One of those books that will *really* speak to a specific demographic (in this case, a queer woman born around 1990.) Lots and lots of pop culture references. I liked some chapters a lot, some chapters really dragged on.

Overall, just okay for me! 2.5 rounded up to 3.

The intersection of pop culture and queerness is truly the sweet spot for a relatable + engaging essay collection.

I'm not really a non-fiction gal - but I was into this.

The tone is very conversational. Jill categorizes herself as 'severely online' - and it reads like you're at a party with your funny, slightly unhinged, fire sign friend as they share their thoughts and feelings. Very engaging and relatable. Many of the essays were insightful, personal, and explored the internalized homophobia brought on from our media consumption in the early aughts. I didn't know who Jill was before reading this book, but I feel like I know her now.

"One Day, You'll All Be Gay" was one essay that really stuck with me. I keep thinking about it and sharing insights with many of my friends. It may even be on the agenda to discuss with my therapist. So like I said, it's pretty insightful and relatable.

I won't say this is required reading, but for all pop-culture consumers, followers of Lesbian twitter, and die-hard Kaylor fans… you're going to want a copy.

This is such a funny, irreverent, eminently readable, gay as all hell collection of essays from a fresh, entertaining voice from the internet generation. Absolutely recommend!

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria for this ARC.

Happy Pub day to Girls Can Kiss Now by Jill Gutowitz. Reading this book is like hanging out with your funny, pop culture obsessed friend. Jill took the experience of being queer and communicated it through modern culture in a way that made it relatable and understandable. This was a funny, sweet, emotional, sensitive book that I’ll be thinking about for a while.

You don’t have to be queer to enjoy this one or to get a lot out of it. For a book that makes you think and laugh look no further!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts. I will be publishing a larger review in my upcoming newsletter that will go out to subscribers on 3/9.

Girls Can Kiss Now by Jill Gutowitz is an entertaining read about pop culture and queerness. I think I'm a little old for the target demographic and found the tone a little immature for my taste. I'm about 10 years older than the author. (40 to her 30) So I didn't always relate that deeply to her touchstones. Her perspective seemed a bit limited and she didn't necessarily seem keen to step out of that zone or do more research. I do appreciate how candid the essays are and the conversational tone which made it entertaining and highly readable.

Thank you Atria Books and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Taylor Swift, gay shit, pop culture…what more could you possibly want in a collection of essays? I truly have nothing bad to say about this one. I devoured it. It had me literally laughing out loud. It’s filled with hard truths about society and homophobia (internalized and externalized) and our obsession with people we want so b badly to be like…even though we don’t ACTUALLY know what they are like.

It didn’t read like an informative essay collection. Instead, I felt like I was having a conversation with one of my closest friends about our trauma and growth and understanding of the world. And I think that’s why I liked it so much. Because what I’m taking away from it is a deeper understanding of myself, my sexuality, and the world. But none of that was shoved down my throat in a “this is what I think and you should think it too” way.

The 90s/00s nostalgia is alive and well, and this book knows it. The reflection on just how toxic pop culture was valuable and timely, as I've seen a lot of essays/writing/TikToks reflecting back on this time through a more modern lens. I do get the sense that this is marteked towards people who are already Extremely Online, and know the author from Twitter, etc. I don't know how much it will appeal to people who aren't already familiar with her brand of humor.

Take yourself on a trip back to the 90s and 2000s. All the music and all the movies. The celebrities you couldn’t get enough of. The ones you were in love with. All the new fancy gadgets that seemed to be from outer space. The burned cds with your favorite songs. The life you planned for yourself as a teenager when you finally stepped into the adult world was going to be the best ever.

Girls Can Kiss Now by Jill Gutowitz is a collection of personal essays about 90s and 2000s pop culture and the queer community. Jill explores the nuances of being queer in today’s world vs. the 90s and 2000s. She also takes us back in time to the pinnacle of 90s and 2000s pop culture. If you grew up in those eras you’ll really enjoy getting a look back into those years.

I recommend this book to my queer friends who need a book to completely capture their feelings and emotions as Jill does so well. I also recommend this one to all of my 90s and 2000s kids and all the references to our eras.

If you’re not fully into pop culture then you may be a bit lost while reading certain essays, but I still recommend this one… especially to help better yourself as an ally to the LGBTQIA+ community.

I wanted to like this collection more than I did. I do think it's a nice balance between humor and personal stories but by the middle of the collection some of the pieces felt unfinished and the humor stopped landing.

It also feels a little shortsighted in its celebrity discussions, centering whiteness in a way that felt like there was a missed opportunity for deeper discussion, though this may not be what the author wanted to do,.

Girls Can Kiss now gave me all the early 00s nostalgia and reminded me of how terribly toxic pop culture was then as a teen/early twenties female. We all now realize how terribly Brittany Spears was treated and of course the casual (and overt) racism, but the exploration of the mainstreaming of lesbian culture in this book of personal essays was particularly fascinating. There were moments I remember, but as a young self-centered cis-white female I didn't realize how terribly queer women were portrayed. Jill notes how far we've come even if our world is far from perfect for women, particularly queer women. The book is funny, senious, honest and I think has a great "voice" for all readers.

Thank you Atria Books and Netgalley for the electronic advanced copy.

AGH okay I loved this!! As an Extremely Online Bisexual I felt very represented by the author, and love her witty and all-encompassing writing style. All the stories were unique, entertaining, and so funny to read. Never have I ever read a collections of essays I was so engrossed by; this reading experience was so much more fun than the average book! Will definitely be featuring this book on my Booktok many many times.

I picked up this book after absolutely loving Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much and expecting a similar vibe. Both are essays/memoirs written by sapphic women about being sapphic, growing up, finding yourself, and with this one, a heavy tie-in to pop culture. Girls Can Kiss Now is FUNNY. It's unbearably relatable in many ways. Growing up before being gay was "cool," being
Severely Online, etc. The content is very often hilarious.

Unfortunately, I think the essays themselves felt unfinished. They didn't all lead me somewhere that felt like an end. Some of them were also more than they needed to be in ways, too overdone when the entire tone of the book is overdone. I think some of the essays needed curbing, editing, or even adding to. Something to bring them back to the point at hand. A point at all.

Even so, I love reading about the experiences of queer women, of seeing them make space for themselves in their own lives and in media. I love that I can compare two recent works by sapphic authors that feel so much like they could be people I know.

I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for non-fiction by queer authors or those that loved Greedy like I did!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC!

"The way we talk about sexuality matters. Intent matters, as does the culture a conversation like that exists within."


In GIRLS CAN KISS NOW, Jill Gutowitz's essays chart her coming of age alongside pop culture icons and turning points, particularly examining the entertainment industry's depiction and treatment of queer women and asking which comes first - progress in society or progress in the media. I was not familiar with Jill before diving into this book, and I did not realize going into it that this is very much a memoir. However, I absolutely learned to love Jill's voice and her love of pop culture that has so deeply shaped her story. I related to a lot of her reflections on her childhood and young adulthood, and I rooted for her as she got to her adult years, processing trauma and finding love. This book elicits laughs out loud, cringes, and deep self-reflection as Jill reflects on the shaping of her identity and self-image. There are many fun facts and painful facts - that Sally Ride was a lesbian, that Perez Hilton worked for GLAAD before making a career of defaming celebrities, mostly outing queer celebrities. What I love most about this book is how Jill tells her story exactly as she sees it, in her own voice that just jumps off the page. It is intimate and expansive at the same time. It also offers the opportunity to really consider where notions about women who like women came from, to turn inward and assess, and to hope for more progress in the way of not only visibility, but respect and dignity for queer women.

Pub date: March 8, 2022

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I will be posting this review on my Bookstagram, @sammies.shelf (instagram.com/sammies.shelf) a bit closer to the pub date.

What I Liked:
-This book was hilarious. I'm not sure I've ever laughed out loud so much during a book. It felt real and raw and genuine.
-I usually struggle with nonfiction, but I found myself not able to get enough during this book.
-I loved the way the author painted her personal struggles and related it to current events. I truly believe every person can find a bit of themselves in this book.

A timely collection of essays about pop culture and queerness. I was ultimately disappointed - these essays didn't seem to be nearly as tongue-in-cheek and funny as they were trying to be, and some (especially those involving lists) felt downright lazy. Gutowitz has a great twitter presence but it didn't translate into the longer form very well - there was no cultural analysis in the essays and the subject matter all blended together, so it felt more like a memoir. There was definitely potential here but it was a bit too earnest for what I was expecting.

5/5 Stars - Memoir about how pop culture has influenced the coming out, the staying out, and the epic romances of Lesbianism and women in the LGBTQ+ community.

This was phenomenal! As a pop culture junkie and a bisexual woman, I truly appreciated how Jill Gutowitz laid out the timeline of the best female-female celebrity romances and showed how demonized, sexualized, and monetized these relationships were. Gutowitz was also incredibly open about these relationships impacted her as an in the closet, teenager, and how they helped her understand her sexuality in order to come out when she was in her mid-20s. This book is extremely funny, honest, and painful at times (TW: Sexual Assault). It was very hard to read at times but is integral to the novel to know how much the author went through to step over the edge and come out.

This novel openly explores the shiny parts and dirty bruises of Hollywood relationships, how they created a pop culture awakening, and how they were scrutinized not just by the public eye, but also by other celebrities. This book was eye opening in how much bullying went on in a lot of female-female relationships, and the careful line a lot of women had to toe in order to feel accepted and uncriticized (ultimately, was a pipe dream, but it is getting better). I am so happy I read this memoir, it really helped me be even more honest about my sexuality, reflect on if and how celebrity romances influenced me when I was younger, and allowed me to see a new perspective to the male sexualization of female-female relationships, and how truly DISGUSTING this is (like I didn't even know how this kind of stuff impacted me when I was younger and I only just now realized it). Jill Gutowitz rocked my world with this book, and I can see the passion and courage she put into writing it. I highly recommend this to EVERYONE!! 5 stars indeed!

Thank you to Atria Books for sending this ARC to me.

If you are a millennial pop culture fanatic you NEED to mark Jill Gutowitz's amazing essay collection GIRLS CAN KISS NOW as a TBR for it's release date in March.. Written through the lens of a coming of age memoir, Jill explores how her queerness and her love of pop culture has collided through her journey of self discovery. This collection is hilarious, thoughtful, insightful and a joy to read. I wish I could gift copies to every lesbian I know!

Thank you so much to netgalley and publishers for providing an advanced e-copy for me to read and rate honestly. I couldn't be happier to announce just how perfect I found this collection, nor can I stress the fact that I highly recommend this book to everyone enough.

Truly honest and nostalgic, this collection of essays made my heart sing and my memories dance as I remembered my own journey to understanding my identity. Well written, funny, and engaging!

This book is an extremely personal account of the author's relationship with pop culture and how it has affected the way she views herself and her sexuality. The writing stood out to me because it felt intimate, as if we we're on facetime and Gutowitz was taking me down memory lane. It is possible with the way the essays are written (to me, very twitter-esque), the pop-culture references and terminology you probably see online more than hear in person. not everyone is going to get on board and favor these essays. But, that doesn't mean you shouldn't read it. Gutowitz did a good job at digging deeper into how pop-culture can affect us, especially in the negative heteropatriarchal ways that affect queer youth in ways they won't realize until they get older.

This ARC was provided by Atria Books via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Girls Can Kiss Now is essential reading for the 90s kid/2000s teen queer girl still healing from an era of homophobic pop culture. Y2K is back, baby, so let’s unpack some gay panic childhood trauma!! I want to throw this book at a bunch of my friends, but in a loving and respectful manner. Honestly nothing has helped me understand so well why it took me such a long time to embrace my bisexuality. The Lindsay Lohan era!! The mixed messages of Bring It On! So much to unpack and Jill does an excellent job.