This was such a fun book!! I have been saying it for a while now that Millennials are bringing so many things that we loved growing up back into the spotlight. We are a generation that is full of nostalgia and I am all about it. What Kate Kennedy did in this book was incredible. She was able to highlight sooo many of the staples we grew up with through writing that was, at times, lyrical and poetic, and other times simple, yet moving. I had so many moments going through the book where I couldn't help but exclaim out loud "yes!" or, "OMG I completely forgot about that!" Reading this book was like going into a time machine.

Not only was the book and the experience it created marvelous, I learned that we have the same alma mater - VT!! This only added to the nostalgia since my time at Tech was incredibly special to me.

This is one of those books that I think is going to blow up, and I'm so glad I had a chance to read it early. Thank you #NetGalley for the early access to this great and nostalgic read!

I’m not a Millennial but I really enjoyed this book. I’m familiar with the author from her podcast and social media presence. The book spanned the emotional spectrum for me- I found it laugh out loud funny and touching in many parts. The nostalgic look back at the 90’s and 2000’s was a fun ride. Thank you for the chance to read in advance.

What a great trip down memory lane! I listened to the audiobook, narrated by the author, thanks to St Martins Press, MacMillan Audio and NetGalley.

Kate pulls in so many of the 90's and 00's pop culture references that are viewed with a different lens now - Jessie Spano, popular girl handwriting, American Girl dolls, AOL instant messenger, boy bands and going "out" out. This book explores how pop culture has shaped millennial girls into the women they are today, what hurdles we have overcome and what we still struggle with today. This book encourages us to embrace what we love as it has shaped us into who we have become.

I can't wait to share this with all of my millennial friends - it would make a great book club discussion - listen to Kate's podcast "Be There in Five" and see her live on her book promotion tour.

Pub date 1/23/24

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the free ARC. One in a Millenial is a memoir by Kate Kennedy, who is the host of the Be There in Five podcast. As a loyal Beth, I have followed the podcast for years, have attended one of her live shows, and am obsessed with a good Venn diagram. I loved listening to the audiobook - it was essentially a longer version of her (long form) podcast. While there want a lot of information in the book that I didn’t already know from being an active listener to the podcast, I still enjoyed listening to it. Her ability to use play on words so effortlessly will always entertain me. Her experiences growing up mirrored a lot of my own, which made it even more fun to listen to. I definitely recommend it.

My nostalgic elder millennial heart DEVOURED this audiobook!! So many fun little pop culture nuggets and memories. The author not only beautifully captured the experience of many millennial girls growing up in America, but also included some spoken-word poetry surrounding the experiences and stories that was stunning.

From AIM away messages to Limited Too (or should I say, "Limited To"?) the author examines the millennial culture and both the harm and the good that has come from our "golden years" in the 90s and early 2000s.

I wasn't aware of this author before listening to the audiobook, but after listening I will be following her content online. Can't get enough!

I got 28% in and the chapter where she opposes Evangelical culture was a bit too much for this Evangelical to handle. I had to DNF.

Read this if:
•you are a millennial
•you wore gauchos
•you watched Holiday in the Sun with Mary Kate & Ashley
•you watched the Lizzie McGuire movie a million times and first saw it in theaters
•you liked the scholastic book fair
•own or owned Vera Bradley bags
•for navigating the “ifs” even when they seem so far away 💔

This book is a whole ode to being a millennial and I’ve never related to something more. Whether it was reminiscing over things of my childhood or the existential crisis over a corporate America job that pays the bills or a job you’re actually passionate about (if anyone figures that out lmk 🫠).

“No one can prepare you for that period of time in your mid to late 20s when your social life is literally only other people’s milestones.” “You feel like you’re defending your lack of personal life news when you’re celebrating someone else’s.”

This was the book I didn’t know I needed to read. It came into my life at the exact right time. I laughed. I cried. I feel so heard. Xoxo a fellow millennial.

Thank you Macmillan for the alc in exchange for an honest review.

A sweet touching memoir that was both specific and deeply relatable look at growing up and learning to understand your place in the world

I loved how nostalgic this book made me feel. We really did have it made in the 90s/00s and this was the perfect way to relive it.

As a self-proclaimed 'Millennial Girl' I was THRILLED to come across this book! ONE IN A MILLENNIAL by Kate Kennedy is a pseudo-memoir exploring millennial culture (or zeitgeist, which is now my new favorite $5 word), celebrating and critiquing elements that defined it. She uses the well-known radio slogan to anchor this book's framework into three time eras of millennial culture - The 90's, the 2000's, and Now!. The elements in this book range wide - sleepovers, AIM screen names, youth group camp, the Going Out shirt, American Girls dolls, Saved By the Bell, popular girl handwriting, pumpkin spice lattes, Spice Girls, and The Parent Trap movie (1998 Lindsay Lohan version, of course), just to name a few. In each chapters she waxes nostalgic, while making deeper commentary about each element's representation and connection to larger societal topics such as misogyny, patriarchy, feminism, media, purity culture, self-esteem, identity, parenting, and consumerism, as well as a variety of other topics.

I listened to the audiobook version and enjoyed how personal this book felt to hear her words in her own voice. I also LOVED how her poetry was interwoven, and can't even begin to enumerate the many references to millennial culture this book is chalked FULL of, and how cleverly she uses them. She definitely is a wordsmith and I found myself smiling to myself at multiple points with all the wordplay! I really feel like there was a good balance of celebration and critiquing, but did find that some of the commentary was reused in later chapters. It seemed to be hitting points already made, which felt circular, so I did start to lose some steam in my interest throughout. And despite her insistence that this isn't a memoir, her personal stories and experiences giving structure and stock to each topic definitely read waaaaay more memoir-y than she probably was wanting, especially in the Now! section.

A massive thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the e-ARC audiobook in exchange for my honest, unbiased review. ONE IN A MILLENNIAL is out 1/23/24.

I was so happy to get this audiobook! It’s perfect for listening ( and laughing) while running errands and cleaning (at least for me).

I found it highly relatable and almost depressingly so (LOL) being that I am a millennial and have always felt that I am not meeting expectations set by other generations.

Definitely a great book!

1.5 stars - This book wasn't what I thought it was going to be and perhaps was marketed incorrectly. I thought it would be a fun trip down nostalgia lane, but was more of a memoir (Even though she says it's not a memoir). The last 25% of the book was all about her experience trying to be a mother, it had nothing to do with growing up in the early 2000s. It goes into her reproductive system, procedures, and legislation.

I did enjoy some of the essays, but made it made us relook our childhood favorites and feel bad about liking them. Rather than thinking of the time frame and culture of the early 2000s and how they shaped us, she brought trends from that time period into 2024 and showed why they should basically be cancelled.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan for an advanced copy of this title. It’s been a while since I truly enjoyed a book as much as I enjoyed One in a Millennial. I felt like I was basically reliving my entire childhood through college years as the content and cultural references were so relatable. I’ve drawn the conclusion that if you grew up in the 90s we’ve basically all lived the same lives. This book does lean heavily towards a memoir towards the end, but the first half of this book is so so good, like a revisit to our younger selves navigating all the pop culture things that made up the 90s.

While I’m a couple years too old to be a millennial, I thought One in a Millennial sounded like a fun read and that it would be fun to reminisce about 90s and 00s pop culture. Instead, I just felt like I was reading a list of references coming at me fast and furious. I decided to DNF. Maybe this would work better for younger readers or fans of the author’s podcast but this was a miss for me. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the free book and audiobook to review.

For all millenial ladies! I enjoyed this audio book very much. Breezed through it like I was in a Time Machine. A blast from the past is to be had with this one. So many relatable moments. Thank you KK and NetGalley for the advanced copy. Will check out KKs podcast!

This was a fun, nostalgic read, but I don't think it made an impactful statement. It really hit hard on the nostalgic memories of the 90's and 2000's that I'm sure the majority of millennials have, but that's about it. I'm not familiar at all with the author or her podcast, so her retellings of her experiences didn't matter at all to me. Kate's fans might enjoy these parts though. I felt she narrated her work flawlessly though. I could hear the emotion in her voice during certain sections.

Thank you to Kate Kennedy, and St Martin's Press, and Macmillan audio for this ALC.

Unfortunately, this didn’t work for me. Maybe it didn’t work because I’m not familiar with the author’s podcast, but I genuinely struggled to figure out the true point of this book. There is such a thing as too many references and even though this felt very nostalgic to me; it just felt like a random list of memories from the 90s and early 2000s. There are a lot of important themes that resonated with me like the way millennials are looked down upon, the way the media truly controlled how I viewed myself and my self worth, but I’m not sure what was wrong with this but it just felt disjointed to me. I e think if I had been a fan of the author’s podcast before reading this I would have enjoyed it more. I’m not sure.

Thank you so much Macmillan audio for this ALC.

You know those books that you know you're going to read by the cover alone? Yeah, ONE IN A MILLENNIAL: ON FRIENDSHIPS, FEELINGS, FANGIRLS, AND FITTING IN by Kate Kennedy was one of those books for me. It's primarily pink, with a CD-R that looks like every mix CD I've ever made: all the flowers, squiggles, and hearts around the books' subtitle (and the mix CD's "title"). The handwriting on the CD is even that trademark early 2000s girl handwriting that we all would've died to perfect ourselves.

Kate Kennedy is the host of the Be There In Five podcast, which came about hilariously after Kate's success making doormats of all things. (Kate is all of us with her hair straightener, and made herself a "did you turn off your hair straightener?" rug for her front door, went viral, and turned it into a thriving business.) In her latest book, ONE IN A MILLENNIAL: ON FRIENDSHIPS, FEELINGS, FANGIRLS, AND FITTING IN, Kate walks us through the 90s and early aughts through the lens of a millennial fangirl--so, of course, it's one of the most relatable experiences for all millennial fangirls. Alongside Kate, we walk through the eras of boy bands and the Spice Girls, the trauma of growing up in the age of purity culture, the pressure that came with AIM (you had to have the perfect away message to get that boy's attention, DUH!), American Girl dolls, how our ideas of, and about, feminism have changed as we've grown, and so much more. At one point, she talks about 90s girl sleepovers and the nostalgia and deep desire to get just one more of those hit me like a train.

I enjoyed this book overall. There were so many points that were so relatable that I felt like Kate had somehow found, and (*gasp*) unlocked my Password Journal (IYKYK) because the experiences that she shares are so universal for women who grew up in the 90s and early aughts. There were points that had me in tears over the way that millennials have also been failed by generations before us: how we were drilled nearly from birth that college was the only way to pave the way to a successful future, only to be left with tens (and sometimes hundreds) of thousands of dollars in debt to show for it.

Kate writes in a way that feels conversational: you feel like your high school best friend is just telling you a story. She talks fast, both in the physical and audio versions) and from a nearly life-long Gilmore Girls lover, I was totally here for it. For the audio version, it felt almost like listening to a podcast, which I'm sure was Kate's plan. Each chapter is broken down into what could be a scripted podcast episode, with fun asides and side notes that derail things in the most fun way.

The only downside was that sometimes, Kate's verbiage got a bit repetitive. I jokingly thought that if I heard her say "zeitgeist" one more time, I was going to start a drinking game...then before I could finish the thought, she'd say "zeitgeist" again. She also occasionally got a bit long-winded, at times making her essays feel more like essays and less like the fun trip down memory lane/evaluation of the average millennial woman's experience. I also read that Kate doesn't consider this a memoir, but I would absolutely classify it as a memoir--not that that genuinely matters.

Overall, I really enjoyed ONE IN A MILLENNIAL: ON FRIENDSHIPS, FEELINGS, FANGIRLS, AND FITTING IN and urge all millennial women to read it. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll want to plan a sleepover with all your besties.

"One in a Millennial" by Kate Kennedy is a fun and engaging audiobook exploring the millennial zeitgeist. Narrated by the author, it's a vibrant journey through pop culture, online success, and genuine connections. Kennedy's witty style, akin to Jen Sincero, makes her experiences relatable. It's a candid reflection on emotions, relationships, and the impact of social media, offering valuable insights from her entrepreneurial journey and podcasting years. This is labeled as "Literary criticism," but it's also a memoir infused with Kennedy's humorous and perceptive storytelling. Thanks to Macmillan Audio via NetGalley for an early listener copy. This audiobook, out on January 23, 2024, is a must-hear for those interested in a witty take on contemporary culture and personal growth in the digital era.

This is not a book written for regular millennials. Maybe it was just me and I was to chronically uncool in the 90s but not a bit of this felt real or relatable. This felt like that one out of touch girl in your class wrote it. This was such a privileged and white centered idea of what growing up in that time was like. I honestly didn't like anything about this book. There are plenty of good books about the 90s and that culture that are better than this. If you want something you can actually relate to try 90s bitch or the 90s made me gay. Those are both way better and you will get far more from it .
I am only giving a star cause I must....