I have listened to Kate’s podcast for years and was delighted to learn she’d be releasing a book. For faithful podcast listeners, this book will feel like a retread of topics many of us are used to hearing her thoughts on, but she is able to expand, provide new insight, and hopefully reach a new audience who wasn’t previously familiar with her. She is sharp, insightful, funny, and thoughtful. Sometimes the puns/wordplay were a bit much and I can see where people who aren’t used to her may not love it but I’m excited to see what she writes next!

I am the exact demographic for this book. as a millennial as a former party girl lol as a woman in her 30s trying to conceive and as a girly who just loves some pop culture. This book made me laugh. It made me smile and it made me feel very very very seen for my Alpha choices in the early 2000s. Made me all my ups and downs, including my wardrobe choices and former hookups. I really needed this book.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. Even though I didn’t relate to some of the author’s perspectives, I felt like she did a nice job unpacking so much about millennial stereotypes, as well as the many ways millennial culture impacted the world and how previous generations impacted what would become millennial culture.

She touched on purity culture, how women are/were portrayed in media, capitalism, the importance of friendship, and finding/being proud of one’s identity.

There were a few bits that felt repetitive, and I honestly didn’t like all the puns. A few would have been fine, but it got to the point that they were taking me out of the headspace of the book. The book also felt like a memoir even though the author stated several times that it wasn’t.

Otherwise, though, I felt like this was an excellent dive into millennialism in the US, and I’m curious to find out more about how some of these aspects of life impacted millennials in other countries.

Thanks so much to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the advanced copy!

I finished this book a month ago and forgot to give feedback before the archive date. I requested this cause the summary stated a "commentary on pop culture" but really, it was mostly about her. Which was fine but if I knew it was a memoir, I probably wouldn't have requested it. The writing was well done. It felt like a friend was talking to me which I enjoyed!

So thoroughly enjoyed this book and laughed out and found myself choking up each time I heard Kate’s voice waver on the audiobook. Millennials will love the nostalgia, remembering perhaps suppressed memories (yikes cringe) and seeing how our generation has actually weathered this storm of life pretty impressively. It was well really well researched considering the topic and I appreciated seeing how the culture affected young millennial girls.

This book was ultimately not for me at this time in my life, but it brings me a lot of joy to see other women enjoying Kate and her reminiscences of Millenial girlhood so much! Her memories and ability to conjure so many details of her (our) childhood is genuinely extremely impressive! I’m excited to see where her career goes from here.

I love Kate Kennedy’s podcast Be There In Five, and was excited to hear she wrote this book.

One In A Millennial is a lot like her podcast, which is always so smart and insightful—this time covering topics like the Spice Girls, popular girl handwriting, college sorority life and going out tops. Overall, I enjoyed this book and appreciated the message to freely love what you love.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an e-ARC. This is my honest review.

5 ⭐️ alert!!!! Wow. I don’t know if I’ve ever laughed so hard while also feeling so seen in a book in my life. This was the 48th advanced digital copy from Netgalley that I’ve read and the first I’ve ever bought in print after finishing. I had to highlight all of the beautiful and poignant parts that Kennedy put to the page. But let’s be real, I really wanted to highlight the whole damn thing.

Kennedy takes the reader on a journey back to growing up in the 90s, examining seemingly light topics like American Girl Dolls or the Spice Girls with a deeper lock and more critical eye of how we were shaped in these@crucial years. Revealing personal information, this book is part memoir and part essay, delving into the problematic and fun ways we were shaped by the pop culture of our time as millennials.

Kennedy writes this in the novel, which so encapsulates this book’s intent:
“Some of these chapters represent life phases I’ve moved on from, but others represent things I still have to work on every day, and that’s okay too. I wish I came with fewer reflections and more solutions, but the point is that I’m trying to hold space for the ways I didn’t know better, to criticize the ways I was set up, to take accountability for when I should have done better, and, all the while, to allow myself to acknowledge the ways in which it was fun. It’s confusing how I see this time period as a source of personal remorse and also a magical time of generational lore; I’ll add it to the list of my many millennial contradictions.”

While Kennedy in no way is saying she writes for all millennial experiences, it all really resonated with me. From the diet snacks we were told to have in middle school to purity culture, so much spoke to me. I hadn’t been a “Be There in 5” podcast listener prior to reading this, but now I am a big fan of Kennedy and diving into her past episodes.

✨Trigger Warnings: Infertility, Miscarriage, Misogyny

This book made me feel so seen. I knew I’d love it because I love everything Kate does, but wow, I didn’t expect to love it this much. Kate ability to share personal stories in a way that makes you feel seen, summarizing the experience of girlhood as grown a millennial shouldn’t feel like a mix of nostalgia and sisterhood, and yet! Kate is an absolute gift.

I ended up DNFing after trying over and over again into One in a Millennial. I unfortunately feel like the book was so wordy and had so many caveats that I couldn’t keep up. I wish all the best to Kennedy, this just wasn’t the book for me.

I’m on the very young end of “millennial” but I absolutely related to so much of this book. I found it so entertaining and giggled my way through so much of it. It was the perfect mix of funny but serious when it needed to be but also had the perfect amount of nostalgia

“One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In” by Kate Kennedy is a nostalgia-laden exploration of the writer’s 90s/00s youth.

Categories — Nonfiction, Memoir/Biography Adjacent, Essays, Nostalgia, 90s/00s (US) pop culture, Girlhood/Youth

Pub Info — St. Martin’s Press. January 23, 2024. Currently has a 4.15 average and 1.3k ratings on Goodreads.

The Author — Kate Kennedy, who is described as a “pop culture commentator” and host of a “popular millennial-focused podcast ‘Be There in Five’”

More Info & Thoughts ⤵️

💿 This book is half about the author’s life and half about “millennial” pop culture (1981-1996). She was born in 1987. Even though it’s marketed as “not a memoir” I would describe it as heavily using your personal life experiences to reflect on cultural themes. Sometimes, I felt it went too far away from the premise of pop culture, eventually steering back into the plot path.

💿 The writing style is important to describe. The author preemptively notes it. It’s absolutely drowning in puns and wordplay. Sometimes poetry. It all depends on your taste whether this works for you. It’s a lighthearted book for the most part, not stuffy or self-important.

💿 Chapters are laid out thematically. Some themes I’ve identified are — shopping/consumerism especially toward girls and women, media pressures, feminism, girl friendships & how they spent time together, the internet, boys & relationships, religion/purity culture, brand obsession & clothing/fashion, fitting in (or not), etc.

💿 Within these overarching themes, you get more specific things like AIM, music and bands, Limited Too, “popular girl handwriting” — like how did this happen at my random small town school too? 😂 — tv show references etc.

💿 The book is reflective of a middle class, US-centric city/suburban upbringing. I found some parts refreshingly relatable, some a bit out of my reach growing up, but overall this different perspective is interesting and valuable just the same.

💿 If you’re a fan of nostalgia-core and can find millennial experiences relatable, you might enjoy this. If you like the author’s podcast work, you might also like this book.

DNF. 0/5 ⭐️

Did not find it relatable or interesting. Was difficult to get into. I thought it was be a fun, nostalgic read but I felt the storyline going in all different directions.

In one word - AMAZING! Kate is a voice for a very specific subset of women who came of age between 2002-2009. Every story is somehow relatable, even though we didn’t grow up in identical situations. She writes conversationally, as if she’s sitting across from me having coffee and debriefing last night’s events. A great book about millennial girl-and-adulthood and a fantastic read.

This was a lot for me. There were some chapters that made me feel so seen and others than just did not strike me as millennial. Maybe the other kids were doing it and I didn't know? What was this handwriting thing? And also, I remain confused about why "Limited To" was capitalized constantly in the book. I truly thought it was a type for the store, and maybe it was, or an allusion to what the store stood for, but that could just be me making this up.

I was excited for this book because of the content rather than the author, but I bet others are coming for the author rather than the content. If so, they will probably be thrilled.

Full disclosure, I didn’t finish this book. I’m a little over 1/3 of the way in and it has taken me over 30 days to get that far. Despite the nostalgia of American girl dolls (likely where my love of historical fiction began), the girl talk game, gel pens, instant messenger (I was an MSN girly instead of an AOL queen myself) etc., I couldn’t get into the book.
My biggest complaint is that the chapters are just way longer than they needed to be and the prose, while funny and riddled with puns, was a bit too much at times for me.
I could relate a lot to the author’s experiences as a millennial that grew up in the 90s and early 00s, I think the writing style just wasn’t for me.

I was already a fan of Kate Kennedy from her podcast, Be There in Five, so I was thrilled to see that she wrote a memoir! Kate Kennedy truly has a way with words and this book is no exception. She expertly navigates pop culture, art, life and coming of age as a millennial. Obviously, her experience is unique, but I related to so much of it. Her words took me back in time and also helped me make sense of where I am today as a woman who grew up in the 90s and early 2000s.

I felt so seen by Kate’s writing and highly recommend this to all my millennial friends who liked American Girl dolls, used AIM, wore a tank top under all your tees, listened to the Spice Girls, went to youth group, desperately wanted to be cool, still think about the source of all our body image issues and like Taylor Swift. This one is for me and you!

The cover of the book is perfection and I loved how she interspersed her poetry and side tangents throughout the memoir. Since she narrates the audiobook, I plan to listen to it as well for a second read of it. I can't wait to see what else she does in the future!

before starting this book, i don't listen to be there in five and i don't know much of anything about kate kennedy. it was a great dose of nostalgia but beyond that, there's not much there to be invested in. though i am also a millennial, i remember enough of my childhood and before college years where i don't need to read almost 350 pages of someone else's

As an elder millennial, born in 1984, this book was such a fun trip down memory lane. There were multiple parts I found myself telling a similarly-aged-friend about the next day. In a lot of ways this felt like a story I could have written myself and I loved that. This is definitely a book I will be recommending to my fellow millennials as it feels nice to not feel alone in how we grew up and to share in the laughter of some of the nonsense we go into.

I thought this book would be more pop culture and less memoir. Even though she says repeatedly that it isn’t a memoir, it pretty much is. I loved the American Girl Doll chapter, and any pop culture references were really fun, but it talked a lot more about personal religious experiences, and life events than I expected. Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy.