I enjoyed this book and recommend it for people who work with youth. It is an important topic. I learned a lot.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

I ended up DNF-ing this book. Partly because of the format (PDF is a nightmare to read on my Kobo), and partly because I felt as if wasn't quite as I expected. Though I enjoyed most of the interviews I read, there were still something a bit off... Maybe I'll give it another go at some later point, though I'm not very likely.

I very much appreciate being gifted this copy of Bi by Ritch C. Savin-Williams, and the opportunity to read & review it. Thanks to the publisher.

Although it offered an interesting premise, I abandoned it at 15% of the reading because of how heavy, confusing, and over-sexualized it is. I didn't feel like I was learning something new, reading seemed to take forever, and reading more reviews about errors and mishandling of information, I prefer to leave it here. A reissue and reevaluation of the information presented by the author would be better, because I do believe that there is good material, but it fails in the execution.

I'm not sure that the author is clear on some things that strongly impact the efficacy of this read. It seems, at some points, as though Author Savin-Williams is using "genderqueer" as a sexual orientation; at others, he clearly shows that he understands this (and nonbinary) are <I>genders</i> which might or might not impact another person's sexual interest in the person whose gender is expressed that way. Also, bisexuality is treated as a binary of sex, not in any way impacted by gender expression. I do not think this is the case, or at least it hasn't been in my own experience.

These are not small matters. But, in reading the case studies and interviews of young people who identify in many and various ways, these aren't issues on which they experience any doubt or confusion. I suppose this is understandable, as the author's prose isn't hugely dry or eye-wateringly dense; it is, nonetheless, presenting the author's understanding of the topic. That can get tangled in a reader's mind unless the very greatest possible care is taken to express distinctions with an absolute minimum of ambiguity. This editorial care felt inadequate to this reader, admittedly quite old and joyously binary. I might simply have missed something.

I asked for this DRC because I wanted a book to share with my grands. I was hoping, because it's focused on the youth of the twenty-first century, that it would be readable by those youth. It's not a great choice, I'm sad to say. I wouldn't give it to any of them, especially not my transmasc grandchild, because too often I felt Savin-Williams was dismissing the profiled person's self-definition by bringing all focus off gender and placing the emphasis on biological sex.

A completely-outside-the-author's-control cavil is that the DRC is a <I>BEAR</i> to navigate. I am entirely sure this is an issue with the vile, satanic PDF interfacing with my Kindle, but it required me to do a lot of fancy footwork to follow along as people were interviewed, or as points were made, and they happened to coincide with a page break. I'm not willing to ignore the issues but I've taken extra care to think about my rating of 3* of five very carefully. Am I blaming the <I>story</i> for the <B>book</b>'s issues? Hence those three shiny stars when I started out with two.

All in all, I felt more disappointment due to my desired focus being unavailable in this project than I did with every other presentation issue. The author and/or publisher's title gave me to understand that all the identities listed in the subtitle would be more than touched on, and the groups mentioned would be the audience as well as the topic. I was incorrect in my assumption. The groups of young people were not, in my observation, treated with the respect they earned by taking part in the various studies. People, of all ages, are who they say they are; and lumping everyone from an enby/aro person to a cisqueer woman as "bisexual" did nothing for inclusion. It fostered confusion, and it did so avoidably.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I'd also like to apologise for how long this took me.

I'm going to be honest here, this book frustrated me. There were so many fantastic discussions and important ideas too. The erasure of Bi and pan people is an important discussion to have and keep having until things change.

However this book gets a lot wrong, most glaringly the idea that being genderfluid or gender queer and bisexual are the same thing. They're not, one is a sexuality and one is a gender identity. And to see that this not-so difficult concept was wrong in an academically published book had me questioning where the authors other thoughts and concepts came from.

In short, I want more books like this, just done better.

2.5 stars.

need more of this. I have always felt like something was wrong with me. it wasn't until i was an adult that i was comfortable coming out and these stories had me feeling a part of for the first time in my life.

2.25

i was very disappointed in this... had big hopes for it

I think this book would work okay as a reference (for someone in the field study). Even if you’re interested in the subject I’m not sure I would recommend it – but there isn’t much more out there… I wouldn’t recommend this as a starting point if you’ve never read about lgbtq+ concepts/theory/etc – you need to have basis as things get complicated here.

Positives:
-This book pools data from many sources, both in reference and in the interviews done by the author, so it could be a good reference point for people working/studying in the area.
-i wasn't a big fan of the interviews: it was interesting to see different perspectives but, on the other hand, very little of what i read felt representative of the messages that the bi+ community wants to communicate. I understand this might not have been the objective, but with this title, I believe most people will pick it up searching for that.

Negatives:
Most negatives are things that stand out in a 2021 release, that is about a subset of the queer community, by an ownvoices author...
- worst negative: wrong definitions!! most obviously the definition of bisexuality (!) – it is attraction to more than one gender! Why would you get that wrong in a book titled bi?? (Also conflating gender identities with sexual orientations at times)
- maybe sources are to blame, but there was a big emphasis on sex (rather than gender). the writing oftentimes felt insensitive regarding sex/gender, to the point where i wondered if the text was trans-exclusionary. however, there was a good amount of discussion of non-binary people, which was very much appreciated.
- felt bizarre to read that only asexual people use -romantic labels. This simply isn’t true, from experience. Adds to the “listen to young people more” narrative though.
- the text read extremely academic.

The author set himself a massive task, in attempting to write an all encompassing account of bisexuality. However, the attempt presented some loopholes, particularly in attempts to describe how gender works. The case studies were also presented in a manner that was difficult to read and follow.

This book is really interesting and very informative, but at times I felt like I was reading a dictionary with some input (and life's stories) of other people; what I mean is that sometimes it felt like the language was more technical than an actual reading, and because of that, it took me way longer to read i than I'd like. But as I said, it's a very informative reading, especially for those who are "baby gays" and don't know much about the lgbtqia+ community.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy to review.

Representation: It's all right there in the title!

Bisexuality and the many similar sexualities are still very unknown about, heavily stigmatized, and frequently erased by data. The author interviews many Millennials and Gen Zers across racial groups, ethnicities, and social classes that identify as bisexual to find out how the younger generations define bisexuality, rejecting the traditional definition, or otherwise choosing to not identify as straight or gay/lesbian.

Rating: 2.5/5 I really, really wanted to like this book, but for me, it's simply... Fine. Not fantastic, but not awful either. I wouldn't recommend this for people who want to learn about bisexuality and the multitudes of similar identities, especially people who are completely clueless. I'll be referring to these sexualities as m-spec from now on. For those who don't know, m-spec is short for multisexual spectrum. This is intended as an umbrella term to include anybody who is attracted to more than one gender. The entire time I was reading this, I was bothered by the rigid definitions and language use in this. While Savin-Williams did briefly touch on trans and nonbinary people, he constantly wrote in binaries, reinforcing the idea that bisexual people are attracted to only men and women, which isn't accurate. This was despite the author saying at several points that m-spec people aren't strictly limited to one gender, and I felt like many times he wasn't considering the identities outside of bisexual. He did say that he was using it as an umbrella term, but the way he used language tells me that's not the case. Also, if you noticed, the title also has genderqueer in it. This is confusing, because genderqueer is a gender identity, not a sexuality. Reading through this, I felt like the author was often conflating gender with sexuality or just being very reductive, making it more confusing for people who aren't familiar with these identities. I did like the case studies, the individual interviews with people and about their personal experience of attraction. However, the author kept putting his own interpretations on it, and sometimes he was kind of invalidating the person's own definition. He was also very focused on *sex* rather than gender, which is a whole other thing. I haven't mentioned it yet, because I wanted my review to stand on its own first. Savin-Williams, as far as I can tell, is an older white man. I don't know how he identifies, but he has done a lot of work with the queer community, which I do appreciate. Despite that, based on his previous work, I can see that Savin-Williams approaches a lot of this from a very scientific and psychological perspective, and not a socio-cultural one. I think that's where he's gone wrong writing this book, because a lot of this is not easily defined by science and psychology. So unfortunately, I can't recommend this book at all.

Rating 2.5 stars (rounded up for Goodreads).
Thank you to NetGalley for the arc.

This text has some really good points hidden between the pages, but my god was it painful to read. It wasn't sure whether it wanted to read like a book or a research paper, though it was certainly marketed as a book. I found myself tempted to skim entire sections as my attention waned constantly besides wanting to actually know the information it contained. Points were also relentlessly repeated and I found myself saying out loud "I know! You've already told me!" towards the end. The organization was also very scattered and I felt the transitions to be quite jarring.

However, the main over-arching points I got from this text were good; emphasis on bisexuality as a spectrum and analyses of how current research is insufficient in it's acknowledgement of this spectrum (therefore breeding flawed data), and the need to listen to those having these lived experiences in order to understand the breadth of the label itself.
My favorite takeaway was that it is key to separate romantic and sexual attraction in order to fully grasp bisexuality in its nuances. One can be romantically attracted to one sex/gender while feeling more sexually attracted to another, and this is a common misconception I see from those who aren't in the community.
I would also refer to this if I want to delve deeper into any area of research mentioned here as the citations were very solid.

TL;DR- Was this an enjoyable reading experience? Not in the slightest. Is the content good? Yes, if you can parse through it.

I could not finish this book. First, it was not what I was expecting. The book is more of a scientific study than I realized and written as such. As a bi-woman, I found myself feeling under the microscope in ways I didn't like. Rather than being a conversation with bi individuals, it felt like a breakdown of these conservations to push an agenda. Overall, I just couldn't bring myself to read the whole thing.

I was very intrigued by the synopsis of this book and was interested to see what a book sort of critically assessing the state of bisexuality based on what bi youth have to say. I also just appreciate that the author wrote a book dedicated to understanding bisexuality at all, which seems underrepresented despite the high percentage of people that identify this or similar ways.

There is a lot to like about the way this book tackles the subject of bisexuality. The first is that Savin-Williams goes straight(lol) to the source by interviewing people who identify as some form of multi-attracted individual. He presents their stories in their own words, and presents their way of identification as they present it to him. Rather than place his own understanding on their experiences, he allows for all sorts of responses, both typical and atypical, without judgement.

Another thing I liked is that the author acknowledges that many of his subjects are past the point of being interested in labeling how they view their gender and sexuality experiences. While stating and accepting this assessment of social and personal understanding, he addresses how institutions of learning, statistics, medicine, etc. still do make these distinctions, and often simplify them to a point that under-represents a significant portion of the population, especially the younger generations. One of the things he seems to be doing is advocating for listening to the youth's experiences without preconceived expectations, and when needing to assess these aspects at all, doing so in a more inclusive way.

Lastly, something that I appreciate to no end is that a solid 20% of this book is dedicated to notes, acknowledgments, appendixes, etc. which lends confidence and authority to his writing. It tells me that this is not just opinion-based, but that a lot of research and work went into creating this book.

This book is very readable and offers a valuable perspective on bisexuality. It is a solid piece of non-fiction research and I would recommend it for both academic and public libraries.

Written by a clinical psychologist who specializes in sexuality research., this book is a hefty textbook-like manual that breaks down bisexuality by scientifically analyzing the experiences of a number of queer youth. There seems to be a need to define bisexuality and who qualifies as bisexual, which you would expect for a scientific manual, but left me wondering if there is really a need to get so technical. This book may be helpful for anyone wanting to understand bisexuality better or has personal or familial experience with bisexuality.
Thank you to Net Galley and NYU Press for the eARC of this book.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review.
I am very interested in the subject matter, but I found this book boring and a bit scattered. I appreciated the perspectives from those within the community that the author quoted, but found the majority of the pure text too technical/clinical, and a lot of it went over my head.

Being part of the LGBTQ+ community, and identifying as a bisexual woman myself, it was interesting to get to know other perople's perspectives and experiences about bisexuality. It was surprisingly good to see how the new generations are opening and embracing new terms and the people who identify as such, compared to previous generations.

However I think, sometimes it may be too theoretical and dense, I found myself searching for the interview parts more than the rest as they were the ones I found more interesting.

Besides, I think some of the comments stated (mostly by whit cisgender males) were misogynistic, fatphobic and patronising. Also, some women made patriarchal comments regarding gender.

When I saw this on the net galley catalog, I got really excited.

An academic nonfiction book that specifies and bisexuality, pansexuality and queerness. Unfortunately, this book falls flat.

I want to be very clear that I'm not an expert in queer studies by any means. Nor is it currently something I am studying.

However, even I recognize that this book which is just being published this year in 2021, is about ten years out of date.


And yes, I know the speed of research things changed your behind blah blah blah.

Things like instead of using the term erasure, which is the proper academic term, the author we use canceled, which is an "accurate term that means something very different


This book also conflates gender and sexuality, which is something that we have in town are two separate things in their entirety for decades.


The author is also very focused on people's genitals or at least seems to be very concentrated on people's generals.

I don't know if the others fully understand the terms of their writing about this book would've benefited greatly from having somebody in the field either edit it or co-author it.

The author frequently, either implicitly or directly, essentially says that there is one way to have a specific label for your sexuality.


And likes to imply that certain people aren't the label they've given themselves because they prefer one gender over another.

Which isn't how this works

Me personally being bisexual and panromantic. These are some of the terms that I feel most comfortable with for loads of reasons that we're not going to get into here.


But that should be enough; I shouldn't have to justify it. Trust me; I've been in the settings and the queer community where I feel like I have to

And this book kept reminding me of the situation.

I really wanted to like this we need more research on human sexuality in general especially in different sexual orientation's


Anna starts. It's just very lackluster, and I feel like it needed more research.

Of course, thank you, net galley, for sending me this review copy.

These are entirely man opinions, obviously.

Have you ever read a book and thought, "I could have written that and it probably would have been better"? Well, that's how I felt while I was reading this one.

I do believe that Ritch C. Savin-Williams set out with good intentions. He wanted to write a really in-depth book about a frequently-overlooked demographic. He did a lot of research. He interviewed a lot of young people who are attracted to multiple genders. He wrote almost 300 pages of very in-depth discussions about bisexuality. So why did it fail so spectacularly?

Usually, when I don't like a book, it's for one of two reasons: it wasn't to my personal taste or I wasn't the intended audience. But I struggled to determine who WAS supposed to be the intended audience for this book. It's too academic to be useful to young people who might be questioning their sexualities. It wouldn't be a helpful resource to the parents and teachers of those young people. And it's not saying anything fresh or original enough to be valuable to other academics. It's certainly not aimed at me, a college-educated bisexual person: the word "we" is consistently used to refer to the collective of people who are not bisexual (as defined by this author).

The author makes a lot of fundamental missteps here that indicate to me that he doesn't actually understand what he's talking about. He includes identities like trans* and nonbinary under the bisexual (or rather bi+ or m-spec) umbrella and in fact continually treats gender identities as sexualities. The presence of the word "nonbinary" in the title does NOT mean that this book contains an examination of the ways in which nonbinary gender identities and m-spec sexualities interact with each other and the reasons why so many people identify as both nonbinary (or genderfluid, genderqueer, etc.) and bisexual (or pansexual, polysexual, fluid, etc.). No, the reason "nonbinary" is in the title is because the author genuinely believes that nonbinary gender identities are part of the larger bisexual (m-spec) umbrella.

There were so many missed opportunities in this book. I kept thinking to myself as I was reading, "If only the author would actually examine the ways in which race and culture impact bi+ identity, taking into account factors such as colonialism. If only the author actually knew the definitions of the words that he's using and didn't lump in every single identity that's not straight, gay, or lesbian (or rather, according to this book, "heterosexual" and "homosexual") under the umbrella label of "bisexual." If only he acknowledged that the term "two-spirit" is its own umbrella that is exclusive to Native communities and not some new-fangled Gen Z gender label. If only the interview questions had been better, more complex, more focused on community and socialization and systemic power structures and less on biology and sexual activity. If only the author had demonstrated a knowledge of the history behind the labels he was discussing instead of claiming that nearly all of them (including things like political lesbianism, which dates back to the 1960s) are new things invented by today's youth."

Maybe this book will be useful to someone, but I cannot imagine who that person would be. If you don't already know about the wealth of experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, this book is a very bad place to start as it is confusing and full of incorrect information. If you're already more familiar with LGBTQ+ issues and you want to read an academic text that explores those experiences in-depth (as I did), you will likely be bothered by the lack of awareness of basic gender and sexuality concepts (as I was).

I probably would have found slightly more value in this book if I were a developmental psychologist, like the author is, but even then, I don't think I would have appreciated the author's methods. I really didn't need to keep hearing about every single interviewee's "first adolescent sexual experience." And because the book attempts to delve into other fields, such as gender studies and sociology, I feel more than qualified to say that it does not successfully accomplish what it tried to do.

I feel sorry for the young people who were interviewed for this book. I don't feel like their stories were done justice.