Thanks to NetGalley and Vintage for an ARC of this title.

Like most essay collections, there are going to be some you love and some you hate, but Rax's voice is super funny and her devotion to analyzing things through the lens of the pop culture we consider "tacky" made for a compelling throughline in these essays.

A collection of essays and explore the topic of what defines tacky in American culture. I absolutely enjoyed this book. There were quotes in it that I literally want to share with other people to discuss. Highly recommend!

Originally, I thought Tacky would be a psychological or nostalgic look into millennial pop culture of the 2000s. While that culture is described here, it is used solely as a backdrop to the author’s personal memoir. The book also emphasizes sex and bad relationships that may be inappropriate for young teens or anyone with triggers.

As with any collection, some essays are better than others. I found The Sims essay particularly resonant. I played the game too. However, I never felt the need to put my enemy in a locked room to watch her slowly starve to death. And I thought the game was boring, tsk tsk. I may be playing some revenge Sims myself soon.

Tacky is probably best for millennial readers. However, I enjoyed it too because my daughter was a teenager at the time. May the fates forgive me, I even bought a Creed CD (though I never admit it now just as the author predicted). If you remember the aughts fondly, grab a copy of this book. 3 stars.

Thanks to Vintage Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

A really enjoyable read. Funny and entertaining discussion of "tacky" things that are beloved by many. I hadn't heard of Rax King before, but I will continue to follow her work!

I was not sure what to expect from this book given the description and mixed reviews, so I did my best to keep an open mind and just take it at “face value”. Musings on miscellaneous pieces of pop culture from the late nineties and early two thousand would be my short summary of this book. The first half was well written, if a little long winded and meandering, but starting with the lengthy chapter about Sex and the City it went downhill, fast, and I almost didn’t finish it. The book became a treatise on the author’s sex life. A memoir of sexual exploits wrapped around some cultural references that were important to her at the time. Tacky, yes, but definitely an interesting method of writing a memoir.

Readers millage from this book is probably going to depend quite a bit on their age and their pop culture engagement. For this, it really hit the sweet spot. King and I seem to have grown up with a lot of the same TV shows and other media, so I loved reading her own personal (and hilarious) thoughts on them all. Stop feeling guilty about "guilty pleasures" and revel in the joy of low-brow art.

This collection was too all over the place for me. Some essays were great (particularly the one about the author and her father enjoying Jersey Shore) but the majority of the essays were lackluster and incohesive.

Tacky drew me in from the cover to the first essay and on.Well written fun thoughtful .an author with a with a clear distinct voice .Will be recommending.#netgalley #tacky

While this has some enjoyable moments and I generally enjoyed the author's funny, irreverent style, unfortunately this wasn't what I hoped and wanted it to be. I was excited for a discussion of various pop-cultural phenomena, but this read much more like a personal memoir.

It's not that the author's stories wren't readable, and there is a good, impassioned defense of tackiness in general (a concept I've always found fraught with snobbishness and privilege), but I was left missing more factual and contextual information about why things like Hot Topic and Cheesecake Factory came to be and what their existence reflects about us as a culture. That would have been a fascinating read.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

Thank you to Vintage and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Tacky by Rax King is an ode to all things, well, tacky. She covers Creed, Degrassi, Jersey Shore, Cheesecake Factory, and so much more in this book, and in doing so, she relates these back to her own experiences. This is a cross between culture writing and memoir, and it really worked for me. I am only a few years younger than King, and so a lot of the topics she covers are things I've also seen/experienced in its heyday. The Jersey Shore phenomenon was definitely happening while I was in college!

I've been on a roll with memoirs and culture essays (just finished Greedy and am currently also reading The 2000s Made Me Gay), and this one stands on its own as an interesting view of how things we file away as "tacky" and don't think too hard about how it can mean so much to others. There's no reason to belittle work that seems cheap, tacky, or crude just because it doesn't appeal to you (or me!).

I found King's insights really interesting, and I'd love to see more of her work.

I picked this up from Net Galley based on the description. Then, when I read it, I realized I was, like many other folks, duped. The Goodreads description is much more accurate. I am sure there are many folks for whom this collection of essays rings true and is hilarious. I am too old for most of these to work for me. The book isn’t bad per say, it just isn’t anything to me. I really did try and I wanted to like it, but I was left feeing nothing much and so, I am not going to rate it at all. I don’t want to artificially lower the rating, but I don’t want to pretend I liked it either. I also don’t think that the title accurate. It will get people to buy it for sure, but it is misleading a bit.

In terms of books encapsulating the high/low of modern culture, there've been a lot...but nothing this the emotional, coursing vein quite like Rax King's. Seriously, just stop whatever you're doing and read this, immediately.

I'm another who mistook this book for something that it isn't I was looking forward to an amusing look at pop culture and kitsch (like Jane and Michael Stern used to write) and this was far more of a memoir. While some essays were more engaging for me than others, I can't say that I really found any of them to be relational to me in the way that a memoir of this kind needs to be in order to be truly enjoyable. I was born in 1960 and I'm just too darned old.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy for my review.

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I enjoyed the first few stories immensely, King has a tone of voice and way of writing that is completely her own. Although others have done this candid, in your face relatable type of autobiographical writing, King holds absolutely nothing back (apart from the bits she isn't legally allowed to say). It is an interesting concept of mixing pop culture with bare reality as King has in this book and readers will find a lot of references to things of their childhood, teenage and young adult years too, not only in the references to tv, music and games but also sharing in Rax's experiences. It was interesting to hear a woman talk about her own sexuality so candidly, not only in terms of preference but experience too, without having to feel ashamed. Although King talks about experiences she regrets, she does not slut shame which would be easy to do for some in this situation, although less easy I suppose as it is autobiographical. The first half of this anthology was thoroughly enjoyable however I did become a little tired of it by the end, the explorations of pop culture would go on for way to long sometimes going into unnecessary detail or becoming repetitive when what we really want to hear about is her experience that she is relating to that.

Anyone who grew up in the late 90s/early 2000s and found themselves drawn to so-called lowbrow things in pop culture will feel at home among Rax King's essays. Jersey Shore, Bath & Body Works, Guy Fieri, and the band Creed are just some of the topics King tackles, but it's more than just an ode to Warm Vanilla Sugar body spray. She finds a way to weave these bits of nostalgia into stories about her late father, divorce, sexuality, etc. This is a winning combination of memoir and cultural critique.

Thank you to the publisher for providing an advance copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for the opportunity to review “Tacky” by Rax King. I had never heard of King before the publication of this collection, though clearly I’m in the minority. I enjoyed the bulk of of this collection, though I do recognize it depends a bit on my current mood. It is clever, certainly, and when I’m ready for this type of commentary it certainly hits the spot. Will recommend selectively to those I believe will enjoy it most.

The essays in this book remind me of the best bar conversations I ever had in my twenties. The kinds of conversations that start small and end up showing out the moments of your life that resonate through the lens of corny celebrities and tacky aesthetics.

I lost interest in this book while reading and decided it was not worth my time to keep reading it. I apologize for wasting a digital galley copy of it.

This was an entertaining collection of personal essays, which are more about the author's relationship to low culture and what various shows, music and media signified in her life, than the actual artifacts themselves. I found them compelling and humorous but a lot hinges on your tolerance for her explicit sexual escapades and tendency towards neurosis.

An incredible ode to pop culture, coming of age, and loving the things that bring you joy. King explores deftly and irreverently topics ranging from shopping at Hot Topic, frosted lip gloss, and what it means to be “tacky.” This was one of my most anticipated new releases of the year, and it definitely lived up to the hype.