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A review by luckyonesoph
Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest To Hunt Down The Last Remaining Lesbian Bars In America by Krista Burton
slow-paced
1.5
I had such high hopes for this, but I was so disappointed.
I immediately fell in love with the concept of this book, and the introduction chapter introduces some really interesting questions about the changing landscape of queer spaces, about how queer people are perceived by other queers, and about how welcoming (or not) queer spaces can be depending on identity expression. Unfortunately, I think the author was trying too hard to do too many things at once. She tried to combine her memoir with a travelogue with an academic-ish study of queer spaces, and the end result is just a poorly executed version of all three. Any attempt at analysis was extremely surface level, to the point that the author seemed ignorant at best, prejudiced at worst. And, i found that a lot of discussion surrounding queer culture was so broad that certain practices/elements were incorrectly presented as immutable fact, rather than given the nuance they deserved. Writing a book that is supposedly about queer culture and lesbian spaces at a community level, and then making it mostly about yourself and your experiences and your understandings, is not an effective way to connect with your audience.
I immediately fell in love with the concept of this book, and the introduction chapter introduces some really interesting questions about the changing landscape of queer spaces, about how queer people are perceived by other queers, and about how welcoming (or not) queer spaces can be depending on identity expression. Unfortunately, I think the author was trying too hard to do too many things at once. She tried to combine her memoir with a travelogue with an academic-ish study of queer spaces, and the end result is just a poorly executed version of all three. Any attempt at analysis was extremely surface level, to the point that the author seemed ignorant at best, prejudiced at worst. And, i found that a lot of discussion surrounding queer culture was so broad that certain practices/elements were incorrectly presented as immutable fact, rather than given the nuance they deserved. Writing a book that is supposedly about queer culture and lesbian spaces at a community level, and then making it mostly about yourself and your experiences and your understandings, is not an effective way to connect with your audience.