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skyturtles's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault and Sexual violence
Moderate: Emotional abuse
butlerebecca's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault and Sexual violence
Moderate: Homophobia
erineloise's review
4.25
A fun, light read that made for a perfect audiobook listen! I loved the nostalgic 2000s and 2010s pop culture references and musings on realising you're queer after everyone else seems to have decided for you.
I would say it's more a collection of personal blogs than essays, but my favourite was probably the story about the FBI turning up at her apartment which was genuinely laugh-out-loud funny.
It didn't change my brain chemistry or anything but not every book has to!
I would say it's more a collection of personal blogs than essays, but my favourite was probably the story about the FBI turning up at her apartment which was genuinely laugh-out-loud funny.
It didn't change my brain chemistry or anything but not every book has to!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
Minor: Homophobia
xenia_li's review
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Rape, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, and Lesbophobia
Moderate: Misogyny and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Outing and Toxic friendship
joensign's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
1.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, and Outing
Moderate: Rape, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic
catch__up's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Bullying, Homophobia, Transphobia, Lesbophobia, Dysphoria, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, Hate crime, Mental illness, Racism, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Grief, Religious bigotry, Alcohol, and Classism
siebensommer's review against another edition
funny
reflective
3.0
i knew that i could never truly be seen by these boys, be respected by these boys, if they didn’t also want me. that was the power i needed to maintain over them.
some fun content and one gut wrenching chapter that comes without a warning in the middle of content about pop culture.
didn’t follow jg before and can only say - high key good for her!!
didn’t love that it felt like the essays didn’t really belong together in one book but were written as single works - meaning i got an explanation of how she met her friend three separate times e.g.
also still find it messed up to be ‘speculating’ abt a celebrity’s sexuality and posting theories as ‘proof’ that that celeb is lying about their personal life and to actually be thinking you are doing an okay thing. the reasoning that TS would greatly profit from coming out is a) not the point and b) maybe not true since she does still have loaaads of hyperchristian fans there and also does more than anything profit from heteronormativity in her fandom
not saying that i wouldn’t 100% love if she came out as a bi queen, just saying that making someone else’s sexuality your business and thinking you’re not as problematic as others who do that… think again pls
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Outing
lilbuthod's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence
stevia333k's review against another edition
1-1.25 stars (lack of quotes are due to using an audiobook instead of a print book, but basically chapter 3 is where she all out snitches on herself)
I first want to say that there's only 1 other chapter/essay in this anthology that I'm interested in finishing & that's the "step on me" one I haven't started yet. Anyways, i'm not that inclined to rush to that right now, but I wanted to at least acknowledge it.
2ndly I want to acknowledge the book isn't written in comedy, it's written in a different sociolect without the code switching to more academic sociolect.
Basically this is technically an autotheory book. Here are some examples of some better ones,
I first want to say that there's only 1 other chapter/essay in this anthology that I'm interested in finishing & that's the "step on me" one I haven't started yet. Anyways, i'm not that inclined to rush to that right now, but I wanted to at least acknowledge it.
2ndly I want to acknowledge the book isn't written in comedy, it's written in a different sociolect without the code switching to more academic sociolect.
Basically this is technically an autotheory book. Here are some examples of some better ones,
- Zeba Blay's Carefree Black Girls: A Celebration of Black Women in Pop Culture
- Emma Dabiri's Twisted: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture
- Emma Dabiri's Twisted: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture
- Heather Radke's Butts: A Backstory
I was willing to give Jill Gutowitz's book a chance because even though I figured it was going to be very white, I also was hoping that it'd be more of a people's history thing given the internet history & the subcultural sociolect.
but this book comes from a self-described "professional gaylor hired by Vulture" "the q of q-anon for taylor swift fans 10 years after [the george w bush era-typical homophobia]".
The author was willing to give name drops, but excluded historical information such as deep canvassing from 2008-2015 & how celebrities are underrepresented in terms of their lgbtqia+ populations suggesting that there are still more closeted people in the famous population than in the general population, when posing this quote..
[about how taylor swift is exceptional]
saying taylor swift's fans would back her up is free-marketist AKA neoliberal logic that is denialist of not only state/institutional/street/domestic violence being a problem, but then also argues for a trickle-down theory of liberation. this denies how advertisers & ratings boards are anti-trans, anti-intersex, anti-queer, as part of the dictatorship of the racial capitalist patriarchy. this book was published in march 2022 so i'll extend some grace, but considering how the ACLU has a donor campaign to buy & distribute books that are being banned in Florida, how white supremacists are getting entrire libraries removed from communities, this is the kind of things that make this book a shit show.
however, i don't think considering her discussion of taylor swift that she understands gay-for-pay, even though she seems to understand WLM-for-pay when it comes to like Lindsay Lohan & socially enforced sexuality. the point being is that read-people-fic & specifically gaylor -- which to be fair has historical precedents such as conservative/fascist white supremacists speculating that shakespeare was straight & exceptionally "normal" in contrast to gay & or bi+ -- uses great man historiography.
[insert about is it the celebrities that soften the culture, or is it the culture that softens the celebrities, jill gutowitz then saying she sides with the celebrities soften the culture.]
She explicity sides explicitly sides with that historiography when it is a factually wrong position. basically she's looking for work/employment & trying to save her own ass by putting out a book that presumably teaches current day teenagers about george w bush era-typical homophobia. (so think about say white women teacher's power in the context of the school-to-prison-pipeline? that's the play she's making for.)
since jill gutowitz explicitly said this, i think she's trying to be hired by higher-up orgs (IDK pragerU? -- whoever is white & capitalist antisemitic, yet hires lgbtqia+ people) to develop propaganda for them. basically since this is an autotheory book & she's explicitly supporting/siding with great man historiography, then she is trying to develop enough of a personality cult to where she can have a less public-facing job.
these last 3 paragraphs are in response to the bookclub i went to, but when i speak in generic role statements, the policy is that if the role description fits, then voila.
as for people who object to the sociolect &
- the lack of code-switching (it's not comedy, it's a subcultural sociolect!)
- where they don't understand the point of at'ing a bunch of people (to try to drum up replies to her work to then have something else to publish & hopefully make money on)
- & don't know the pop culture references (which if I'm reading a book about somewhere i've never been, i use google or something since the fascists haven't taken it away yet!)
i despise the fact that the rating scale is shared by y'all chauvinists means you're trying to attack me too while i'm trying to prevent a personality cult from forming. like fuck you for your lack of tact because you'd prefer to talk in a way that appeases racial capitalist patriarchy (such as ageism, linguistic elitism, etc). -- jill gutowitz literally name-dropped "harry potter" in 2022 to use a blood libel canard against perez hilton, but instead you'd rather tone police her because you can't be bothered to google celebrities (which you should already be doing when you're reading a book in order to understand where in the conversation the book you're reading fits!) -- if y'all had, then you could've found out the names of sexual harassers to basically block & boycott from. she's literally a gossip writer. even if the list would've been rudimentary, sometimes you miss out. y'all chauvinists openly said you can't be bothered researching to protect your communities.
seriously, conflating the community who uses the same sociolect that jill gutowitz writes in with your criticisms of jill gutowitz is what jill gutowitz is banking on for career advancement. fuck you for giving her capital like that.
TLDR: she's a white supremacist careerist "feminist" weaponizing white tears, who would probably take a job as a school teacher criminalizing marginalized kids in the school-to-prison pipeline if they challenged her pedagogy/authority.
The author was willing to give name drops, but excluded historical information such as deep canvassing from 2008-2015 & how celebrities are underrepresented in terms of their lgbtqia+ populations suggesting that there are still more closeted people in the famous population than in the general population, when posing this quote..
[about how taylor swift is exceptional]
saying taylor swift's fans would back her up is free-marketist AKA neoliberal logic that is denialist of not only state/institutional/street/domestic violence being a problem, but then also argues for a trickle-down theory of liberation. this denies how advertisers & ratings boards are anti-trans, anti-intersex, anti-queer, as part of the dictatorship of the racial capitalist patriarchy. this book was published in march 2022 so i'll extend some grace, but considering how the ACLU has a donor campaign to buy & distribute books that are being banned in Florida, how white supremacists are getting entrire libraries removed from communities, this is the kind of things that make this book a shit show.
however, i don't think considering her discussion of taylor swift that she understands gay-for-pay, even though she seems to understand WLM-for-pay when it comes to like Lindsay Lohan & socially enforced sexuality. the point being is that read-people-fic & specifically gaylor -- which to be fair has historical precedents such as conservative/fascist white supremacists speculating that shakespeare was straight & exceptionally "normal" in contrast to gay & or bi+ -- uses great man historiography.
[insert about is it the celebrities that soften the culture, or is it the culture that softens the celebrities, jill gutowitz then saying she sides with the celebrities soften the culture.]
She explicity sides explicitly sides with that historiography when it is a factually wrong position. basically she's looking for work/employment & trying to save her own ass by putting out a book that presumably teaches current day teenagers about george w bush era-typical homophobia. (so think about say white women teacher's power in the context of the school-to-prison-pipeline? that's the play she's making for.)
since jill gutowitz explicitly said this, i think she's trying to be hired by higher-up orgs (IDK pragerU? -- whoever is white & capitalist antisemitic, yet hires lgbtqia+ people) to develop propaganda for them. basically since this is an autotheory book & she's explicitly supporting/siding with great man historiography, then she is trying to develop enough of a personality cult to where she can have a less public-facing job.
these last 3 paragraphs are in response to the bookclub i went to, but when i speak in generic role statements, the policy is that if the role description fits, then voila.
as for people who object to the sociolect &
- the lack of code-switching (it's not comedy, it's a subcultural sociolect!)
- where they don't understand the point of at'ing a bunch of people (to try to drum up replies to her work to then have something else to publish & hopefully make money on)
- & don't know the pop culture references (which if I'm reading a book about somewhere i've never been, i use google or something since the fascists haven't taken it away yet!)
i despise the fact that the rating scale is shared by y'all chauvinists means you're trying to attack me too while i'm trying to prevent a personality cult from forming. like fuck you for your lack of tact because you'd prefer to talk in a way that appeases racial capitalist patriarchy (such as ageism, linguistic elitism, etc). -- jill gutowitz literally name-dropped "harry potter" in 2022 to use a blood libel canard against perez hilton, but instead you'd rather tone police her because you can't be bothered to google celebrities (which you should already be doing when you're reading a book in order to understand where in the conversation the book you're reading fits!) -- if y'all had, then you could've found out the names of sexual harassers to basically block & boycott from. she's literally a gossip writer. even if the list would've been rudimentary, sometimes you miss out. y'all chauvinists openly said you can't be bothered researching to protect your communities.
seriously, conflating the community who uses the same sociolect that jill gutowitz writes in with your criticisms of jill gutowitz is what jill gutowitz is banking on for career advancement. fuck you for giving her capital like that.
TLDR: she's a white supremacist careerist "feminist" weaponizing white tears, who would probably take a job as a school teacher criminalizing marginalized kids in the school-to-prison pipeline if they challenged her pedagogy/authority.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Homophobia, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Lesbophobia, Outing, Sexual harassment, and Pandemic/Epidemic
carmentxx's review
challenging
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
2.0
i have to say, it was quite disappointing. i didn't really like it. it's one thing to be ground breaking in your existence as lesbian non fiction, but quite a different thing to actually say anything ground breaking, and unfortunately, this book just doesn't have it. the writing style is quite strange- it's a millennial trying to appeal to a gen z audience, and it doesn't work. it just ends up being quite cringey and bizarre. i was quite looking forward to reading this book as perhaps an eye opener into lesbian culture, and while i did learn some things, it was really quite a slog to get through.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Rape, and Sexual violence
there is a whole description of multiple rapes which come out of nowhere