “coopting queer expression of desire”.
probably my biggest issue is that the author supports the invasive speculation about celebrities’ sexuality. she mentions how celebrities have been outed because their sexualities were “maliciously speculated about”, yet she’s doing the same thing. she condemns perez hilton for speculating about celebrities’ sexuality, leading to them being outed, but then immediately defends her own speculation and insists it’s different when she does it.
she claims over and over that “intent matters” but everyone knows impact outweighs intent. it doesn’t matter if you didn’t mean to hurt someone, it matters that you did. it doesn’t make a material difference to a celebrity who is outed through invasive speculation about their sexuality if the people doing it had the purest of intentions. you can’t invasively and publicly speculate about and search for “evidence” of a celebrity being queer, knowing it can lead to and has actually led to outings, and claim good intentions.
you can’t claim “but we’re the Good Queers doing it for Good Reasons!!!!” because wanting representation, wanting a celebrity to be “one of us”, and the specialness of finding another queer person does not justify this invasive entitlement to another person’s sexuality. they are real people, not fictional characters you get to headcanon because you want to see yourself in them.
you can’t just say “it’s okay to be gay, so why would it matter if people think so and so is gay?” because it’s not just about the public’s opinion. it’s about that person’s mental health, relationships, and where they are in their own journey. the speculation about harry styles and louis tomlinson dating affected their friendship and how they interacted with each other. the speculation about shawn mendes being gay affected his mental health and how he carried himself. the speculation about lauren jauregui and camila cabello dating traumatized lauren and made her feel like a predator and over-analyze how she interacted with women. the speculation and interview questions about janelle monáe being queer put pressure on her to come out to her family sooner.
if a celebrity is queer, and they aren’t ready to accept it or come out publicly or otherwise, how do you think they’d feel knowing think pieces about their sexuality are going viral? the author said she didn’t want people speculating about her being gay before she had accepted it or come out, so why aren’t celebrities afforded the same courtesy? it does not matter if the speculation is coming from people who think being queer is a sin or people who just want someone to be like them. it’s all the same in the end.
(this isn’t a criticism) “i thought bad things about myself because of media” is something that i get, but i also don’t get? i know it’s easy to internalize media depictions. but it’s so alien to me personally. it’s similar to a tweet about how the idea of peer pressure as a neurodivergent person is baffling. like, thinking i have no worth as a human being because of how women were depicted in a show, or my relationships should mirror the ones in romantic comedies/dramas, or it’s bad to be queer because of a queerphobic line in a movie........my brain is just like “why would i think that?” and idk if it’s because i’m more logical than emotional, not easily influenced in this way, or neurodivergent. but it’s a common experience that i don’t relate to and i find that really interesting.
content/trigger warnings; sex, lesbophobia (internal and external), d slur, homophobia, f slur, ableism, outing, mspecphobia, fetishization, sexualization, invasive speculation about people’s sexuality, rape recounted, rape culture, misogyny,
the author consistently uses queer and lesbian interchangeably throughout the book, not for her own identity, but in a general manner. she’ll say something about lesbianism and then list a bunch of queer women who aren’t all lesbians, or she’ll say something about queer women and then list only lesbians. it got very exhausting to read language that amounts to erasure for 200-something pages. and speaking of erasure, plenty of pansexual and bisexual celebrities are mentioned, without ever mentioning their pansexuality or bisexuality. some are mislabeled, too. and a quick look at the author’s twitter shows she knowingly mislabels celebrities on there.
the milf/“step on me mom” essay is super unrelatable to me, and i don’t like the side tangent about how “step on me” is a woman x woman only thing and how “no one cares if you like brad pitt, you don’t get to add violence in your expression of it” or whatever. some queer women are attracted to men and that attraction is queer, so when you see a woman telling adam driver (who the author seems to think only heterosexual women are attracted to) to suffocate her with his thighs, maybe don’t assume she’s a straight woman “coopting queer expression of desire”.
probably my biggest issue is that the author supports the invasive speculation about celebrities’ sexuality. she mentions how celebrities have been outed because their sexualities were “maliciously speculated about”, yet she’s doing the same thing. she condemns perez hilton for speculating about celebrities’ sexuality, leading to them being outed, but then immediately defends her own speculation and insists it’s different when she does it.
she claims over and over that “intent matters” but everyone knows impact outweighs intent. it doesn’t matter if you didn’t mean to hurt someone, it matters that you did. it doesn’t make a material difference to a celebrity who is outed through invasive speculation about their sexuality if the people doing it had the purest of intentions. you can’t invasively and publicly speculate about and search for “evidence” of a celebrity being queer, knowing it can lead to and has actually led to outings, and claim good intentions.
you can’t claim “but we’re the Good Queers doing it for Good Reasons!!!!” because wanting representation, wanting a celebrity to be “one of us”, and the specialness of finding another queer person does not justify this invasive entitlement to another person’s sexuality. they are real people, not fictional characters you get to headcanon because you want to see yourself in them.
you can’t just say “it’s okay to be gay, so why would it matter if people think so and so is gay?” because it’s not just about the public’s opinion. it’s about that person’s mental health, relationships, and where they are in their own journey. the speculation about harry styles and louis tomlinson dating affected their friendship and how they interacted with each other. the speculation about shawn mendes being gay affected his mental health and how he carried himself. the speculation about lauren jauregui and camila cabello dating traumatized lauren and made her feel like a predator and over-analyze how she interacted with women. the speculation and interview questions about janelle monáe being queer put pressure on her to come out to her family sooner.
if a celebrity is queer, and they aren’t ready to accept it or come out publicly or otherwise, how do you think they’d feel knowing think pieces about their sexuality are going viral? the author said she didn’t want people speculating about her being gay before she had accepted it or come out, so why aren’t celebrities afforded the same courtesy? it does not matter if the speculation is coming from people who think being queer is a sin or people who just want someone to be like them. it’s all the same in the end.
(this isn’t a criticism) “i thought bad things about myself because of media” is something that i get, but i also don’t get? i know it’s easy to internalize media depictions. but it’s so alien to me personally. it’s similar to a tweet about how the idea of peer pressure as a neurodivergent person is baffling. like, thinking i have no worth as a human being because of how women were depicted in a show, or my relationships should mirror the ones in romantic comedies/dramas, or it’s bad to be queer because of a queerphobic line in a movie........my brain is just like “why would i think that?” and idk if it’s because i’m more logical than emotional, not easily influenced in this way, or neurodivergent. but it’s a common experience that i don’t relate to and i find that really interesting.
February 11, 2022
3 stars
Being gay, this one reached out to me, and I was lucky enough to receive an advanced review copy from Net Galley. I would like to thank Net Galley, Atria Books, and Jill Gutowitz for granting me my copy.
This series of essays by Ms. Gutowitz reflects the crossroads between millennialism, lesbianism, pop culture, and the search for identity as Ms. Gutowitz attempts to define herself in this crazy world. The narrative extends from the time Ms. Gutowitz was a young girl to the end of 2020 with most of the time probably spent in the 1990s and the aughts. The writing is very good and overall quite humorous. The tone of the book varies from fear, confusion, frustration, and hopelessness, to heartfelt, to joyfulness, not necessarily in that order.
Though I found the essays to be enlightening, entertaining, and informative, I would have appreciated them even more if I were a millennial rather than a boomer and had had a better sense of pop culture and its icons during the time frame referenced by the writings. I did however enjoy Ms. Gutowitz’s journey to finding herself and wanted to both hug her and high-five her at the end.
I believe Ms. Gutowitz deserves congratulations for putting her story out there for all of us to learn from. I wish her the very best and all the happiness in the world.
Being gay, this one reached out to me, and I was lucky enough to receive an advanced review copy from Net Galley. I would like to thank Net Galley, Atria Books, and Jill Gutowitz for granting me my copy.
This series of essays by Ms. Gutowitz reflects the crossroads between millennialism, lesbianism, pop culture, and the search for identity as Ms. Gutowitz attempts to define herself in this crazy world. The narrative extends from the time Ms. Gutowitz was a young girl to the end of 2020 with most of the time probably spent in the 1990s and the aughts. The writing is very good and overall quite humorous. The tone of the book varies from fear, confusion, frustration, and hopelessness, to heartfelt, to joyfulness, not necessarily in that order.
Though I found the essays to be enlightening, entertaining, and informative, I would have appreciated them even more if I were a millennial rather than a boomer and had had a better sense of pop culture and its icons during the time frame referenced by the writings. I did however enjoy Ms. Gutowitz’s journey to finding herself and wanted to both hug her and high-five her at the end.
I believe Ms. Gutowitz deserves congratulations for putting her story out there for all of us to learn from. I wish her the very best and all the happiness in the world.
March 22, 2022
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.
The idea of this book immediately intrigued me. The cover is fun and sapphic. It's a collection of essays about the intersection between sapphic identity and pop culture (or at least that's what it claimed to be). I thought it would be right up my alley. Unfortunately, my issues with this book ended up filling a very long document in my phone's notes app.
There were a few things I enjoyed. The essay on Orange Is the New Black was solid and interesting and just personal enough. If the whole book had been that caliber, I think I might have actually enjoyed it. Some of the musings on fame were interesting, and I definitely connected to a lot of the discussions of misogyny. I give credit where it's due to Jill Gutowitz for those parts of the book that I actually found interesting or valuable.
Now, my first issue with this book isn't a critique so much as an observation: the marketing indicates that I am the target audience. I am not. Unless you are a white cis femme lesbian who is obsessed with pop culture and has fairly poor media literacy skills, this book is not for you. I am only one and a half of those things, so a lot of it simply did not resonate with me. This is fine. Books don't have to resonate with everyone. Unfortunately, I also had a lot of actual issues with the writing and the content.
The writing was pretty poor and definitely not as funny as it was trying to be. The author also definitely thinks that she's much more famous than she is (I'd encountered her name maybe once before reading this book), and her overinflated sense of her own fame (which I'm sure this book deal added to) made her writing unpleasant to read at times.
The use of queer terminology was messy and confusing. The author used the terms "lesbian," "sapphic," and "queer woman" pretty much interchangeably throughout the book. This included referring to famously bisexual or pansexual celebrities like Janelle Monáe, Tessa Thompson, and Kristen Stewart as lesbians or "celesbians" as well as claiming that certain things were universal sapphic experiences when they were definitely specific to lesbians and should be discussed as such (I'm thinking specifically here about a discussion of lack of attraction to men, which is really important to discuss as a specifically lesbian experience).
The author seemed to know almost nothing about the history of sapphic media or sapphic pop culture for someone who wrote a whole book about these topics. She divides the entirety of sapphic media history into four eras. The first one includes everything from the dawn of time up till the 1980s. You're really telling me that you think it makes sense to put Sappho of Lesbos in the same category as Josephine Baker? (Not that the author mentioned either of those people.) She claimed that sapphic visibility in the media started in the 90s, which completely ignores the entirety of sapphic Old Hollywood, every culture where sapphic relationships have ever been normalized, and of course every sapphic book ever written. I'm not sure the author has ever read a novel. On top of that, the chronology of the sapphic media that she DID discuss was laid out in a messy and confusing way, and if I didn't already know of all of the films, shows, and artists she talked about, it would have been much worse. It is next to impossible to learn anything about sapphic media history from this book.
Maybe the most infuriating part of this book for me was the essay titled "One Day, You'll All Be Gay." In this essay, Gutowitz spends several pages discussing Perez Hilton and the harm he did to the queer community in the early 2000s with his agenda of outing celebrities. And then she uses all of this to talk about Taylor Swift and to argue that it's actually fine to speculate about Taylor Swift's sexuality and that this is in no way similar to what Perez Hilton did and also totally not taking attention away from all of the visibly sapphic musicians out there who deserve the attention that this author and her ilk give to Taylor Swift.
Other miscellaneous thoughts I wrote down while reading:
- Acknowledging that you're an obnoxious white person isn't actually helpful. Maybe you could just do better instead.
- So we're really going to ignore Harvey Milk when talking about out politicians? Yikes.
- Oh, so now we're equating womanhood with femininity and saying that it's uniformly bad to identify with masculinity or feel like a man? That's definitely not limiting or transphobic in any way! (sarcasm)
- Does she know that "Popular Song" by Ariana Grande and Mika is essentially a cover/remix of "Popular" from Wicked?
- She says that forbidden straight love doesn't exist as though interracial marriage wasn't illegal in this country for CENTURIES.
- The mommy stuff makes me deeply uncomfortable. I don't think that calling random women "mommy" without their consent is okay no matter who does it, actually!
- The 2020 Emma. is not a remake of anything. It is an adaptation of Jane Austen's 1816 novel. Please use the correct words for things. This is just foolish.
Overall, while there were individual passages and one full essay that I genuinely enjoyed, I found Girls Can Kiss Now to be confusing, reductionist, and generally unhelpful. I feel true sympathy and compassion for what the author had to endure as a queer person growing up in the early 2000s. I value and honor all of the harrowing personal experiences that she put into this book. I acknowledge that the book was a deeply personal labor of love. But I didn't like it. I wouldn't recommend it. I hope the author goes back to writing inane commentary about popular TV shows because she's probably better at that.
Content warnings: this book contains intense descriptions and discussions of rape and sexual violence, as well as multiple mentions of misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and toxic and abusive relationships. Oh, and there are some Harry Potter references as well.
The idea of this book immediately intrigued me. The cover is fun and sapphic. It's a collection of essays about the intersection between sapphic identity and pop culture (or at least that's what it claimed to be). I thought it would be right up my alley. Unfortunately, my issues with this book ended up filling a very long document in my phone's notes app.
There were a few things I enjoyed. The essay on Orange Is the New Black was solid and interesting and just personal enough. If the whole book had been that caliber, I think I might have actually enjoyed it. Some of the musings on fame were interesting, and I definitely connected to a lot of the discussions of misogyny. I give credit where it's due to Jill Gutowitz for those parts of the book that I actually found interesting or valuable.
Now, my first issue with this book isn't a critique so much as an observation: the marketing indicates that I am the target audience. I am not. Unless you are a white cis femme lesbian who is obsessed with pop culture and has fairly poor media literacy skills, this book is not for you. I am only one and a half of those things, so a lot of it simply did not resonate with me. This is fine. Books don't have to resonate with everyone. Unfortunately, I also had a lot of actual issues with the writing and the content.
The writing was pretty poor and definitely not as funny as it was trying to be. The author also definitely thinks that she's much more famous than she is (I'd encountered her name maybe once before reading this book), and her overinflated sense of her own fame (which I'm sure this book deal added to) made her writing unpleasant to read at times.
The use of queer terminology was messy and confusing. The author used the terms "lesbian," "sapphic," and "queer woman" pretty much interchangeably throughout the book. This included referring to famously bisexual or pansexual celebrities like Janelle Monáe, Tessa Thompson, and Kristen Stewart as lesbians or "celesbians" as well as claiming that certain things were universal sapphic experiences when they were definitely specific to lesbians and should be discussed as such (I'm thinking specifically here about a discussion of lack of attraction to men, which is really important to discuss as a specifically lesbian experience).
The author seemed to know almost nothing about the history of sapphic media or sapphic pop culture for someone who wrote a whole book about these topics. She divides the entirety of sapphic media history into four eras. The first one includes everything from the dawn of time up till the 1980s. You're really telling me that you think it makes sense to put Sappho of Lesbos in the same category as Josephine Baker? (Not that the author mentioned either of those people.) She claimed that sapphic visibility in the media started in the 90s, which completely ignores the entirety of sapphic Old Hollywood, every culture where sapphic relationships have ever been normalized, and of course every sapphic book ever written. I'm not sure the author has ever read a novel. On top of that, the chronology of the sapphic media that she DID discuss was laid out in a messy and confusing way, and if I didn't already know of all of the films, shows, and artists she talked about, it would have been much worse. It is next to impossible to learn anything about sapphic media history from this book.
Maybe the most infuriating part of this book for me was the essay titled "One Day, You'll All Be Gay." In this essay, Gutowitz spends several pages discussing Perez Hilton and the harm he did to the queer community in the early 2000s with his agenda of outing celebrities. And then she uses all of this to talk about Taylor Swift and to argue that it's actually fine to speculate about Taylor Swift's sexuality and that this is in no way similar to what Perez Hilton did and also totally not taking attention away from all of the visibly sapphic musicians out there who deserve the attention that this author and her ilk give to Taylor Swift.
Other miscellaneous thoughts I wrote down while reading:
- Acknowledging that you're an obnoxious white person isn't actually helpful. Maybe you could just do better instead.
- So we're really going to ignore Harvey Milk when talking about out politicians? Yikes.
- Oh, so now we're equating womanhood with femininity and saying that it's uniformly bad to identify with masculinity or feel like a man? That's definitely not limiting or transphobic in any way! (sarcasm)
- Does she know that "Popular Song" by Ariana Grande and Mika is essentially a cover/remix of "Popular" from Wicked?
- She says that forbidden straight love doesn't exist as though interracial marriage wasn't illegal in this country for CENTURIES.
- The mommy stuff makes me deeply uncomfortable. I don't think that calling random women "mommy" without their consent is okay no matter who does it, actually!
- The 2020 Emma. is not a remake of anything. It is an adaptation of Jane Austen's 1816 novel. Please use the correct words for things. This is just foolish.
Overall, while there were individual passages and one full essay that I genuinely enjoyed, I found Girls Can Kiss Now to be confusing, reductionist, and generally unhelpful. I feel true sympathy and compassion for what the author had to endure as a queer person growing up in the early 2000s. I value and honor all of the harrowing personal experiences that she put into this book. I acknowledge that the book was a deeply personal labor of love. But I didn't like it. I wouldn't recommend it. I hope the author goes back to writing inane commentary about popular TV shows because she's probably better at that.
Content warnings: this book contains intense descriptions and discussions of rape and sexual violence, as well as multiple mentions of misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and toxic and abusive relationships. Oh, and there are some Harry Potter references as well.
July 19, 2022
i don’t listen to t*ylor swift or speculate about her sexuality, so i’m not the target demographic for this book. the media analysis is surface level. most of this book is just shallow celebrity worship & the authorial voice is so entitled and annoying. i don’t connect with her experience of lesbianism at all.
January 16, 2022
I have been following Jill Gutowitz on Twitter for awhile now, and she always brings the hilarious pop culture commentary. Her first book is a major achievement in humor and pop culture analysis and reading it brought an almost constant smile of recognition and joy to my face.
Our funny and charming friend Jill (I say “friend” because her book communicates a sense of warmth and intimacy that really makes you feel like she’s your friend) started out in a childhood where she wondered “can girls kiss eachother?” while watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Britney videos. Her experience with popular culture contributed greatly to her sexual awakening as a lesbian, and really had a lot to do with Britney and Taylor Swift. Here Gutowitz provides hilarious analysis of key lesbian/bi moments in popular culture, like paparazzi pics of Lindsay Lohan with her girlfriend Samantha Ronson (I had almost forgotten about her!) and of course detailed analysis of the Karlie Kloss/Taylor Swift “friendship” - an issue which obsessed many of us Swifties for years.
Probably my favorite part of the book makes explicit the difference between people “outing” gay celebs (mostly straight folks but also people like Perez Hilton back in the day) — and then those people like Jill , especially when she was young, whose obsession over lesbian themes, couplings and conspiracies (a la Taylor Swift) in pop culture adds to an overall sense of belonging and feeling understood and seen for girls who are gay, bi, or questioning.
This is a sensitive, intimate, laugh-out-loud funny book. You don’t need to be gay, bi, questioning or non-binary to love it — Jill’s charm, humor and explanations of her coming out will resonate with anyone ready to join her in her journey through her teenage years. But if you do have a deep visceral understanding of the sexual appeal of Taylor/Karlie, Xena Warrior Princess, Buddy the Vampire Slayer, and other key female touchstones of the 90s? This book is DEFINITELY for you.
Thanks to Simon and Schuster, NetGalley and the author for this sweet laugh-out-loud funny book. Count me in for all of Jill Gutowitz’s books from here on out.
Our funny and charming friend Jill (I say “friend” because her book communicates a sense of warmth and intimacy that really makes you feel like she’s your friend) started out in a childhood where she wondered “can girls kiss eachother?” while watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Britney videos. Her experience with popular culture contributed greatly to her sexual awakening as a lesbian, and really had a lot to do with Britney and Taylor Swift. Here Gutowitz provides hilarious analysis of key lesbian/bi moments in popular culture, like paparazzi pics of Lindsay Lohan with her girlfriend Samantha Ronson (I had almost forgotten about her!) and of course detailed analysis of the Karlie Kloss/Taylor Swift “friendship” - an issue which obsessed many of us Swifties for years.
Probably my favorite part of the book makes explicit the difference between people “outing” gay celebs (mostly straight folks but also people like Perez Hilton back in the day) — and then those people like Jill , especially when she was young, whose obsession over lesbian themes, couplings and conspiracies (a la Taylor Swift) in pop culture adds to an overall sense of belonging and feeling understood and seen for girls who are gay, bi, or questioning.
This is a sensitive, intimate, laugh-out-loud funny book. You don’t need to be gay, bi, questioning or non-binary to love it — Jill’s charm, humor and explanations of her coming out will resonate with anyone ready to join her in her journey through her teenage years. But if you do have a deep visceral understanding of the sexual appeal of Taylor/Karlie, Xena Warrior Princess, Buddy the Vampire Slayer, and other key female touchstones of the 90s? This book is DEFINITELY for you.
Thanks to Simon and Schuster, NetGalley and the author for this sweet laugh-out-loud funny book. Count me in for all of Jill Gutowitz’s books from here on out.
March 30, 2022
Does this book really count as nonfiction if it gave me nothing but vibes and uniquely millennial cringe humor?
Reading through this collection of essays was like walking through a minefield wherein 80% of the hidden explosives were inert. From interchangeably using lesbian, queer, and sapphic (without clarity) to purposefully erasing the bisexual / pansexual identities of publicly queer celebrities, Girls Can Kiss Now offers a frustratingly narrow and reductive perspective on queerness and sexuality.
Early on in the book, the author admits to not being an expert in any of the topics she tackles, including the history of pop culture (specifically the rising visibility of lesbians in pop culture), despite having built an entire career on pop culture commentary. Good on her for having that much self-awareness. But sucks for her readers because this book will give them next to nothing.
Make no mistake. There is definitely nothing intersectional about these essays. In contrast to how it's marketed, Girls Can Kiss Now presents very rigid, oftentimes binary boundaries: lesbians vs. the rest of the world, famous people vs. general population. And the (arguably) willful lack of nuance can get quite frustrating. Other sources of frustration include several unnecessary references to Harry Potter (without mentioning that its author is an unapologetic TERF), invasive speculation on whether Taylor Swift is queer, and the constant exclusion of transgender and nonbinary folk.
The flaws and limitations of Gutowitz's debut are plenty and glaring. Criticism is definitely justified and well-deserved. However, I was not upset on a personal level - mainly because I've learned to set the bar incredibly, embarrassingly low for white queer people. I went into this with no expectations and with very little faith in the author, only to be proven right. And in doing so, I was able to remain engaged with the limited material and possibly even found some enjoyment in millennial nostalgia.
In summary:
❌ DO NOT read this book if you're sincerely seeking knowledge and meaningful insights on lesbians, pop culture, and/or lesbians in pop culture.
✅ DO consider this book if you're working late at night and want to put on something in the background to feel less lonely and less bored. Kind of like The Big Bang Theory but in audiobook format.
Recommended with (lots of) caution.
[ trigger/content warnings: ]
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Reading through this collection of essays was like walking through a minefield wherein 80% of the hidden explosives were inert. From interchangeably using lesbian, queer, and sapphic (without clarity) to purposefully erasing the bisexual / pansexual identities of publicly queer celebrities, Girls Can Kiss Now offers a frustratingly narrow and reductive perspective on queerness and sexuality.
Early on in the book, the author admits to not being an expert in any of the topics she tackles, including the history of pop culture (specifically the rising visibility of lesbians in pop culture), despite having built an entire career on pop culture commentary. Good on her for having that much self-awareness. But sucks for her readers because this book will give them next to nothing.
Make no mistake. There is definitely nothing intersectional about these essays. In contrast to how it's marketed, Girls Can Kiss Now presents very rigid, oftentimes binary boundaries: lesbians vs. the rest of the world, famous people vs. general population. And the (arguably) willful lack of nuance can get quite frustrating. Other sources of frustration include several unnecessary references to Harry Potter (without mentioning that its author is an unapologetic TERF), invasive speculation on whether Taylor Swift is queer, and the constant exclusion of transgender and nonbinary folk.
The flaws and limitations of Gutowitz's debut are plenty and glaring. Criticism is definitely justified and well-deserved. However, I was not upset on a personal level - mainly because I've learned to set the bar incredibly, embarrassingly low for white queer people. I went into this with no expectations and with very little faith in the author, only to be proven right. And in doing so, I was able to remain engaged with the limited material and possibly even found some enjoyment in millennial nostalgia.
In summary:
❌ DO NOT read this book if you're sincerely seeking knowledge and meaningful insights on lesbians, pop culture, and/or lesbians in pop culture.
✅ DO consider this book if you're working late at night and want to put on something in the background to feel less lonely and less bored. Kind of like The Big Bang Theory but in audiobook format.
Recommended with (lots of) caution.
[ trigger/content warnings: ]
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August 7, 2022
I was into this… until I wasn’t. Going on and on about how harmful Perez Hilton was to the queer community (outing celebrities and speculating on sexuality) to then go onto saying you’re a Kaylor-believer and listen to Taylor Swift to dig through her lyrics to find queer references in her music? It’s a no from me.
The discussion of the whole “step on me” queer commentary when it comes to celebrities was fine until it was mentioned how it’s essentially not for straight women to talk about Adam Driver. You do realize that bisexual women exist… right? Or that queer women can just find a man attractive?
The celebrity/pop culture mentions were great at first, but those fizzled out and the essays just became very loosely tied to the central theme and really dragged on and on. Writing became like a cringe tumblr post with Harry Potter references… like can we please move past that series.
Overall, not intersectional in the slightest and very white.
The discussion of the whole “step on me” queer commentary when it comes to celebrities was fine until it was mentioned how it’s essentially not for straight women to talk about Adam Driver. You do realize that bisexual women exist… right? Or that queer women can just find a man attractive?
The celebrity/pop culture mentions were great at first, but those fizzled out and the essays just became very loosely tied to the central theme and really dragged on and on. Writing became like a cringe tumblr post with Harry Potter references… like can we please move past that series.
Overall, not intersectional in the slightest and very white.
February 7, 2022
I have rarely felt so truly SEEN by a book. I laughed, I cried, it was gay. Flawless.
March 27, 2022
this book was so bad i think im back to being straight
March 15, 2022
“coming out as gay opened me up to a whole new realm of possibility, of people and art and movements to admire; i fell in love with femininity. sure, i feel in love with actual women, like, the people. but coming out frees you in ways that i’m not sure any straight person ever fully experiences.”
yes this book was hilarious, and yes, a collection of essays on lesbianism is everything i could ask for. and yes, it was so fun. but honestly, it was so much deeper than that. though “pop culture” is not always valued as significant knowledge and such, i think gutowitz explained lesbian culture, and the nuances of it’s history, in such a way that wasn’t only fascinating and relatable, but also important? in such a new movement towards acceptance of queer people, there isn’t a lot of physical history of our existence over time. and so, jill gutowitz turns to the expression of our culture through entertainment, or, “celesbianism”.
reading this book is a teen reviewer, who was not even born for some of these moments in culture gutowitz referenced, was honestly such a harrowing experience. i am a queer teen, growing up in an era very different than the “aughts”, as referred to in this book. i didn’t grow up with these celebrities in the same way lesbians of the last generation did. though this considerably made my experience less relatable, the culture and movement described is so relevant to my own life. when jill dedicated an entire chapter to noting things, people, concepts as “lesbian canon” i laughed at the inside jokes included. when she talked about the freedom of at last being out and coming to terms with herself, i felt that so deep in me. the way jill gutowitz uses popular culture of the past several decades to root lesbian history and culture, i feel like i learned so much, so much heritage, and beginning. though i’m not necessarily the target age audience of this book, there was such a sense of understanding and fascination at the roots of who i am in my generation.
i definitely appreciated some essays more than others. some, like the lesbian canon chapter, were laugh out loud hilarious, while others pained me to read the memoir-esque struggles jill has faced. this was an excellent collection of essays explaining to me and the world where our notions of lesbianism is rooted, and i’m so glad i had the opportunity to read this.
thank you netgalley and atria books for the advance readers copy of this book.
content warnings: d-slur, f-slur, homophobia, internalized homophobia, rape, references to misogyny and sexual coercion in media
yes this book was hilarious, and yes, a collection of essays on lesbianism is everything i could ask for. and yes, it was so fun. but honestly, it was so much deeper than that. though “pop culture” is not always valued as significant knowledge and such, i think gutowitz explained lesbian culture, and the nuances of it’s history, in such a way that wasn’t only fascinating and relatable, but also important? in such a new movement towards acceptance of queer people, there isn’t a lot of physical history of our existence over time. and so, jill gutowitz turns to the expression of our culture through entertainment, or, “celesbianism”.
reading this book is a teen reviewer, who was not even born for some of these moments in culture gutowitz referenced, was honestly such a harrowing experience. i am a queer teen, growing up in an era very different than the “aughts”, as referred to in this book. i didn’t grow up with these celebrities in the same way lesbians of the last generation did. though this considerably made my experience less relatable, the culture and movement described is so relevant to my own life. when jill dedicated an entire chapter to noting things, people, concepts as “lesbian canon” i laughed at the inside jokes included. when she talked about the freedom of at last being out and coming to terms with herself, i felt that so deep in me. the way jill gutowitz uses popular culture of the past several decades to root lesbian history and culture, i feel like i learned so much, so much heritage, and beginning. though i’m not necessarily the target age audience of this book, there was such a sense of understanding and fascination at the roots of who i am in my generation.
i definitely appreciated some essays more than others. some, like the lesbian canon chapter, were laugh out loud hilarious, while others pained me to read the memoir-esque struggles jill has faced. this was an excellent collection of essays explaining to me and the world where our notions of lesbianism is rooted, and i’m so glad i had the opportunity to read this.
thank you netgalley and atria books for the advance readers copy of this book.
content warnings: d-slur, f-slur, homophobia, internalized homophobia, rape, references to misogyny and sexual coercion in media
September 6, 2022
I was so excited to read this but came away just feeling “meh” about it. Memoirs and books of essays where people write about pop culture and how that impacted them growing up and their feelings about their own sexuality are my jam. However, this book just fell short for me.
There were some parts that I really related to, like watching Entourage as a teen and internalizing the message that it’s good to be “one of the guys” only to revisit it later and see how fucked up it truly was. Or watching The Skeleton Key at a young age and declaring that I didn’t like horror movies only to realize as an adult how much I really love the genre. I also appreciated her stories about becoming too infatuated with a best friend or her coming to grips with sexual assault and rape from a partner.
Jill Gutowitz spends a lot of time discussing how toxic Perez Hilton was in the 2000s and how his mission to out queer celebrities was super harmful. But then she goes on to write about how she spends so much time online writing articles for big websites analyzing Taylor Swift’s music to find queer elements and “evidence” of her dating Karlie Kloss. She rationalizes this by saying things to the effect of “people are more accepting now and I’m coming at this from a place of love and it’s not malicious,” but I’m not totally convinced by her argument. I think that essay needed more self-reflection from Jill.
Another issue that I had with the book was Jill’s writing style. It just felt like a very outdated Twitter/Tumblr voice and not necessarily something that is current. I’m basically the same age as her so it’s not like a generational difference or anything. But when you’re mimicking online style in a book it’s going to go out of fashion so quickly because of the longer turnaround time when writing and publishing a book as opposed to a tweet or an online article.
There were some parts that I really related to, like watching Entourage as a teen and internalizing the message that it’s good to be “one of the guys” only to revisit it later and see how fucked up it truly was. Or watching The Skeleton Key at a young age and declaring that I didn’t like horror movies only to realize as an adult how much I really love the genre. I also appreciated her stories about becoming too infatuated with a best friend or her coming to grips with sexual assault and rape from a partner.
Jill Gutowitz spends a lot of time discussing how toxic Perez Hilton was in the 2000s and how his mission to out queer celebrities was super harmful. But then she goes on to write about how she spends so much time online writing articles for big websites analyzing Taylor Swift’s music to find queer elements and “evidence” of her dating Karlie Kloss. She rationalizes this by saying things to the effect of “people are more accepting now and I’m coming at this from a place of love and it’s not malicious,” but I’m not totally convinced by her argument. I think that essay needed more self-reflection from Jill.
Another issue that I had with the book was Jill’s writing style. It just felt like a very outdated Twitter/Tumblr voice and not necessarily something that is current. I’m basically the same age as her so it’s not like a generational difference or anything. But when you’re mimicking online style in a book it’s going to go out of fashion so quickly because of the longer turnaround time when writing and publishing a book as opposed to a tweet or an online article.
July 29, 2022
if you were to take a cringe tweet from one of those internet millennials who is trying too hard to be “cool” and “hip” with the young people and extend it into 200 pages it would be this book
September 21, 2021
“Because women like Cate Blanchett, Regina King, Sandra Oh, and Gillian Anderson are not ‘MILFs’—they’re so much more than that. Maybe they’re more like a MILFEM—Mother I’d Like to Fucking End Me. Or maybe they are MILFs, if the acronym stood for ‘Mommy I’d Like to Fear.’”
yea… any book with a chapter titled “Step on me, Julianne Moore” is a book written for me. Cate Blanchett and her suits are mentioned pretty much at least once per chapter, a standard every other book should try to live up to. Thank you, Jill Gutowitz, queen of lesbian twitter, for this masterpiece.
yea… any book with a chapter titled “Step on me, Julianne Moore” is a book written for me. Cate Blanchett and her suits are mentioned pretty much at least once per chapter, a standard every other book should try to live up to. Thank you, Jill Gutowitz, queen of lesbian twitter, for this masterpiece.
June 15, 2022
3 stars
The first half of this was good. Comedic with the humor we find on our socials today. Relatable in the way growing up a cusper of the millennial x gen z would understand and find commonalities. The pop culture didn't bother me for once, as most of the time these types of mentions usually diminish a story. The second half dove a little deeper and had darker topics. Sadly, around this area was when it also started to drag and feel a little one-dimensional. I found things I loved and laughed about as well as things that just didn't hit for me. Overall an interesting read.
TW's: internalized homophobia, homophobia, sexual assault, sexuality speculation, fetishization, ableism, misogyny
The first half of this was good. Comedic with the humor we find on our socials today. Relatable in the way growing up a cusper of the millennial x gen z would understand and find commonalities. The pop culture didn't bother me for once, as most of the time these types of mentions usually diminish a story. The second half dove a little deeper and had darker topics. Sadly, around this area was when it also started to drag and feel a little one-dimensional. I found things I loved and laughed about as well as things that just didn't hit for me. Overall an interesting read.
TW's: internalized homophobia, homophobia, sexual assault, sexuality speculation, fetishization, ableism, misogyny
January 25, 2024
me, crying, laughing, sniffing, wailing, cackling, clapping, sobbing, cheering throughout the whole book: it was aight or whatever.
jill gutowitz, i dont want to come off too strong but i think we were meant to be best friends.
jill gutowitz, i dont want to come off too strong but i think we were meant to be best friends.
June 14, 2022
2.5 - 3 stars
CW: sexual assault, internalized homophobia
This book is more ✨vibes✨ than substance. At times charming and funny, and full of great millennial & queer pop culture references, this book was overall a fun read, and easy to consume. Some of the essays and references were hilarious to me, and made me feel really seen, but largely, I was struck over and over again how despite being so completely online, the author seems to very much live in a very specific bubble (of very white, very online lesbianism).
This book lacked any intersectionality - which can be hard to critique when essays are autobiographical (& the author is white, cis, and grew up middle class - with ups and downs). While the author documents some of her struggles, with her sexuality, with her father being laid off, and her experiences with anxiety, sexual assault, and toxic relationships - it was largely a shallow exploration of these themes (aside from one essay that heavily documents covid anxieties), and while the author doesn’t *owe* us a deeper dive into their life, and the traumas and experiences they’ve had — this, combined with largely surface level, and meme-ified engagement with pop culture, made this book (using the author’s own analogy of Hi-chew candy) easy to consume, but lacking any substance, and you can’t consume too much of it in one go, or you realize it’s not really satisifying you. The author also seemed to lack a lot of self awareness, and self criticism (ironic, since so much of the book relies on popular millennial humour and themes of self hatred and shame!!!) — I was pretty frustrated by her lack of critical engagement with the fact that she herself contributed so heavily to publicly speculating on celebrities and their sexuality. It’s *different* when she does it apparently (vs. Perez Hilton, who she so effectively critiques), but honestly, it feels just as malicious and really doubled down on her lack of self awareness and acknowledgment of… well, anything outside of her. She rarely discusses consequences or real life implications of anything, but I guess that’s not completely unexpected to me - because tbh, so many of the most prominent voices in queer culture are white, and they are also often missing the nuance and thoughtfulness that Gutowitz was missing. My bar is already pretty low for “internet famous” white queer folks (i’ve been disappointed time and time again) - so when they impress me, it’s REALLY impressive.
I want to be clear that I don’t find this book shallow and insubstantial because the author’s experiences are tied with explorations of pop culture, celebrities, and popular culture — that was the draw. I *love* 2000s movies & music, ✨yearning✨, and reading about messy celebs living their messy (& completely removed from real life) lives — this, combined with Jill’s humour, and the overt and explicit ✨queerness✨ of this book should have been a recipe for success for me, but unfortunately, it was a bit of a let down.
Perhaps, part of it was how incredibly *”nice” white lady* this book felt — but similar to how Jill talks about the ways she felt so disengaged by the shallowness of celebrities during Covid - I felt the same way about this book. The author makes a point to call out and critique misogyny and homophobia, but rarely deigns to mention race or privilege.
The cringe-y humour was fun at times, but really had its hits and misses. In the acknowledgments Jill mentions that the book came about after a literary agent messaged her on Twitter, and that makes sense, because this book (its writing and humour styles) read like a series of tweets. Which also leads the essays to feel like they don’t flow well together.
I’m also a very online person, so I really connected with some of the jokes and references, and even the ✨vibes✨ of the book, but unfortunately it really wasn’t for me.
CW: sexual assault, internalized homophobia
This book is more ✨vibes✨ than substance. At times charming and funny, and full of great millennial & queer pop culture references, this book was overall a fun read, and easy to consume. Some of the essays and references were hilarious to me, and made me feel really seen, but largely, I was struck over and over again how despite being so completely online, the author seems to very much live in a very specific bubble (of very white, very online lesbianism).
This book lacked any intersectionality - which can be hard to critique when essays are autobiographical (& the author is white, cis, and grew up middle class - with ups and downs). While the author documents some of her struggles, with her sexuality, with her father being laid off, and her experiences with anxiety, sexual assault, and toxic relationships - it was largely a shallow exploration of these themes (aside from one essay that heavily documents covid anxieties), and while the author doesn’t *owe* us a deeper dive into their life, and the traumas and experiences they’ve had — this, combined with largely surface level, and meme-ified engagement with pop culture, made this book (using the author’s own analogy of Hi-chew candy) easy to consume, but lacking any substance, and you can’t consume too much of it in one go, or you realize it’s not really satisifying you. The author also seemed to lack a lot of self awareness, and self criticism (ironic, since so much of the book relies on popular millennial humour and themes of self hatred and shame!!!) — I was pretty frustrated by her lack of critical engagement with the fact that she herself contributed so heavily to publicly speculating on celebrities and their sexuality. It’s *different* when she does it apparently (vs. Perez Hilton, who she so effectively critiques), but honestly, it feels just as malicious and really doubled down on her lack of self awareness and acknowledgment of… well, anything outside of her. She rarely discusses consequences or real life implications of anything, but I guess that’s not completely unexpected to me - because tbh, so many of the most prominent voices in queer culture are white, and they are also often missing the nuance and thoughtfulness that Gutowitz was missing. My bar is already pretty low for “internet famous” white queer folks (i’ve been disappointed time and time again) - so when they impress me, it’s REALLY impressive.
I want to be clear that I don’t find this book shallow and insubstantial because the author’s experiences are tied with explorations of pop culture, celebrities, and popular culture — that was the draw. I *love* 2000s movies & music, ✨yearning✨, and reading about messy celebs living their messy (& completely removed from real life) lives — this, combined with Jill’s humour, and the overt and explicit ✨queerness✨ of this book should have been a recipe for success for me, but unfortunately, it was a bit of a let down.
Perhaps, part of it was how incredibly *”nice” white lady* this book felt — but similar to how Jill talks about the ways she felt so disengaged by the shallowness of celebrities during Covid - I felt the same way about this book. The author makes a point to call out and critique misogyny and homophobia, but rarely deigns to mention race or privilege.
The cringe-y humour was fun at times, but really had its hits and misses. In the acknowledgments Jill mentions that the book came about after a literary agent messaged her on Twitter, and that makes sense, because this book (its writing and humour styles) read like a series of tweets. Which also leads the essays to feel like they don’t flow well together.
I’m also a very online person, so I really connected with some of the jokes and references, and even the ✨vibes✨ of the book, but unfortunately it really wasn’t for me.
May 3, 2022
a bit of a hit or miss, i think. i related a lot to the author's reflections on coming to terms with being a lesbian, and enjoyed the discussions on celebrity culture and its links to queer communities, but some parts just dragged on and overall, this book just felt so... white? idk. and the countless harry potter references were so unnecessary and random and millennial
January 27, 2023
1.75 / 5 stars
So, um. As you can see from my rating, this was not good very much not for me. The one thing that saved it for me is the writing was okay sometimes. It very much felt like kept-in-the-drafts tweets. But then she would throw in shit like "*in alien voice*". Unironically. In a book. And this isn't even the only example of unnecessary, millennial-desparately-trying-to-stay-relevant type of way. Like this is the shitty sort of writing that gives fanfics a bad rep.
My other ick from the writing was the random and, again, unnecessary capitals (ex. "Kissing in College"). Like I get it. I do it, too. But really? Right now? In this economy??
And if you thought I was done criticizing the writing, you were wrong (last one, I swear). She uses a lot of disability-coded language to be...I don't know, quirky, or something? I guess this is less of a critique of this book and more a critique of nondisabled people in general : don't use language you don't fully understand nor have a right to. What bothered me most was interchangeably using obsessions and compulsion. Which, surprise, are different. I know this is about 2000s culture, or whatever, and saying 'omg i'm so ocd' was big back then, but like, c'mon, haven't we realized that's ableist and invalidating yet? Or at least, if we haven't realized this, maybe don't talk about thing you don't understand in your published-ass book.
Onto the shit I'm more annoyed at.
This is one dimensional as hell. So much so that it's pretty much a memoir, and between essays, she suddenly forgets she already wrote the same essay and gave us the same context. As a book marketed to the queer community at large, it's certainly exclusive in who it lets in. It's really only for white cis lesbians. Which, is fine I guess. But, like, isn't the point of community bringing together people with a commonality but are all still different? Oh, no? Damn, you learn something new everyday.
Blatant hypocrisy, homophobia has ended! I missed the memo, I guess. Actually, I think most of us missed the memo. But yes, homophobia ended the second 2010 started and girlie started realizing she was a lesbian.
To quote a key millennial phrase, "So...that just happened"
Genuinely, the worst thing in this book is the bi/pan erasure and inherent transphobia that came into play the second she called nonbinary and genderfluid queer people women. No. I fucking can't with cis queers being transphobic. You wanna be a part of the LGB T Q+ community, you're gonna use the right fucking pronouns. It's really not that hard.
This pissed me off, and as a queer very-not-cis person, it genuinely hurt my feelings.
So, um. As you can see from my rating, this was not good very much not for me. The one thing that saved it for me is the writing was okay sometimes. It very much felt like kept-in-the-drafts tweets. But then she would throw in shit like "*in alien voice*". Unironically. In a book. And this isn't even the only example of unnecessary, millennial-desparately-trying-to-stay-relevant type of way. Like this is the shitty sort of writing that gives fanfics a bad rep.
My other ick from the writing was the random and, again, unnecessary capitals (ex. "Kissing in College"). Like I get it. I do it, too. But really? Right now? In this economy??
And if you thought I was done criticizing the writing, you were wrong (last one, I swear). She uses a lot of disability-coded language to be...I don't know, quirky, or something? I guess this is less of a critique of this book and more a critique of nondisabled people in general : don't use language you don't fully understand nor have a right to. What bothered me most was interchangeably using obsessions and compulsion. Which, surprise, are different. I know this is about 2000s culture, or whatever, and saying 'omg i'm so ocd' was big back then, but like, c'mon, haven't we realized that's ableist and invalidating yet? Or at least, if we haven't realized this, maybe don't talk about thing you don't understand in your published-ass book.
Onto the shit I'm more annoyed at.
This is one dimensional as hell. So much so that it's pretty much a memoir, and between essays, she suddenly forgets she already wrote the same essay and gave us the same context. As a book marketed to the queer community at large, it's certainly exclusive in who it lets in. It's really only for white cis lesbians. Which, is fine I guess. But, like, isn't the point of community bringing together people with a commonality but are all still different? Oh, no? Damn, you learn something new everyday.
Blatant hypocrisy, homophobia has ended! I missed the memo, I guess. Actually, I think most of us missed the memo. But yes, homophobia ended the second 2010 started and girlie started realizing she was a lesbian.
To quote a key millennial phrase, "So...that just happened"
Genuinely, the worst thing in this book is the bi/pan erasure and inherent transphobia that came into play the second she called nonbinary and genderfluid queer people women. No. I fucking can't with cis queers being transphobic. You wanna be a part of the LGB T Q+ community, you're gonna use the right fucking pronouns. It's really not that hard.
This pissed me off, and as a queer very-not-cis person, it genuinely hurt my feelings.
dropped
June 18, 2022this is like lesbianism watered down for your favorite twitter feminist woke bi girl in a het relationship. im homophobic now thank you dnf @ 6%
December 22, 2024
The world has historically said I should not be this, yet here I am, this, and I'm great.
This delivers exactly what promises, fun, sapphic essays, with LOTS of Taylor Swift.
3.5
This delivers exactly what promises, fun, sapphic essays, with LOTS of Taylor Swift.
3.5
dnfed
October 5, 2023DNF at 60%. There are some moments of pretty solid insight and a handful of quotable lines in there but there's also a lot of rather banal takes and fluff and I found myself putting it down every few pages. Also, there's nothing more boring to me than a member of the LGBTQ community clinging with the energy of despair to making Harry Potter references so that didn't help my interest level here.
No rating.
No rating.
January 3, 2023
i really enjoyed this because i am also someone who 1. likes girls 2. is chronically online 3. obsesses over celebrities lives!
dnf
November 14, 2023had to put down about 10 pages in when the author referred to Lucy the first human ancestor as an “undeniable queer icon”
January 2, 2023
the first issue i take with this book is that it screams shitty buzzfeed article that makes me want to take an ice pick to my skull. the second is that jill is the epitome of white feminism and coins herself the “overlord of lesbian twitter” and has “lodged herself in the heart of gay media” despite never acknowledging actual queer figureheads and trailblazers. not a single chapter was dedicated to lesbian history and not once did she acknowledge that the queer community’s progress was due to bipoc and trans people. no she is simply a rich white woman who watched orange is the new black a few times and thinks that qualifies her to speak on all of queer history and queer experiences. she joked that the golden gate bridge is a queer figurehead, but didn’t mention marsha p johnson, audre lorde, sylvia rivera, or james baldwin once? are you fucking kidding me?
jill’s shitty humor and perspectives aside, the writing just isn’t good. i swear to god she put the word “aughts” on every single page like just find a new word? it was more of a poorly written tweet than a coherent book.
if this is the lesbian experience (spoiler alert: it’s not) then i simply don’t want it. i vehemently reject that, thank you very much.
jill’s shitty humor and perspectives aside, the writing just isn’t good. i swear to god she put the word “aughts” on every single page like just find a new word? it was more of a poorly written tweet than a coherent book.
if this is the lesbian experience (spoiler alert: it’s not) then i simply don’t want it. i vehemently reject that, thank you very much.
January 15, 2023
Lacked nuance, intersectionality, research, media literacy, and an acknowledgement of the activist history of the queer community. Would have been more successful as an introspective, personal memoir instead of a hodgepodge of parasocial obsessions and blog entries written by your stereotypical LA transplant/ that one girl from high school you hope doesn’t recognize you in the grocery store as an adult.
August 20, 2022
3.5
Not a great fit for me but still entertaining
I guess I relate more to the Jo - Facts of Life (reruns) and Leanna Creel Parent Trap 3 time.
Author did a great job with the narration.
Not a great fit for me but still entertaining
I guess I relate more to the Jo - Facts of Life (reruns) and Leanna Creel Parent Trap 3 time.
Author did a great job with the narration.
February 21, 2023
I want to preface this by saying that I enjoyed most of the first half of the book because I listened to it on audio and it was fun to have around in the background while I did my chores. The writing would’ve probably bothered me a lot more if I was tackling the physical version.
Unless you’re a cis white femme who got to grow up in either the US or UK, this book is going to feel lackluster to you. The author still benefited from most of her identities and didn’t have a lot of genuine self-awareness about it. For someone who criticized Perez Hilton’s content, she speculated a lot about the queerness of celebrities and that felt contradictory. She also refers to publicly out bisexual or pansexual women as lesbians.. which was just unnecessary. I think the book would’ve flowed a lot better if she didn’t have the tone of someone who thinks their experiences are universal amongst queer people. Her almost too-sweet and over the top inclusivity felt reductive. Also, jeez, pay editors better because this desperately needed some better editing.
Unless you’re a cis white femme who got to grow up in either the US or UK, this book is going to feel lackluster to you. The author still benefited from most of her identities and didn’t have a lot of genuine self-awareness about it. For someone who criticized Perez Hilton’s content, she speculated a lot about the queerness of celebrities and that felt contradictory. She also refers to publicly out bisexual or pansexual women as lesbians.. which was just unnecessary. I think the book would’ve flowed a lot better if she didn’t have the tone of someone who thinks their experiences are universal amongst queer people. Her almost too-sweet and over the top inclusivity felt reductive. Also, jeez, pay editors better because this desperately needed some better editing.
January 29, 2023
pov you’re 13 and you’re realizing you’re gay but you’re definitely not ready to unpack that so instead you spend hours on tumblr in the glee tag every night only to immediately delete your history once you’re finished scrolling.
this book is for the girlies who were chronically online in their youth. it is so funny and packed with references to pop culture moments I was well aware of (cara delevingne and ashley benson getting papped with a type of swing) and ones I’d never heard of (cara delevingne and selena gomez getting papped showering together?? WHAT??). it feels like a required reading for young queer girls. it also feels like a dissection of celebrity culture. celebrity culture is gross! and yet we all can’t seem to look away.
ultimately this book is at its best when Jill gets personal. we’re just a collection of our experiences and how we grow and heal from them. I had a great time reading this book and dissecting it chapter by chapter. 13 year old me has never felt more seen.
this book is for the girlies who were chronically online in their youth. it is so funny and packed with references to pop culture moments I was well aware of (cara delevingne and ashley benson getting papped with a type of swing) and ones I’d never heard of (cara delevingne and selena gomez getting papped showering together?? WHAT??). it feels like a required reading for young queer girls. it also feels like a dissection of celebrity culture. celebrity culture is gross! and yet we all can’t seem to look away.
ultimately this book is at its best when Jill gets personal. we’re just a collection of our experiences and how we grow and heal from them. I had a great time reading this book and dissecting it chapter by chapter. 13 year old me has never felt more seen.
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