There were some great references that brought me back to my childhood. But ultimately, it was too wordy and I skipped around through some of the book. It was still fun for the memories it brought up! The narrator was good but not my favorite for this kind of book.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

✨ Review ✨ One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In by Kate Kennedy; Narrated by author.

Wow was this a wild ride through millennial girl zeitgeist {a word I'm never actually sure I'm using correctly}. I laughed, I cried, I felt all the things about the ways I grew up and the joys it brought and the baggage that it made me carry.

From reflecting on the links between girl power and consumption, the weird ways that we grew up as the first generation curating our digital image at a very young age, "going out out," creating AIM screen names, and so so so many other things.

Things that resonated deeply included the following:
-how in the name of girl power we were taught to shop and buy, patterns that we continue to today with consumption in the name of self care
-how we grew up embarrassed to talk about things we liked, hiding or apologizing for them if they didn't seem on trend
-growing up not talking about our mental state or inner mind in ways that made us all feel abnormal, not realizing how normal that all is
-growing up feeling the "love, marriage, baby carriage" trajectory and feeling off if we didn't follow these steps as neatly as we were told we should
-our relationship to songs and pop culture and how we thought love should be

With all that said, I think that {even with the author's caveats} this speaks to a specific experience of white hetsis girlhood and early adulthood, as well as to a particular range of upper working class through middle class experience. It hit home for me, because of the ways that this was similar to my experience but I can see where it's problematic to label this as THE zeitgeist or THE identity of millennial women. Again, the author frequently acknowledges there are limits to this experience she shares, but it still felt a little prescriptive in the end.

The author's narration of this book was terrific, and her emotion rings clear throughout. Overall, this was bingeworthy for me and I wished I had a physical copy to highlight it all up.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️(4.25 stars)
Genre: non-fiction, memoir /essays; pop culture
Pub Date: 23 Jan 2024

Read this if you like:
⭕️ 90s pop culture / millennial girldom
⭕️ memoir via essays
⭕️ interrogating your past and the baggage it brought to your future

Thanks to Macmillan Audio and #netgalley for the gifted advanced copy/ies of this book!

Title and Author: One in a Millennial by Kate Kennedy
Overall Grade: B
Narration: B (its very breathy and sounds like she is running which made me feel on edge)
Depth and Topics covered: B
Writing: A- (The poems were the better part)
Best Aspect: I am not a millennial but there was still nostalgia in some of her memories. Such as TV shows and consumer goods. I am glad she spoke of very relevant female topics that need to be discussed more.
Worst Aspect: This is a memoir so don’t listen when she says it isn’t. And she seems annoyed that she was swayed by society yet here she is marketing a book with her opinion that may sway others. So, what I saw as a pick of a hypocrite did bother me.

4.5/5

this book had been on my list for a while, and it didn't disappoint! kate kennedy managed to perfectly express several of the concepts that i've struggled to. it was great to have her read the audiobook because it added an extra layer of emotion - especially in later chapters. footnotes can always be hit or miss in audiobooks, but i felt like they did a great job keeping them separated without distracting too much from the main text. there were a few moments that felt long-winded and i sometimes found myself a bit tired and distracted by the repeated song lyric references, but overall i really enjoyed the trip down memory lane!

As a long time fan of the Be There in Five podcast by the great Kate Kennedy , this book has been on preorder for six months. On Friday, I was approved for the audio book on @netgalley . It’s narrated by Kate, and frequent pod listeners will know that is a delight.

This is GOOD! If you are a woman between 45 and 32ish, I think you will glean a lot. I am specifically a year older than true millennial status, but there was so much in this that was just beautiful!

From American Girl dolls, to youth group culture (True Love Waits 😭😭 coming for you!), AIM culture, and being the forefathers/forewomen (?) creating a personal brand, this collection of essays is a balm to the millennial soul.

Kate Kennedy, thank you! Love your work and so appreciative of the deep dives in minutia that I find important! 💖💖

Thank you St Martin's Press and Netgalley for the review copy!

4.5 stars, more accurately. But I gave it the 5 because I feel heard. Seriously. There are so many accurate depictions of being a millennial in this book that I could connect with. We were gifted both the blessing and the curse of growing up with so many societal shifts. I honestly failed to recognize how formative these things have been. This is a must-read for the mall junkie, Teen magazine reading, AIM using, CD collecting 30/early 40-somethings out there! We are unique and we are finally…maybe…figuring it out.

Thank you to NetGalley, St Martin’s Press, Macmillan Audio, and author Kate Kennedy for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to the publisher for my copy! All thoughts are my own.

There is nothing more exciting to me than seeing the continued success of people I admire. I have been a fan of Kate Kennedy and the Be There in Five Podcast for the longest time. She helped get me through many sunday chores and mental health walks during the pandemic. I was thrilled to see her get a book deal and I’m even happier now that I’ve read the book. It is masterful. Even though I am on the end of the millennial spectrum (1992/1993 babies, where are you?) I still could relate to so much of what Kate wrote about. I was a little too young for the Spice Girls but I was very much an American Girl girlie. There was so much I could relate to and so much I learned, amidst Kate’s signature clever and thoughtful dialogue.

Synopsis:

“One In a Millennial is an exploration of pop culture, nostalgia, the millennial zeitgeist, and the life lessons learned (for better and for worse) from coming of age as a member of a much-maligned generation.Kate is a pop culture commentator and host of the popular millennial-focused podcast Be There in Five. Part-funny, part-serious, Kate navigates the complicated nature of celebrating and criticizing the culture that shaped her as a woman, while arguing that great depths can come from surface-level interests.With her trademark style and vulnerability, One In a Millennial is sharp, hilarious, and heartwarming all at once. She tackles AOL Instant Messenger, purity culture, American Girl Dolls, going out tops, Spice Girl feminism, her feelings about millennial motherhood, and more. Kate’s laugh-out-loud asides and keen observations will have you nodding your head and maybe even tearing up.” —NetGalley

What I Liked:

The Essay Structure: I love how Kate structured this book. It’s an essay collection instead of a tradition memoir, but it still has a memoir feel while staying fresh and fun.

The Writing: I was constantly surprised by how clever the writing was. I shouldn’t be, since Kate’s podcasting has always been quippy and brilliant, but seeing it all in written form was even more more exciting.

The Feelings it Evoked—In the audiobook, Kate opens up in such a beautiful, vulnerable way. I was moved by the emotion in her voice numerous times.

What Didn’t Work:

Nothing! I really thought this was such a well thought out, emotional, funny, relevant book.

Character Authenticity: N/A Spice Rating: N/A Overall Rating: 5/5

Content Warnings:

Infertility, pregnancy loss, ectopic pregnancy, mass shooting, mental health

"The devil works hard, but capitalism works harder." If Britney's autobiography is what the patriarchy, capitalism, and culture of the 90s and early 2000s did to the biggest pop star, this is the story of what they did to all the rest of us just trying to fit in and also be uniquely ourselves. It made me feel so seen and inspired both nostalgia and rage...do you guys remember the game Girl Talk!? I owned it, but forgot about, and WTF was the world thinking!?

I will say this book was also very well timed for me. Over the past two years I've realized that getting older is actually not the tragedy we were raised to believe. I spent so much of my life being so insecure and caring so much about boys liking me and girls thinking I'm cool and am now realizing that maybe it was all bullshit! If loving Taylor Swift makes me basic, I'm fine with that, because I'd rather choose to find joy in the things that bring me joy.

I do think I enjoyed this as an audiobook more than I would have enjoyed it as a text, but either way, it was a delight and provided a lot of reflection on an experience that was largely collective even if it often felt very isolating and individual.

Trigger warning: Infertility

Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ARC.

I’ve gotta be transparent: I’m not a millennial. I’m definitely a Gen Xer, to my core. But when I heard about Kate Kennedy’s book, I knew I wanted to give it a listen (I received the audiobook from NetGalley). I listen to a lot of “Terrible Thanks for Asking” and its host, Nora McInerny, had talked about Kate and Kate’s podcast more than once. I love pop culture and this book was a delightful trip back in time - with enough commonalities - Light as a feather, stiff as a board… getting credit cards at football games (what on earth were we thinking?!)… Saved by the Bell… and so much more. It was a fun little trip in a time machine , even for this non millennial.

I listened to “One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In” by Kate Kennedy as an audiobook, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! It is a collection of essays narrated by the author which covered a host of topics, including: the role of the Internet in her growing up; the 2008 Recession; diet culture; purity culture; the role of tabloid media in the mid-2000s; infertility/millennial motherhood; and so much more.

Many listeners may be familiar with Kennedy's podcast "See You in Five", but I was not familiar with it prior to listening to this audiobook.

What worked for me: I love when an author narrates their own work; she was able to voice the cadence with which the words were intended to be spoken, which is always impactful. The essays had a good mix of nostalgia/fun and heavy-hitting topics. I loved her discussions about the role of religion in her childhood/adolescence (mostly because I, too, grew up in a community where religious homogeneity was the only thing I knew). Her discussions of purity culture and diet culture were spot-on for me. She captured the desire that a young girl has to fit in and the various struggles we all face with bullies or boys that may have been harsh during elementary/middle school. She was very honest with her struggles during early adulthood, particularly as it related to alcohol consumption and social anxiety. Those parts truly resonated with me. The author certainly has a critical eye for the various contradictions that are part of growing up as a millennial. She offered many insightful critiques regarding female friendships and how feminism shows itself in the millennial zeitgeist. I loved her plays on words and her mention of various pop culture references from the 1990s and 2000s. Because what millennial doesn’t love to remember Blockbuster, American Girl dolls, boy bands, and ‘90s sitcoms?

What did not work for me: I did not care for the poetry that was peppered throughout the book. Perhaps it was because I was listening (rather than reading), but I found myself excited for when those parts were completed. They were too cutesy for me, and compared to the author’s prose (which was excellent), the poetry just seemed to fall flat for me. There were moments when it sounded like the author was speaking very quickly and almost out of breath… I wonder if those portions would have benefited from a re-record.

There are discussions of infertility/ectopic pregnancy/pregnancy struggles, so it may be prudent to skip over those parts for listeners who are sensitive to those topics. The narrator openly breaks down reading these sections, so I had to skip over and revisit those portions myself because that section caught me during a particularly weepy time.

Overall, I’d give this listen somewhere around 3.5 stars. I’d recommend it to other millennials who want a nostalgic trip down memory lane with a healthy dose of cultural criticism.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillian Audio for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook for free in exchange for an honest review!

Pull out that Lisa Frank folder; grab that Five Star notebook and your beloved gel pens; pop your favorite movie in the VHS player; and revisit the things that shaped the millennial generation with Kate Kennedy.

In One in a Millennial, Kennedy takes us on a witty, nostalgic, thoughtful, open, insightful, and thought-provoking journey through the experience of growing up and being an adult as a female of the millennial generation. One moment I was laughing out loud and the next I was thinking, “Huh, she’s right about that.” While my lived experience doesn’t match up exactly line for line with hers, I was able to relate to her experiences and identify with her journey and meditations on “the existential questions of womanhood”.

The author serves as the narrator of the audiobook. This isn’t the polished performance you would expect from an actor or professional narrator. Once she hits her stride, this feels more like a conversation with an open friend. You can hear when she gets on a roll and doesn’t stop as much to breathe. You can hear the genuine emotion in the heavier and more wistful moments. While it isn’t flawless, it is genuine.

Note: Although I tend to speed up audiobooks because my mind processes them better at higher speeds, I listened to this one at 1.25x.

I received an advance copy of the audiobook from Macmillan Audio and NetGalley, all review opinions are my own.

I thought this was a pretty interesting book. As a millennial, I jumped at the opportunity to read this. There was a lot that I could relate to, but, unfortunately, there was just as much, maybe more, that I couldn’t relate to. Maybe this was because the author is an older millennial than I am. So while we still had a lot of similar experiences, we also had a lot of differences. For example, she had that whole boy-crazy, pop culture-addicted tween phase, but me and almost all of the girls I grew up with didn't. I also think that because she’s American and I am not, there are a lot of differences because of that. Because of that, I felt a bit disappointed, but obviously that’s on me and not the book or author.
I thought this was well written and put together. Each chapter was full of nostalgic millennial references, jokes, and puns. Even though some of the chapters and even references were irrelevant to me based on my age, it was still great to see the development that Kate went through in finding herself and becoming who she is today. Millennials grew up in such a weird time; technology and the online world were a huge part of our lives and had a huge impact on us too. It’s nice reading about others experiences through it all.
I had both the ebook and audio, and I definitely prefer the audiobook. I loved hearing the book read by the author. Hearing the emotions in her voice at certain parts of her story really added to the audiobook.

Wow. What can I say about this book?
Kate Kennedy writes and narrates a memoir/series of essays/poems/chapters describing her life growing up as a Millennial, as well as shares her thoughts and feelings about friendship, growing up, loss, love of pop culture, and all things 90s and 2000s.
Listening to this book was like finding out there are more fries at the bottom of the takeout bag. With each chapter, I related more and more to her beautifully written poetry and prose. Many times, the leaving sentence in a chapter left me either misty-eyed, or with goosebumps.
I have never read a book that so deeply resonated with my inner thoughts and feelings as this one did. I even bought my own copy to annotate with my PGH, or Popular Girl Handwriting, as she so eloquently dubs in one of the chapters.
I also marvel at the time she takes to think deeply about things that many of us gloss over, without actually taking a deeper dive into the "why". For example, Kate discusses in one of the later chapters about the LMBCP - "love, marriage, baby carriage pipeline" and how "it's important to remember that someone's position in the LMBCP involves both their choices and chances, and both situations are worthy of our respect and empathy." (271)
In summary, I have been recommending this book, especially the audiobook because of her humorous and emotional narration, to everyone I know. It has healed my American Girl Doll-Taylor Swift-Polly Pocket-Cosmic Brownie heart to hear some of my innermost thoughts and feelings validated, experienced, and read aloud by someone else. 1000000/5 stars.
Thank you to NetGalley and the author/publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for my review.

I'll be honest--I requested this book based solely on the cover and the title. I had no knowledge of Kate Kennedy's podcast (though I do now and will absolutely be listening), and I fully anticipated a mostly fluffy book about millennial pop culture. It proved to be so, so much more.

I loved this book. It took me a minute to get used to Kate's pun-filled, slant-rhyme-obsessed phrases, but once I settled into her quirky style of writing, I loved the content of the book. One in a Millennial was a true trip down memory lane. Kate resurfaced memories that I didn't even know I had--of toys, shows, even *experiences* that I had long forgotten. Perhaps it's because I'm more or less the exact same age and from more or less the same socioeconomic demographic as Kate, but I was shocked at how much of her story felt deeply familiar. I do wonder if people who grew up in a different time or had different experiences may not enjoy the book in the same way, because there are many references to TV shows, song lyrics, cultural moments, etc. that really made this book a fun read for me.

What I was most impressed with was the Kate's sensitivity and self-awareness throughout this book. She was quick to recognize her privilege, vulnerable when sharing her experiences, and very intentional with her language choices.

As mentioned before, Kate is a podcast host, so she was a natural choice to narrate the audiobook. While I generally prefer books that are not narrated by the author, Kate does an excellent job. You can often hear her starting to tear up at some of the more emotional moments in the story, and it added so much to the reading experience.

One in a Millennial by Kate Kennedy is elder millennial girl required reading. As someone who was born in 1990, I probably fall in the "mid-millennial" category. Nevertheless, I found this book to be both a love story and nuanced commentary on growing up during the 1990s and becoming an adult during the Aughts. One in a Millennial details many vulnerable moments that most people growing up during this time period encountered and does so in a delightful but informed voice. Kennedy specifically addresses issues I faced growing up that I had yet to quantify but spoke directly to the little girl or young teen in my heart. Popular girl handwriting was an art I never mastered and to this day am disappointed I can't count as a part of my particular skillset. Kennedy also does an excellent job of detailing the privilege that many of us had but weren't aware of growing up and how that shaped her as well as many other millennials.

This well-written memoir discusses pillars and stereotypes of the millennial generation. I related to so much of what the author recalls about how pop culture in the 90s and 2000s shaped our worldview for better and for worse. That said, I am in the target audience for this book, as I am currently trying to decide whether I actually need to put away my skinny jeans and still working through the desire to be a Blue Crush surfer. Still, anyone could benefit from reading this for a glimpse into a millennial’s experience. I laughed and cried listening to this audio as it is full of both funny and serious stories. I also loved the pop culture references and the commentary on politics and religion (“now, it’s a little scary, but mostly upbeat!”). I may be one of the few readers who found this book outside of listening to the author’s podcast, but I (a former Kappa Delta standards committee member, love in AOT!) am so pleased to be here.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

Three ✨ for this Millennial tale.

While I do think if you have more of a connection to this author or listen to her podcast, you will like it a lot more, it was sort of just ok to me. I went into reading this thinking it would be a general overview of being and growing up a millennial woman. It turns out it is much more a memoir for this specific author’s experience. While I connected with quite a few chapters (American Girl dolls, creating your AIM account and popular girl bubbly writing) the rest was a very specific experience this author had.

Thank you NetGalley, Macmillan Publishing and Kate Kennedy for this advanced audio!

Was this book written by me? Kate Kennedy describes the millennial girl’s experience perfectly. I was hooked with the American Girl essay, and was validated through her Spice Girls section. Thank you Kate for touching on the even more sensitive topics of religion (True Love Waits) and abortion (your ectopic pregnancy). I laughed, cried, and cringed. I don’t think I’ve read a book more insightful and hilarious! Kate narrates perfectly, getting choked up herself at times. It felt like I was listening to my best friend recall our childhood, coming of age, and middle life crisis. Can we be best friends? Do yourself a favor and listen to this book to reminisce about the good old days of AIM and Boy Band Ballads. If you are a millennial, you’ll love it just as much as I did.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ALC.

This was a really enjoyable and relatable audiobook to listen to! Filled with so much nostalgia and pop culture. And to be completely honest, I did not know who Kate Kennedy was before checking this one out. I kinda just thought “hey, I’m a millennial” and I pressed play.

I finished listening to this one in maybe 2-3 sittings. Listening to this really proved that those who grew up in the 90’s and 00’s have a ton of shared experiences. Kate talked about growing up a millennial in such a fun and funny way!

She dove into not just quirky millennial topics, but some serious ones too. Everything from Backstreet Boys, Mary Kate and Ashley and specific Bath and Body Works scents to mental health, sexism and infertility/miscarriage.

If you’re a millennial, I recommend you check this one out in print or on audio!

Big thank you to @netgalley and @macmillan.audio for a copy of this audio, ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Happy #pubday to “One in a Millennial!” This book was so wonderfully sweet, weird (in a millennial way) and authentic - and I can say that as a fellow millennial.

Each chapter is filled with references to the things that made growing up equal parts cringe and empowering. Did I discover what girl power meant via the Spice Girls? Yes. Was I, as a redhead, forced to be Ginger Spice (aka Sexy Spice) when dressing up as the girl group with my friends at a time when I was in the throes of puberty? Also yes. It was…a time.

I would recommend the audiobook, as Kennedy herself reads it. Through the voice of the author, the book reads like a diary and we, as listeners, get to hear very juicy detail.

I know this is a very *millennial* phrase but this book made me feel very seen. Thanks to Macmillan Audio and St. Martin’s Press for the ALC.