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A review by cheriepie
Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest To Hunt Down The Last Remaining Lesbian Bars In America by Krista Burton
lighthearted
medium-paced
2.5
This is the second time this year that I've read a book purportedly informative about wlw culture that ends up being a mediocre memoir written in a horrifically Buzzfeed-y cadence. I went into this expecting some history or interviews with lesbian bar patrons and owners and instead got the author's blog. If this were advertised as a memoir-travelogue I wouldn't have picked it up. I eventually stopped reading the sections that were not explicitly about the bars. The ultimate questions (why are there less lesbian bars and why are they disappearing) do not get answered in any definitive way.
The author is also weirdly judgy about the people she meets in the bars. She goes on a tangent about "pin gays" (queer people who collect enamel pins and put them on their bags), categorizes everyone as "babyqueer" or "elder queer" as if this means anything, and ends the epilogue with "I'll be the girl in the dress in a sea of flannel," which (and perhaps I'm a tad sensitive) reads as very judgmental of other, less femme lesbians.
I appreciate what it tried to do, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
Also how are you going to talk about Hen's and not bring up how gentrified it got. Come on now.
The author is also weirdly judgy about the people she meets in the bars. She goes on a tangent about "pin gays" (queer people who collect enamel pins and put them on their bags), categorizes everyone as "babyqueer" or "elder queer" as if this means anything, and ends the epilogue with "I'll be the girl in the dress in a sea of flannel," which (and perhaps I'm a tad sensitive) reads as very judgmental of other, less femme lesbians.
I appreciate what it tried to do, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
Also how are you going to talk about Hen's and not bring up how gentrified it got. Come on now.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia