Girls Can Kiss Now: Essays

Jill Gutowitz writes her autobiography in the form of pop culture essays, intertwining childhood anecdotes, teenage angst, and twentysomething soul searching with ruminations on the significance of Lindsay Lohan and Orange Is the New Black to the lesbian community. There is some heavy stuff -- homophobia and sexual assault -- but the overall effect is an amusing ride that touches on a dozen or so movies and alludes to the ubiquitousness of Cara Delevingne and the simultaneous trailblazing and dead weight nature of Ellen DeGeneres.

Highlights include a run-in with the FBI and the magical thinking displayed in an essay condemning Perez Hilton for outing gay people while discussing her own career looking for LGBTQIA+ Easter eggs in the show more lyrics and life of Taylor Swift. show less

This isn't a bad set of essays. If you're a pop-culture obsessed lesbian born between the years of, say, 1986 and 1998 and you happen to be a big fan of cringe humor, it's probably even pretty great for you. But the fact that I have to be that specific is half the problem I had with the book. Gutowitz can talk at length about the things that are interesting to her, but she can't make them fascinating to people who don't already know and care about those things.

But that's not the only problem. This book is a case study on the fundamental error of attribution. Gutowitz consistently attributes to surrounding events -- TV shows, paparazzi photos, whatever -- things that are actually simply because of her personality and her place in her show more life. So, like, throughout the book she talks excitedly about how much BETTER things are now, in 2023, than in the Dark Days of, say, 2013, or -- god forbid -- 2003. Because, you know, we had Orange Is the New Black on Netflix, and it saved us!

Look. I'm sure it was a fine series. (I never watched it; I'm a Bad at Pop Culture Lesbian.) But it's ludicrous to look at the US in 2023, as trans people are under endless legal threat and Florida attempts to create some kind of fascist hell on earth and our Supreme Court works to walk back Obergefell and hate crimes are increasing, and say it's SO MUCH BETTER FOR QUEER PEOPLE. It isn't. It's better for Jill Gutowitz, because she's no longer living in conservative New Jersey and she's no longer a deeply miserable, closeted lesbian forcing herself through relationships with terrible men! That's a great change for her and her circumstances, but it is personal to her. It is not indicative of a larger trend. And the whole book is like that. If Gutowitz likes something, it is a lesbian thing. (No, it's just -- something you like.) If Gutowitz experiences something, that is a Universal Lesbian Experience. (No, it's just your LIFE.) She generalizes everything, when the point of personal essays is to make them personal but still make your audience feel what you felt.

Also, man, this is only funny if you like the kind of humor where people talk in explicit detail about the most humiliating, horrible stuff they've ever done. Like, if you laugh at this book, you are definitely laughing AT Gutowitz, not with or because of her. And since I am not a fan of secondhand embarrassment, I definitely wasn't laughing. I was more recoiling from the page.

So, basically: I recommend this book if you already know you align with Jill Gutowitz -- you love pop culture, you study paparazzi photos, you obsess about specific celebrities and if they're lesbians, you love humiliation humor, and you have in common with her most of these things: age, race, social class, life experience, and goals. Otherwise, yeah, this probably isn't for you. It sure wasn't for me. show less

3.5 stars

As a queer millennial who grew up chronically online, obsessed with pop culture, music, horror movies, and experienced a lot of the same coming of age type of events that Jill Gutowitz writes about in this collection of essays.. I really enjoyed this. A lot of the lower reviews seem to be coming from Gen Z readers who were not familiar with many of the references or found Jill's writing to be a little "too millennial" but I don't entirely feel like Gen Z was the intended audience of these essays anyway. This book isn't perfect, but I found many of the essay to be deeply relatable, entertaining, and nostalgic. I don't typically read a lot of comedic books, but this worked for me and was a lot of fun.

If you are a millennial pop culture fanatic you NEED to mark Jill Gutowitz's amazing essay collection GIRLS CAN KISS NOW as a TBR for it's release date in March.. Written through the lens of a coming of age memoir, Jill explores how her queerness and her love of pop culture has collided through her journey of self discovery. This collection is hilarious, thoughtful, insightful and a joy to read. I wish I could gift copies to every lesbian I know!

Thank you so much to netgalley and publishers for providing an advanced e-copy for me to read and rate honestly. I couldn't be happier to announce just how perfect I found this collection, nor can I stress the fact that I highly recommend this book to everyone enough.

“Isn't it... kinda cool? How dumb and fragile we are, able be wholly destabilized by the likes of ... Katy Perry?” not everybody likes to admit the impact that pop culture has on us, but jill gutowitz is ALL about pop culture. this was a fun read and i truly enjoyed every essay in this book

This is full of pop and celebrity culture.
When the author brought up Perez Hilton who used to try to out celebrities ( a vile thing to do) she then proceeds to mention she also was paid by a magazine to try to out female celebrities. It was at the point that I DNFd this - trying to out other human beings is gross to me. We all come out on our own time or we don’t - respect others choices regarding the communication of their sexual identities.