As someone who also grew up in the 2000s and realized they were gay in their twenties, I was interested in this book on the premise and also recognized Jill as someone who is funny on Twitter. This is certainly a book that those who are "extremely online" will enjoy, and has that specific brand of irreverent comedy and language that Jill utilizes so well. What I loved most about this book was the way she writes about what growing up in that era and loving pop culture was like, and how exhausting and confusing and painful it was as a young woman and as a queer person. I found it really true to my own experience and described in a way that felt almost visceral, like I was reliving those horrors all over again. She's also downright hilarious, and I laughed out loud multiple times while reading this. My favorite essays were the ones focused more narrowly on specific stories from her own life, in which she conveys all the agony of the moment but also all the punchlines and humor that hindsight provides. Other essays I struggled with a little and her commentary felt a little more shallow (For example, an essay about yearning that talks about how there should be more lesbian movies with happy endings--shouldn't we want queer stories of all varieties, from people with all kinds of experiences, happy or not? Another was about how terrible Perez Hilton was in the aughts about outing gay people, which then screeches to a halt when she reveals she writes professionally for media outlets about how Taylor Swift should be/is maybe gay, but it's okay because she's not doing it with bad intentions and just wants to relate to her more, which also made me feel kind of weird, as a fellow pop culture zealot and even gay Taylor Swift fan! And it always seems like books written by media writers/Twitter personalities include one chapter which is essentially just a list, however humorous). All that being said, these are pretty small quibbles and I will highly recommend this book to others my age and even queer young adults seeking queer, pop culture focused content. I really enjoy her voice and sense of humor and her focus in this book, and would love to read more from her in the future.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I regret to say I am DNFing at 37%. This collection of essays was working really well for me and I related very strongly as a 90s millennial lesbian. But this book is coming out in March 2022 and I struggle to continue reading a book where an author explicitly states they like HP without any examination of the harm the author has done, especially thinking this is coming from a Jewish author and JKR is known for the antisemitic tropes from that series. I may be being too harsh, but this is my line in the sand; YMMV. I really enjoyed this examination of intersections of lesbian identity, growing up, and pop culture, and I’m very sad not to be finishing this book, but that small bit felt like a slap in the face…

Jill Gutowitz hit a few home runs with her collection of essays - legitimately had me laughing out loud and mhm-ing along. As a queer woman, there were parts that deeply resonated with me. As a queer *Latina* from a low-income background, a few stories fell flat for me (especially ones where Gutowitz brought ~humor~ into being "rich poor" or tried to call herself out for being privileged). However, Gutowitz's writing is just so approachable and funny that I genuinely enjoyed it overall and the minor annoyances were easy to overlook.

I would highly recommend this book to my queer women friends who enjoy millennial ~internet~ humor. If that vibe isn't your thing, this book will probably grate your nerves. Regardless, check it out for the potential laughs and stories - my favorite essays were "Britney Spears's Blackout - No, Not That One", "Crush Me At the Forum", "I Know This Now", "The Current Lesbian Canon, As It Stands", "Clueless at the Chateau Marmont", and "The Beast".

Thank you to Simon and Schuster & NetGalley for the ARC!

This collection of essays by the very funny Jill Gutowitz is a delightful read. Most of the essays deal with pop culture and lesbian representation in the media, but occasionally heavier topics emerge, such as rape. Near the end it got a bit repetitive (one story rehashed through a different lens, but was essentially the same story) but it made me laugh out loud several times, so overall, I really enjoyed it.

This is a fantastic collection of essays. As a “pop culture junkie” myself, I devoured this book. Gutowitz chronicles her obsession with celebrities from an early age to mid-pandemic. Her stories are funny and relatable. Millennials will be taken down memory lane by references to Soffe shorts, Paul Frank, and HitClips. As a straight woman I especially enjoyed reading about how queer representation in the media has changed. I will never look at Entourage or Julianne Moore the same way again. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in pop culture, LGBT issues, or both. TW: sexual assault

This book works best when the author is describing events in her own life or making tongue-in-cheek lists about what constitutes lesbian canon. Her emotions come across clearly and sincerely. Slightly les successful are the times when she constructs a meta historical narrative of queer life that seems incomplete at best. On balance, her earnestness and honesty make for an interesting set of essays for readers of Grace Perry.

Thank you for the advanced copy of this book! I will be posting my review on social media, to include Instagram, Amazon, Goodreads, and Instagram!

Girls Can Kiss Now by Jill Gutowitz is a fascinating collection of essays on queerness, relationship, pop culture, and identity—written by a truly compelling voice. I laughed so much by the time I got to the last page my ribs ached. Highly recommend!!

Pop culture has been, is, and likely always will be, an endlessly source from which to discuss as it continually evolves over time; it forms a collective experience of reference points that helps many to frame their lives and Jill Gutowitz’s Girls Can Kiss Now: Essays explores how pop culture has shaped her and the representation of queerness in the media.

Written in a voice and style that is highly relatable, conversational in tone, and likely familiar to fellow millennial women, these essays were entertaining as they were filled with humorous asides and capitalization of words or phrases to place emphasis and it offered a nostalgic experience as it takes a look back at cultural touchstones that shaped her formative years and experiences. For those who are around the same age as Gutowitz, such as myself, the references she makes will be familiar (though I’m not a Taylor Swift fan and have paid little to no attention to her media coverage so the more detailed passages around Swift weren’t overly engaging for me) and she does a good job of providing an explanation for readers who may not be as familiar with the content – or have been alive for their heyday – and how it’s relevant to what’s being discussed. There’s an vulnerability in the frank openness of the personal stories told to aid in the broader points made in these essays, which use pop culture references as launching off points for discussion about queerness, specifically for women more generally and especially in relation to herself, and how it has been portrayed in media, and changed, over the past few decades. Though not necessarily told in chronological order, the essays were primarily compiled as such, and the introduction also outlines a fairly linear progression of decades that track the evolution of lesbian eras from Gutowitz’s perspective, so it was a little strange to jump around in time within some of the essays and be provided a repetition of some previously shared information; perhaps the expectation I formed from the introduction set me up to expect a more linear chronology than was offered as well as more consistently balanced spread within the essays of personal and pop culture moments explored.

Overall, I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My friends and I have been @jillboard fans for a WHILE. She seems to have a lot of same interests of pop culture as us, and we often send her tweets back and forth in lieu of our own reactions, because she says them better than we could.

I knew I would love this book because I knew I enjoyed Jill's writing - but I didn't know (obviously) the autobiographical details she'd write about. Turns out - they're relatable too!

Her writing style scratches my brain in a soothing way (is that weird to say? whatever, I think the kids on TikTok say it) in that it's very conversational, and written like I write when I send paragraphs upon paragraphs of emails or texts to pals. The details of her life that she shares are sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious, and perpetually relatable, and I'm so glad I read this book. If you're a person - maybe a millennial, maybe pop culture-obsessed - you will more than likely enjoy this too.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Net Galley for providing a free ebook ARC copy of this title in exchange for my review. This book was actually offered by the publisher, not one that I specifically requested.

I don't think this is a 'bad' book at all, and I'm sure many will enjoy reading it. The writing was clear and enjoyable to read. It just wasn't the book for me. There was not a single commonality for me in this book - I'm much older, have different interests, did not know of the celebrities that were mentioned, I'm not a social media user, I'm heterosexual - seriously, just about nothing to relate to for me. That doesn't mean it's a bad book, but it's hard to really get into the essays for me when I really don't understand any of the elements, such as listed above.

This also makes it a very hard book for me to rate, because though I didn't personally enjoy it, I'm sure others will, and the writing was good. I'm not sure why the book was offered to me in the first place.

2021 had me branching out in terms of my reading, and here that meant essays. While I wasn't exactly the target audience (Swifties, this one's for you!), I delighted in the millennial pop culture references and really enjoyed many of the essays - particularly the opener involving a Game of Thrones tweet and a visit from the FBI. I'll admit I was expecting something a little more laugh-out-loud funny based on other early reviews, but I liked this one and quickly got through it (a word of warning though, there's one essay where the author comes to terms with sexual assault from a partner). And Perez Hilton is absolute trash.

This is an essay collection with a heavy emphasis on pop culture and queer culture. Each chapter is organized by a theme, but they feel a bit stream-of-consciousness and you never know quite what to expect in any given essay. If topics such as "most essential lesbian paparazzi photos" and "the role of yearning in media" sound interesting to you, this is the book for you.
This type of book can be very hit or miss, but I loved this one. It made me actually laugh out loud many times while also having some emotional and poignant moments. It helps that I, like the author, love Taylor Swift and reading essays about her. People who dislike TS may not enjoy this as much! She is mentioned quite a bit.
There is one essay about 70% of the way through the book that's a letter to the author's younger self. This essay discusses sexual assault in a very direct and descriptive way. I chose to skip this part because I had been warned about it, and I didn't feel like it diminished the book at all by skipping this segment.
I'm so glad that I read this one and I will be recommending it to my fellow pop culture nerd friends. Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

*Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for an advance digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

I love this book. This is a vulnerable, emotional, hilarious, and engaging look at 2000s pop culture through a specifically sapphic lens. These essays are both fun and heartbreaking, examining the ways queer, and specifically, lesbian culture has shifted more and more into the mainstream culture in recent years and what that shift means for young people exploring their own sexuality. This is a solid 4.5 read for me and I would highly recommend it to readers of celebrity memoirs, pop culture essays, and fans of Taylor Swift.

It is a 4.5 rounded down mostly because about 70% through the book there are some pretty graphic descriptions of sexual coercion and rape which had very little warning or prior content noting, which may be triggering for some readers. While these descriptions have an important context within the essay, they are intense and readers may benefit from some warning in advance of that particular essay.

This was fine, but there are other essay collections that do the same thing (queer culture and millennial pop culture) better. I think the 2 things that bumped this down to 3 stars for me were that the essays are inconsistent in tone and that it feels truly wild to write an essay about how reprehensible Perez Hilton is for speculating on celebrities' sexualities only to go on to speculate about Taylor Swift's sexuality?

Absolutely hysterical while hitting so many different queer experiences with such honesty and nuance, it blew me away. Love love love this book, and so excited to feature it in my book club next year!

This was possibly one of my fastest reads ever! I loved it so much! I laughed and cried, these essays really had it all! I would recommend this book to every woman! Definitely will be a re-read for me!

This book is fun—if you’re a sapphic person, this will likely connect to you in some way with its lighthearted glimpses into lesbianism and queer pop culture milestones. That said, there were huge portions that felt a little too on the nose for me, and as someone who is not a Taylor Swift lesbian I realize now that I’m definitely in the wrong demographic for this book. But the personal and vulnerable stories that Gutowitz shares are incredibly lovely!

As a long time Twitter follower of Jill Gutowitz and a pop culture obsessed lesbian, I was incredibly excited to read this book. However, books like this, the ones written by people you love and the ones you spend months looking forward to, are usually a hit or miss. They either become your new favourite or they become a book you wish you never read. I was terrified this book would become the latter.

It didn’t. It so, so didn’t, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Girls Can Kiss Now is Gutowitz’s reflection on her own lesbianism portrayed side-by-side with the evolution of queer media. The first few essays are pure delight for anyone familiar with lesbian media and pop culture. From queer paparazzi photos to Orange is The New Black to the infamous Kaylor conspiracies, these first few essays felt like a long scroll through Jill’s Twitter. Full of heart and wit that draws you in and becomes addictive in an instant.

And when I thought it couldn’t get better, after all, I was laughing out loud every other paragraph, the essays morphed into something more personal, more poignant. The thing is, I’ve read pretty much every article Jill’s written in the last few years. As a fellow lesbian Swiftie, it was almost impossible to ignore her work. I knew she was a great entertainment writer and I knew she was funny. What I didn’t expect and what I appreciated immensely is just how well she shifts gears to tell personal, heartwrenching stories while still keeping her tone that I’ve grown to love. And the further you get into the book, the more revealing and intimate the essays get but the connection to pop culture never fades. Take the last essay for example - it starts with the release of folklore but then morphs into an incredibly poignant look at life and love in a pandemic. And while the first few essays had me chuckling in a way I expected they would, or more so hoped they would, the very end of the book had me getting misty-eyed in an entirely unexpected way.

Girls Can Kiss Now is a winner. To me, it was one of the most relatable memoirs I have ever read and one I couldn’t get enough of. It’s a book that fulfills the constant need for more joyful lesbian stories in mainstream media because even when the story gets dark, it still feels real and candid, and getting a candid story from a lesbian in mainstream spaces is still not something we see a lot. It brings me joy that such a candid memoir might end up in the hands of a closeted teen lesbian and give her hope when she needs it the most. I understand that, depending on one’s familiarity with lesbian culture and queer media, some people might not find this book as relatable and meaningful as I did, but it’s a book I will not stop recommending any time soon.

This book made me laugh my ass off. I could not stop laughing during the entire book. I enjoyed it so so so much.