Readers millage from this book is probably going to depend quite a bit on their age and their pop culture engagement. For this, it really hit the sweet spot. King and I seem to have grown up with a lot of the same TV shows and other media, so I loved reading her own personal (and hilarious) thoughts on them all. Stop feeling guilty about "guilty pleasures" and revel in the joy of low-brow art.

This collection was too all over the place for me. Some essays were great (particularly the one about the author and her father enjoying Jersey Shore) but the majority of the essays were lackluster and incohesive.

Tacky drew me in from the cover to the first essay and on.Well written fun thoughtful .an author with a with a clear distinct voice .Will be recommending.#netgalley #tacky

While this has some enjoyable moments and I generally enjoyed the author's funny, irreverent style, unfortunately this wasn't what I hoped and wanted it to be. I was excited for a discussion of various pop-cultural phenomena, but this read much more like a personal memoir.

It's not that the author's stories wren't readable, and there is a good, impassioned defense of tackiness in general (a concept I've always found fraught with snobbishness and privilege), but I was left missing more factual and contextual information about why things like Hot Topic and Cheesecake Factory came to be and what their existence reflects about us as a culture. That would have been a fascinating read.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

Thank you to Vintage and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Tacky by Rax King is an ode to all things, well, tacky. She covers Creed, Degrassi, Jersey Shore, Cheesecake Factory, and so much more in this book, and in doing so, she relates these back to her own experiences. This is a cross between culture writing and memoir, and it really worked for me. I am only a few years younger than King, and so a lot of the topics she covers are things I've also seen/experienced in its heyday. The Jersey Shore phenomenon was definitely happening while I was in college!

I've been on a roll with memoirs and culture essays (just finished Greedy and am currently also reading The 2000s Made Me Gay), and this one stands on its own as an interesting view of how things we file away as "tacky" and don't think too hard about how it can mean so much to others. There's no reason to belittle work that seems cheap, tacky, or crude just because it doesn't appeal to you (or me!).

I found King's insights really interesting, and I'd love to see more of her work.

I picked this up from Net Galley based on the description. Then, when I read it, I realized I was, like many other folks, duped. The Goodreads description is much more accurate. I am sure there are many folks for whom this collection of essays rings true and is hilarious. I am too old for most of these to work for me. The book isn’t bad per say, it just isn’t anything to me. I really did try and I wanted to like it, but I was left feeing nothing much and so, I am not going to rate it at all. I don’t want to artificially lower the rating, but I don’t want to pretend I liked it either. I also don’t think that the title accurate. It will get people to buy it for sure, but it is misleading a bit.

In terms of books encapsulating the high/low of modern culture, there've been a lot...but nothing this the emotional, coursing vein quite like Rax King's. Seriously, just stop whatever you're doing and read this, immediately.

I'm another who mistook this book for something that it isn't I was looking forward to an amusing look at pop culture and kitsch (like Jane and Michael Stern used to write) and this was far more of a memoir. While some essays were more engaging for me than others, I can't say that I really found any of them to be relational to me in the way that a memoir of this kind needs to be in order to be truly enjoyable. I was born in 1960 and I'm just too darned old.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy for my review.

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I enjoyed the first few stories immensely, King has a tone of voice and way of writing that is completely her own. Although others have done this candid, in your face relatable type of autobiographical writing, King holds absolutely nothing back (apart from the bits she isn't legally allowed to say). It is an interesting concept of mixing pop culture with bare reality as King has in this book and readers will find a lot of references to things of their childhood, teenage and young adult years too, not only in the references to tv, music and games but also sharing in Rax's experiences. It was interesting to hear a woman talk about her own sexuality so candidly, not only in terms of preference but experience too, without having to feel ashamed. Although King talks about experiences she regrets, she does not slut shame which would be easy to do for some in this situation, although less easy I suppose as it is autobiographical. The first half of this anthology was thoroughly enjoyable however I did become a little tired of it by the end, the explorations of pop culture would go on for way to long sometimes going into unnecessary detail or becoming repetitive when what we really want to hear about is her experience that she is relating to that.

Anyone who grew up in the late 90s/early 2000s and found themselves drawn to so-called lowbrow things in pop culture will feel at home among Rax King's essays. Jersey Shore, Bath & Body Works, Guy Fieri, and the band Creed are just some of the topics King tackles, but it's more than just an ode to Warm Vanilla Sugar body spray. She finds a way to weave these bits of nostalgia into stories about her late father, divorce, sexuality, etc. This is a winning combination of memoir and cultural critique.

Thank you to the publisher for providing an advance copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for the opportunity to review “Tacky” by Rax King. I had never heard of King before the publication of this collection, though clearly I’m in the minority. I enjoyed the bulk of of this collection, though I do recognize it depends a bit on my current mood. It is clever, certainly, and when I’m ready for this type of commentary it certainly hits the spot. Will recommend selectively to those I believe will enjoy it most.

The essays in this book remind me of the best bar conversations I ever had in my twenties. The kinds of conversations that start small and end up showing out the moments of your life that resonate through the lens of corny celebrities and tacky aesthetics.

I lost interest in this book while reading and decided it was not worth my time to keep reading it. I apologize for wasting a digital galley copy of it.

This was an entertaining collection of personal essays, which are more about the author's relationship to low culture and what various shows, music and media signified in her life, than the actual artifacts themselves. I found them compelling and humorous but a lot hinges on your tolerance for her explicit sexual escapades and tendency towards neurosis.

An incredible ode to pop culture, coming of age, and loving the things that bring you joy. King explores deftly and irreverently topics ranging from shopping at Hot Topic, frosted lip gloss, and what it means to be “tacky.” This was one of my most anticipated new releases of the year, and it definitely lived up to the hype.

I grew up during the 2000’s and was looking forward to having a few laughs over how kitschy that era is. I wasn’t expecting the book I ended up reading and it left me feeling lukewarm over the experience.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this ebook in exchange for an unbiased review. .

I love, love, loved this essay collection. A must-read for recovering Cool Kids everywhere. Long live messy, earnest feeling.

I honestly skimmed read this when I realized this was not the kind of book I thought it was going to be. I thought this was going to be funny and sarcastic but it was the opposite. of funny. Not for me and cannot recommend.

Thanks to Netgalley, Rax King and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Vintage for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 11/2/21

A fun and occasionally brilliant collection of essays. Like all essay collections, especially about nostalgia, it can be hit or miss. I found King's writing most engaging when the object of tackiness was the clear leading focus (I loved the ode to warm vanilla sugar scent). The last few essays are framed around her sex life with the tacky elements definitely still there but feeling more as supportive characters. It can feel repetitive and slowed down my reading. It also felt to me like King was rationalizing her sexual exploits repeatedly to herself or the reader which felt off with how unapologetic King is about everything else in the book. I'll admit my meh reaction to the second half of the book may be because I had less in common with those chapters than the ones on being a teen mall goth or watching antm. And she did make me cry over the Jersey Shore which is a sentence I never thought I would type. If you do have a deep love of the tacky and a connection to early 2000s manifestations of it, I think you will get more out of this book than if you don't, but it is well written and smart either way.

I initially picked this up book up based on its title and cover art. I honestly thought by the image of a lady in a martini glass that it was safe to assume that this book would be an insightful exploration into tacky and kitsch culture of mid-century United States. I was severely mistaken.

I began reading and discovered this book is actually a memoir of sorts, incorporating early 2000s pop culture in a manner similar to fellpw millennial Grace Perry's "The 2000s Made Me Gay." Despite initially being put off that the cover art doesn't match the era being written about, I gave this a chance because memoirs are my favorire and Rax and I are close in age.

I read patiently through the first half of the book, although I felt like King's writing style skips around somewhat confusingly, weakening the connections between her memories and the pop culture she is referencing. Some of my favorite essays from this book include Rax and her Dad watching Jersey Shore and tween Rax's friendship with the twenty something year-old neighbor man. Then came the second half of the book, which felt full of unneccessary recollections of her sexual exploits. We get it, you might have a libido and definitely belong in the subreddit r/ihavesex. I think King hoped that (over)sharing some of these memories would help connect the reader to her experience more emotionally, but I found a fair amount of the details to be gratuitous, if not somewhat immature.

I am giving this 2 out of 5 stars. I am interested to see how Rax grows as a writer. In the interim, I think the cover, title, and even the book's description are misleading and should be reconsidered before publishing.