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the_broadway_slasher's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Wow, Gay Bar is unlike any book I’ve ever read and I absolutely loved it. It’s a fantastic dissection of Queer bars that’s also part personal memoir. It’s hypnotizing, addicting and full of incredible tidbits of knowledge I never knew before. More importantly, it’s full of powerful insights about what it means to be queer and what the gay bar means, both in plain terms and as a beacon of identity.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use, Sexual content, and Alcohol
notthatcosta's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Even though I am what Jeremy Atherton Lin describes as a 'cozy queer', I deeply appreciate his careful and thoughtful archiving of queer history through nightlife, adding to the canon from the likes of Alim Kheraj and Dan Glass.
As someone with a lot of interest in London's history and very little interest in America, I naturally gravitated more towards the chapters that focused on London nightlife.
While some sections felt a bit 'okay boomer but make it queer', I enjoyed the overall POV of the book, especially the elements that pondered the purpose of queer nightlife spaces and the complex relationship between gentrification and queerness both in the UK and the US.
As someone with a lot of interest in London's history and very little interest in America, I naturally gravitated more towards the chapters that focused on London nightlife.
While some sections felt a bit 'okay boomer but make it queer', I enjoyed the overall POV of the book, especially the elements that pondered the purpose of queer nightlife spaces and the complex relationship between gentrification and queerness both in the UK and the US.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use, Homophobia, and Sexual content
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Alcoholism, Death, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Police brutality, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
jazhandz's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
I have an admittedly bad habit of reading reviews before I read a book. As such I was surprised by how many reviews for Gay Bar were unhappy with the mixture of memoir and broader history. I am not a gay man but I identify as queer, and this book captures the essential connectedness of gayness. The bars he describes are snapshots of gay culture, and his experience is at once individual and intensely relatable. You can’t talk about the history of gay bars without talking about the people who go to them. You can’t talk about gay bars without talking about gay history. Sure, I would have preferred a different balance of the three, but you need all three.
As a whole I thought this book was lovely and honest and thoughtful, and full of so much love for the subject. Some parts of it resonates, other parts didn’t, and the author’s penchant for dropping in six-syllable words was a little annoying. But as a whole I hugely enjoyed reading this.
As a whole I thought this book was lovely and honest and thoughtful, and full of so much love for the subject. Some parts of it resonates, other parts didn’t, and the author’s penchant for dropping in six-syllable words was a little annoying. But as a whole I hugely enjoyed reading this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime and Sexual content
Moderate: Drug use, Homophobia, Racism, and Alcohol
Minor: Islamophobia