Girls Can Kiss Now: Essays
Girls Can Kiss Now: Essays book cover

Girls Can Kiss Now: Essays

Paperback – March 8, 2022

Price
$11.38
Format
Paperback
Pages
240
Publisher
Atria
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1982158507
Dimensions
5.5 x 0.6 x 8.38 inches
Weight
6.9 ounces

Description

“Fresh and witty.” — Vogue “Compulsively readable.” — The Skimm “Gutowitz maps the current lesbian canon with a lot of humor and more than a few wonderful, and wonderfully mortifying, personal anecdotes.” — Wired “Comedy gold…If you were to mark every single funny thing in this book, you would mark the entire book.”—Isaac Fitzgerald, Today “Ever-hilarious and insightful...Gutowitz explores how lesbianism went mainstream.” — Bustle “Between every one-liner and guffaw, Gutowitz delivers not just herself, but universal truths everyone can relate to.” — USA Today “[A] thrilling excavation of lesbian pop culture... a perfect combination of humor and sincerity, of wit, self-deprecation, and most importantly, self-love.” — Associated Press “Hilarious… Girls Can Kiss Now is going to be one of the most important accessories of 2022.” — Glamour "A laugh-out-loud look at the mainstreaming of queer culture...Gutowitz’s book is perhaps the definitive authority on what it means to be gay and a little too online.” — Harper's Bazaar “A hilarious, heartfelt eye-opener, helping readers laugh, get emotional, and, most importantly, consider how the world has wronged the lesbian community and the work that still needs to be done for true acceptance.” — Shondaland “Super-funny, personal, honest, insightful and filled with pop culture references, Gutowitz’s essays on queer culture will leave you laughing out loud.” — CNN “Irreverent and insightful…[a] heartfelt celebration and defense of the importance of pop culture in helping queer people feel seen.” — Buzzfeed “An equal mix of illuminating analysis and laugh-out-loud anecdotes.” — T hrillist “Wickedly funny and heartstoppingly vulnerable…every page twinkles with brilliance.” — Refinery29 “Hilarious…Jill Gutowitz explores how pop culture has shaped society's perception of lesbianism, how it's impacted her own life, and, ultimately, what we can expect from a very queer future that's in store for us.” — Marie Claire "Incisive and funny…Gutowitz blends candid reflections on the experience of being closeted with witty analysis on how the media affects one’s perception of the world. Fans of the personal essay will be eager to see what Gutowitz does next.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Shines with humor, vulnerability, and poignancy...formally inventive and searingly personal...A witty essay collection about pop culture and queerness.” — Kirkus Reviews "Readers who recall where they were – because these iconic moments were lifechanging – when Orange is the New Black debuted or when paparazzi pictures of Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson arguing were published will relish re-living their importance with Gutowitz." — Booklist "Every single sentence glitters, quivers, and shakes with a kind of unhinged lesbian brilliance that is both wickedly funny and deeply self-aware. GIRLS CAN KISS NOW is not only the gayest book of essays I’ve ever read — it’s one of the best." — Gabrielle Korn, author of Everybody (Else) is Perfect "Jill Gutowitz's brain is full of lightning bolts. I loved every word of this hilarious and heartfelt book." —Diablo Cody, award-winning screenwriter and author of Candy Girl “Snaps, crackles and pops with sharp one-liners and biting wit. But when Gutowitz deftly uses her encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture to interrogate her own personal history and relationship to her queerness, her prose reaches a level of depth and tenderness that left me reeling with emotion. 10/10. You must read this book if you're gay, human, or both.” —Ryan O'Connell, author of I'm Special and Just by Looking at Him “Queer social media icon Jill Gutowitz weaves pop culture, relationships and humor together in a memorable, enjoyable collection…Lesbianism and shame intersect in an entertaining, thought-provoking way in these irreverent stories.” — GMA “ You’ll certainly be entertained, but there is a certain level of tenderness and care that really makes this book shine.” — Buzzfeed Jill Gutowitz is a writer from New Jersey. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker , Vanity Fair , Vulture , and more. She lives in Los Angeles with her partner and a very small cat.

Features & Highlights

  • “Wickedly funny and heartstoppingly vulnerable…every page twinkles with brilliance.”
  • —Refinery29
  • Perfect for fans of Samantha Irby and
  • Trick Mirror
  • , a hilarious, whip-smart collection of personal essays exploring the intersection of queerness, pop culture, the internet, and identity, introducing one of the most undeniably original new voices today.
  • Jill Gutowitz’s life—for better and worse—has always been on a collision course with pop culture. There’s the time the FBI showed up at her door because of something she tweeted about
  • Game of Thrones
  • . The pop songs that have been the soundtrack to the worst moments of her life. And of course, the pivotal day when
  • Orange Is the New Black
  • hit the airwaves and broke down the door to Jill’s own sexuality. In these honest examinations of identity, desire, and self-worth, Jill explores perhaps the most monumental cultural shift of our lifetimes: the mainstreaming of lesbian culture. Dusting off her own personal traumas and artifacts of her not-so-distant youth she examines how pop culture acts as a fun house mirror reflecting and refracting our values—always teaching, distracting, disappointing, and revealing us.
  • Girls Can Kiss Now
  • is a fresh and intoxicating blend of personal stories, sharp observations, and laugh-out-loud humor. This timely collection of essays helps us make sense of our collective pop-culture past even as it points the way toward a joyous, uproarious, near—and very queer—future.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(95)
★★★★
25%
(80)
★★★
15%
(48)
★★
7%
(22)
23%
(73)

Most Helpful Reviews

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Great Memoir

I picked up this book after absolutely loving Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much and expecting a similar vibe. Both are essays/memoirs written by sapphic women about being sapphic, growing up, finding yourself, and with this one, a heavy tie-in to pop culture. Girls Can Kiss Now is FUNNY. It's unbearably relatable in many ways. Growing up before being gay was "cool," being
Severely Online, etc. The content is very often hilarious.

Unfortunately, I think the essays themselves felt unfinished. They didn't all lead me somewhere that felt like an end. Some of them were also more than they needed to be in ways, too overdone when the entire tone of the book is overdone. I think some of the essays needed curbing, editing, or even adding to. Something to bring them back to the point at hand. A point at all.

Even so, I love reading about the experiences of queer women, of seeing them make space for themselves in their own lives and in media. I love that I can compare two recent works by sapphic authors that feel so much like they could be people I know.

I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for non-fiction by queer authors or those that loved Greedy like I did!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC!
8 people found this helpful
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Brilliant Gay Book

Let’s go lesbians! This book is amazing and I enjoyed every chapter.
6 people found this helpful
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Hilarious!

Think of your friend who is the best at telling stories when you’re out to dinner or for drinks. This is that moment in book form. A hysterical colloquial read of the “celesbianism” of pop culture and well—just growing up at the same time computers, the internet, and the social media/ continuous scroll addiction came to be a part of everyday life.

I cannot express how hilarious and relatable this book is (the early pandemic obsession with the show Alone is def a mood—and the late chapter diatribe into an Alone-like isolation had me in stitches) but also has the reader pause, reflect, and reevaluate what’s important in life and accept that it’s ok to want something different from what you initially were striving for in life.
3 people found this helpful
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Hilarious and affirming for gay people who grew up in the early 2000s

As someone who also grew up in the 2000s and realized they were gay in their twenties, I was interested in this book on the premise and also recognized Jill as someone who is funny on Twitter. This is certainly a book that those who are "extremely online" will enjoy, and has that specific brand of irreverent comedy and language that Jill utilizes so well. What I loved most about this book was the way she writes about what growing up in that era and loving pop culture was like, and how exhausting and confusing and painful it was as a young woman and as a queer person. I found it really true to my own experience and described in a way that felt almost visceral, like I was reliving those horrors all over again. She's also downright hilarious, and I laughed out loud multiple times while reading this. My favorite essays were the ones focused more narrowly on specific stories from her own life, in which she conveys all the agony of the moment but also all the punchlines and humor that hindsight provides. Other essays I struggled with a little and her commentary felt a little more shallow (For example, an essay about yearning that talks about how there should be more lesbian movies with happy endings--shouldn't we want queer stories of all varieties, from people with all kinds of experiences, happy or not? Another was about how terrible Perez Hilton was in the aughts about outing gay people, which then screeches to a halt when she reveals she writes professionally for media outlets about how Taylor Swift should be/is maybe gay, but it's okay because she's not doing it with bad intentions and just wants to relate to her more, which also made me feel kind of weird, as a fellow pop culture zealot and even gay Taylor Swift fan! And it always seems like books written by media writers/Twitter personalities include one chapter which is essentially just a list, however humorous). All that being said, these are pretty small quibbles and I will highly recommend this book to others my age and even queer young adults seeking queer, pop culture focused content. I really enjoy her voice and sense of humor and her focus in this book, and would love to read more from her in the future.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
3 people found this helpful
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Amazing

This book made me feels ways I have not felt in a while.
2 people found this helpful
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Funny

Funny cute little stories would recommend
1 people found this helpful
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Great Book

This is a set of essays from the self-described "always online" lesbian woman who definitely considers herself an influencer. The book provided interesting insights into the various issues and challenges facing the LBTQ community. It is at times raunchy, funny, and challenging, but always with a generally funny and light-hearted writing style that made this an entertaining read.
1 people found this helpful
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The funniest most truthful book.

If you are gay or a lesbian then you know what it’s like to grow up being in the closet. Jill Gutowitz lays out the whole experience in this brilliant book. I laughed, I cried but mostly I felt seen. This is a great book.
1 people found this helpful
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Fun Read

This book is fun—if you’re a sapphic person, this will likely connect to you in some way with its lighthearted glimpses into lesbianism and queer pop culture milestones. That said, there were huge portions that felt a little too on the nose for me, and as someone who is not a Taylor Swift lesbian I realize now that I’m definitely in the wrong demographic for this book. But the personal and vulnerable stories that Gutowitz shares are incredibly lovely!
1 people found this helpful
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Refreshing for us millennials in the LGBTQ+ community.

I was hooked to this book the moment I started reading it. The way Jill writes is captivating and entertaining. As a gay woman in this crazy world I deffinitly understood alot of where the writer was coming from. I would definitely read more of anything Jill Gutowitz writes.