As a listener of the podcast Keep It! since it premiered in 2018, I've been a fan of Ira's cultural commentary on current events and entertainment news for many years. I was super excited when he announced he was writing "Pure Innocent Fun," his memoir/book of essays detailing his life growing up Black and queer (and closeted) in Milwaukee throughout the 90s and 2000s. Each essay combines formative moments from his life with the pop culture moments that coincided. Standout essays for me were "Being Steve Urkel", "Oprah Ruined My Life" and "A Virgin Who Can't Drive". Each were a great balance of offering insight and perspective with hilarious one-liners that literally had me laughing out loud. While I enjoyed reading the arc, I also preordered the audiobook and listened to some as well - both were great!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Random House, for the advance copy.

Ira continues to impress with this fun, funny, and shocking collection of essays. I expected to be entertained, and Pure Innocent Fun certainly hit the mark.

I don't know what I expected, but this is another case where I am not the target audience for this book. Essays purporting to explain popular culture to the reader popular reflected on a young, black gay man were not as enlightening as I'd hoped, but for the right reader, this could be a lot of fun and very relatable.

4 stars

Fun and frivolous, filled with pop culture and footnotes. I think I was looking for a little more on the memoir side, but it was a quick pleasant read. I think if you are around the same age as the author, these essays will particularly resonate with you (or you’ll have at least watched the shows and movies).

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced copy to form opinions from.

This book is written exactly for millennials who want to discuss NSYNC v BSB, Erika Kane, Passions (omg remember Timmy?), American Idol, Buffy, and more.

Madison brings his takes he's made famous in Keep It but adds in a lot of himself. Not just essays on pop culture, the essays are infused with stories of Madison growing up Black and closeted in Milwaukee.

I didn't relate to every story (I do not care at all about Survivor) but I overall enjoyed myself.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced review copy in exchange for an honest review. Pure Innocent Fun is out today!

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House, and Random House publishing for this ARC!!

Ira’s stories are fun, nostalgic, and thought-provoking! Definitely a must read for early 2000s kids/millennials! From *NSYNC to The O.C. Ira mentions all the classics. I also loved hearing all of this through his underrepresented perspective and lens as a Black queer man. Definitely recommend as a gift for your pop culture bestie!

I am a huge fan of Ira Madison III’s writing, so I was thrilled to read an advanced copy of Pure Innocent Fun. I love the way Ira weaves in pop culture with stories of his own personal narrative. We are similar in age, so almost every reference resonates with me and my memories of the time. This is such a fun and insightful collection of essays. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC of this title. I have already pre-ordered the book to keep for myself!

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC of this title.

This was a more frustrated read than I expected - there's a clear aim here to go for the Chuck Klosterman cultural-ephemera-as-connector-to-the-world type of essays here, but a lot of the essays quickly detour into memoir, and the bits that feel like they're a perfect setup for going deeper in memoir just as quickly pivot to slightly more fleshed-out listicles. Everything felt a little unfocused as a result.

I requested this book as an early arc through Net Galley as I'm a long time fan (never missed an episode) of the author's podcast "Keep It". These essays read as quick glimpses into the author's past framed through the culture he was taking in at the time. The first essay discusses one of Madison's favorite authors, Chuck Klosterman, and throughout many of these essays Madison has done a good job of approximating, with his own style, Klosterman while integrating his own pop culture. Pair this book with Chuck Klosterman's The Nineties!
Like some other reviews I've read, would I have liked to have been treated to more personal bits of Ira's life? Of course. I'm nosy and through listening to him weekly I've developed a parasocial relationship. But that's my issue.
This is a quick fun read that I recommend even if you aren't a Keep It listener.
Many thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for the copy.

Each essay stands on its own, especially for insight into its cultural moment and the piece of media Ira Madison III is examining (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or Bring It On or Jurassic Park), but as the essays progress, and the narrator takes up incrementally larger bits of the page to tell personal anecdotes, he becomes more interesting than the analyses. It reminded me of "Pale Fire." By the end, he's devoting a whole essay to tell a personal story, and the book (taken together) feels like the character arc by which he learned to tell his own story--first by mediating it through (hiding behind?) the trillion different stories of his (in my case, as a fellow millennial, "our") youth.

I'm a junkie for '90s and Y2K pop culture essay collections, and there's been a boom in that department recently, but Ira Madison's is the most relaxed, enjoyable, artful and moving of any I've read so far--in fact, of any essay collection I"ve read in years.

I am Ira's target audience.

I listen to his pod and follow him on all the socials he's not banned on. It's a huge win when I hear him guest on "Bitch Sesh." To say I was excited for his book is an understatement.

Ira's biography is laid out through a pop culture tour of his life. It's laid out in a series of essays that are thought provoking and hilarious at the same time.

There were multiple times while reading that I texted a friend and said 'Ira is basically our best friend.'

I highly recommend this, for his point of view and for the nostalgic look at how pop culture can help us tell our life stories.

Full disclosure, I came to this book with the expectation that I would love it, and I was not disappointed. I have been a fan of the author for years, as I regularly listen to his brilliant podcast, "Keep It!", which he co-hosts with the equally talented Louis Virtel. If you enjoy the pop culture discussions from that podcast, you're likely to love this book as well. It feels like one continuous pop culture rant, reminiscent of the podcast, and deliciously intertwines the author’s personal story with the cultural moments that shaped his coming-of-age as a Black queer person.

However, if you prefer clear, linear storylines, this book might not be for you. The author has a tangential writing style, often interrupting himself to delve into side stories before returning to the main point. While this may bother some readers, it was perfect for my ADHD brain, as I tend to think in a similar way.

So, dear readers, I give this book a very biased five stars, but five stars nonetheless!

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book through Netgalley courtesy of the publisher in exchange for my honest review. My review is my honest opinion.

Honestly zoom. I’m a true Keep It stan and don’t miss an episode, so I was absolutely thrilled to get an ARC for this. I’m 25% in and it’s every bit as sharp and funny as Ira usually is. But now that the release date is looming I *know* I’ll have access to an audio version and I’m just so used to hearing Ira’s commentary, so I’m putting this on pause and will use my Spotify credits immediately to hear the audio. Cover thoughts: flipping perfect. Chuck Klosterman would be proud.

Ira is so funny and I love his musings on pop culture, just wanted this to feel a little more cohesive.

Delightful and insightful - Ira Madison III's Pure Innocent Fun is an essay collection detailing millennial culture touchpoints. Ira's voice shines through and I definitely recommend for folks that have enjoyed his culture podcast, Keep It, and for those who have not yet had the pleasure of listening. Ira hits on varied themes ranging from playing Power Rangers as a kid and to the power of daytime soap operas. While I'm not one for soaps, I appreciated his recapping to help everyone come along for the ride. Overall, a fun read and I really hope that Ira gets his Salt sequel...

Thank you to NetGalley and to Random House for the advanced copy.

I was so hyped for this book but think the idea was pulled off better than the execution. I do not feel like I know Ira Madison any better after reading this book nor do I have a better understanding of pop culture. A bit all over the place.

I’ve been a fan and listener of Ira Madison III’s podcast Keep It! for a long time, so when I heard he was putting out a book of essays I knew that I had to jump on it. While I’m a Millenial/Gen Z cusper, I’m also Canadian, so our pop culture is skewed a bit behind the Americans so a lot of the ‘90s pop culture references that he makes resonate with me. That and I’m known to have made a bit of a study of pop culture from the ‘60s to now.

Through this series of essays, Ira tells us about different media properties that have meant a lot to him through his life – from TV shows, movies, to music, we’re brought on a nostalgic ride through the ‘90s and early ‘00s. Having not been alive enough to catch a lot of these things live, I was entertained by his insights and commentary on the pop culture landscape of the day and how it connected to his adolescence as the fat, gay Black kid at his very white high school.

That said, I felt that there was very little insight into Ira himself through the essays. I really didn’t learn anything that I didn’t know from the podcast, and what he did share of himself was very surface level to explain why he connected to a piece of media. While the insights into the piece of media were very thoughtful and interesting, it lacked a deeper level for me that kept me from giving this five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Books of essays, just like short story collections, are difficult. They can only be as good as the weakest story or essay. While I enjoyed reading this collection, particularly as I’m the same age as Madison and the nostalgia hit hard, I can’t say this was amazing or one of my favorite books. A couple of the essays for me just read too much like an encyclopedia of culture. Where the book was the best was a beautiful weaving of pop culture, nostalgia, autobiography and social commentary, and a few of the essays were beautifully successful. But the couple that felt more like a cultural lecture dragged down the experience for me. I’ll still recommend this one to anyone around my age especially, and I’m very glad I read it, but it won’t be a favorite of mine.

Reading Pure Innocent Fun felt like hanging out with Ira in real life. Almost feels like taking a peek at your best-friends journal, full of hot takes and vulnerable personal stories. Loved being dropped in to cultural moments.

An absolutely hilarious and warming take on many pop culture moments that we may have forgotten about (or think about everyday still).

Pure Innocent Fun effortlessly weaves family dynamics, sexuality, Blackness, and many other topics with the pop culture experience, reflecting on where/who the author was at the time.

I would absolutely recommend this, I was laughing out loud.

Note, there is a handful of grammatical errors in the ARC which I'm sure you have caught!