What does good taste even mean? Rax King does not seem to care, as she takes us a through an investigation of our generation's obsession with out-of-this-world styles, events, and aesthetics, from Alanis Morisette's Ironic to the Cheesecake Factory, and a hell of a lot of fun spots in between — King's essays delight and entertain.

2.5 stars
It's not bad I just don't really get the point of this book unfortunately
as someone who is a fan of "tacky" media ("guilty" pleasures some may say), I feel like I was the perfect audience for this book but not really
I think the main point was you should enjoy whatever media you want and don't let yourself be talked down about it, but I don't know if that warrants a whole book.
The most interesting bits were when the author spoke about their personal relationships in terms of tacky media (like their neighbor and creed or their father) but those were never explored to the depth that I was hoping and it became more a composite of "hey remember that show, or musician that everybody loves to hate on, I liked it and I think it's interesting and maybe we shouldn't hate on people for enjoying popular media." Like sure. Not sure it's enough to fill a book
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

This is a funny take on some common yet decidedly ‘tacky’ things in life, and I enjoyed the humor! The tone lends to the topic and keeps you engaged.

What a fun take on the tackiest days of our lives! Ms. King finds the joy in the most lowbrow and forgettable moments of our collective youth!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this advance copy to review. An interesting look at the tacky.

King's essay collection is laugh-out-loud funny and is perfect for anyone who is obsessed with pop culture, even the cheesy stuff. However, her tone is never snarky and every opinion comes from a place of love. Such a fun book and a perfect palate cleanser if you, like me, have been mired in world events.

Based on the title and subtitle, I was expecting more cultural analysis than personal essays, but this was still a poignant essay collection, mostly about the complexities girlhood and evolving sexuality.

I really loved all the pop culture representations in this book. It is fun and also so thoughtful. I really enjoyed the balance of fun and real.

This was a really fascinating read. I love pop culture and I’m always fascinated with unexpected things that make their way into pop culture. Worth the read if you’re a pop culture fan especially if you’re also an 80s or 90s baby!

I received an ARC of this book by the publisher via Netgalley in an exchange for an honest review.

Tacky is a book of essays in which King intertwines something from the cultural zeitgeist that she considers "tacky" (I refuse to accept The Sims being called tacky since I currently have over a 1000 hours in The Sims 4) and something personal. Examples of some of the pop culture that are featured in the book are the before-mentioned Sims, Hot Topic, The Cheesecake Factory, and The Jersey Shore. This felt like an ode to the Millennial experience. A lot of the essay topics featured heavily in my teenage years as I navigated the 2000s.

King's writing feels tacky (in the best way possible). She's over-the-top and I'm here for it. However, I felt like the essays featured at the beginning of the book were much stronger than the ending. Especially in the last essay, it felt like King had run out of steam. I think the book would've benefited from a couple of the essays being cut from the final product. However, don't let this deter you from giving Tacky a chance.

It was a wild ride. King's life has been a lot more exciting than mine. She describes her forays into partying, sex, and drugs that leaves me feeling like a nun. But it's a fun read, to dive into her world, without the hangovers. It's interesting because I read this around the same time as John Green's book of essays, The Anthropocene Reviewed. A friend asked me my opinions after I finished with The Anthropocene Reviewed and I told her that it paled in comparison to King's Tacky.

Overall, I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

I rarely say this, but I feel like this book was marketed poorly. Based on the synopsis, I was expecting a book of essays examining the "tacky" pop culture of the 2000s, with some personal anecdotes thrown in for a more personal touch. In fact what this book is is the opposite of that, at least for the second half. It was a lot of highly personal and graphic essays with bits of pop culture sprinkled in. I am in no way a prude, but I felt somewhat blindsided by the graphic details in the essays about the author's sex life, particularly in the second half of the book. I also found the author's writing style a bit scattered and sometimes hard to follow the connection between the pop culture item discussed in the essay and the anecdote she put with it. It wasn't a horrible book, but not one I would recommend, especially if you're looking for an examination of pop culture, tacky or otherwise.

Entertaining, reads like a gen z Samantha Irby if she were upper middle class, white and from the DC suburbs. Not exactly deep or groundbreaking, but you’re not looking for that when you pick up a book titled ‘Tacky.’ Most insights are paraphrases or justifications of points made by other authors (Susan Sontag, Jim Steinem, etc), and by the end you understand that this is therapy-as-essays, a way for the author to work through and justify the things in her life she’s embarrassed about liking - the things she’s been conditioned to think of as ‘tacky,’ even though they’re relatively mainstream. Jersey Shore, Meat Loaf, Cheesecake Factory, spousal abuse - these things aren’t all the same nor do they all belong under the same label, except maybe as things a particular person feels ashamed of. Nevertheless, King tries to be as raw as possible, and doesn’t usually shy away from pointing the finger back at herself. The only times you really feel bad for her are in the essays about her failed marriage, which not so coincidentally are the least entertaining of the collection, but you get the sense that seeking empathy and entertaining are not the main reasons King wrote this - her schtick is that she’s a damaged elder gen z’er, damaged as much by the culture she’s grown up in as much as by personal choices and events. Dumping those experiences onto paper lets us be the person listening while she lays on the couch unloading them, even if in doing so you feel guilty, like you’re watching a car wreck occur. Which of course is among the tackiest of behaviors, so in the end you got what you came for.

This read more like a memoir than a collection of essays. The topics of each essay seem to be mentioned only to give something of a structure to the different aspects of her life she wanted to share. I did enjoy reading these essays but was confused as it was presented very differently in the blurb than what it really was.

This book was fun and well written, but the description is misleading so it wasn't the book that I was looking for or would have chosen. Instead of a microhistory or social history about taste and pop culture, this is really more of a memoir that looks at the author's life through the lens of different "bad taste" pop cultural selections.
The author balances funny and serious in their glimpses back, and if you are looking for a personal essays that also talk about Creed, the Cheesecake Factory, the Jersey Shore, and more then this would be a great match.

I received an advanced digital copy of this book from the author, publisher and NetGalley.com. Thanks to all for the opportunity to read and review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Rax King's book is an entertaining stomp through everything distasteful that we secretly love. All things Tacky! A mix of memoir and commentary on culture King shares more than what she sees as the worst culture we have, she tells her experiences, good, bad, and indifferent.

4 out of 5 stars.

Was it OMG amazing, can't put it down, best book of the year? No. But it was perfectly pleasant and a good read between commitment books.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for providing me with a copy of Rax King’s memoir, Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer.

I have to confess that King’s book was completely unexpected. Previous to reading her memoir, I was not aware of King, who hosts a podcast of the same theme as her book. I have not have a chance to listen to her podcast, but I have since subscribed and I look forward to it.

What I found surprising, was the tone of her memoir. Based on the cover and title, I was expecting a relatively fluffy book that would allow me to relate to King with a shared love for our less refined side of American culture. What I was not expecting was the serious tone and heavy subject matter that is soaked into every chapter. There is humor, mostly from King’s wry comments and keen observations, but she also attacks heavy subjects such as relationship abuse, body image issues, and sordid affairs. It’s dark and weighty. It’s cringy too, such as the reveal of a young Rex doing her best to be sexy for a much older, married boyfriend. Each chapter intwines a “tacky” culture phenomenon with her personal issue, such as finding the joy in watching Jersey Shore with her father, as he is dying.

The book may not have been what I was anticipating, but I want to convey to would-be readers that Tacky is so much more and so much better than I was expecting. Far from fluff, it was a profoundly moving experience. King’s memoir is raw and she offers no apologies, nor should she, for the life she has lived and the tacky culture that she loves. Read this book!

My Tacky™️ moment is closetedly liking Nickelback when the band became uncool overnight while I was in junior high. I watched their music videos [insert “Photograph” meme here] climb the charts every day on MTV’s Total Request Live. Nickelback was also a bonding experience for my family (which eventually fell apart lol). Every time we rode in my dad’s Honda Ridgeline, we’d sing along to Chad’s raspy croon. “This is how - you remind me - of what I really am.”

Then one day I woke up and Nickelback was no longer ~in~. They became passé, and for what? My family and I continued to enjoy them (my favorite song being the underrated single “Someday”), just not in the hallways of my middle school. (EDIT: Actually, my sister researched them for a music class project and her homemade poster did, in fact, hang in the school hallway.)

Like King points out in these essays (which all share a common denominator of sex), tacky people/places/things of the early aughts are now back in style: millennials screaming “Rockstar” at karaoke, unironically binge watching Survivor and other reality television, unnecessary feminine hygiene trends that take us back to the scents of Bath & Body Works. So now that we have established a safe space for our culture’s tackiest phenomena, Rax King and I are here to remind you that Cheesecake Factory is GOOD!

This was a fun nostalgic look on Rax King's childhood and life loving everything 'tacky'. Full of fun stories and learning how to love what you love without worrying about what other people think about it.
Some stories I connected with more than others, which is expected from a book of essays. I loved the love letter to Hot Topic, as someone who still gets a majority of my wardrobe from there.
While it's not exactly my favorite writing style, I did enjoy the humor and her reminders to not place anyone's opinions as 'law' while dismissing your own based on the public opinion. I personally love being tacky, too much, and overly excitable and loved the celebration!

Loved this book! Cheesecake Factory, B*Witched and... Creed? Laughed out loud multiple times!

Have given it as a gift to many people over the last few months, Spreading the gospel far and wide.