As a long time Twitter follower of Jill Gutowitz and a pop culture obsessed lesbian, I was incredibly excited to read this book. However, books like this, the ones written by people you love and the ones you spend months looking forward to, are usually a hit or miss. They either become your new favourite or they become a book you wish you never read. I was terrified this book would become the latter.

It didn’t. It so, so didn’t, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Girls Can Kiss Now is Gutowitz’s reflection on her own lesbianism portrayed side-by-side with the evolution of queer media. The first few essays are pure delight for anyone familiar with lesbian media and pop culture. From queer paparazzi photos to Orange is The New Black to the infamous Kaylor conspiracies, these first few essays felt like a long scroll through Jill’s Twitter. Full of heart and wit that draws you in and becomes addictive in an instant.

And when I thought it couldn’t get better, after all, I was laughing out loud every other paragraph, the essays morphed into something more personal, more poignant. The thing is, I’ve read pretty much every article Jill’s written in the last few years. As a fellow lesbian Swiftie, it was almost impossible to ignore her work. I knew she was a great entertainment writer and I knew she was funny. What I didn’t expect and what I appreciated immensely is just how well she shifts gears to tell personal, heartwrenching stories while still keeping her tone that I’ve grown to love. And the further you get into the book, the more revealing and intimate the essays get but the connection to pop culture never fades. Take the last essay for example - it starts with the release of folklore but then morphs into an incredibly poignant look at life and love in a pandemic. And while the first few essays had me chuckling in a way I expected they would, or more so hoped they would, the very end of the book had me getting misty-eyed in an entirely unexpected way.

Girls Can Kiss Now is a winner. To me, it was one of the most relatable memoirs I have ever read and one I couldn’t get enough of. It’s a book that fulfills the constant need for more joyful lesbian stories in mainstream media because even when the story gets dark, it still feels real and candid, and getting a candid story from a lesbian in mainstream spaces is still not something we see a lot. It brings me joy that such a candid memoir might end up in the hands of a closeted teen lesbian and give her hope when she needs it the most. I understand that, depending on one’s familiarity with lesbian culture and queer media, some people might not find this book as relatable and meaningful as I did, but it’s a book I will not stop recommending any time soon.

This book made me laugh my ass off. I could not stop laughing during the entire book. I enjoyed it so so so much.

Ok folks, hands down if you are a millennial pop culture fanatic who is ~extremely online~ you NEED to mark Jill Gutowitz's amazing essay collection GIRLS CAN KISS NOW as a TBR addition for next 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 (and it is totally hilarious to boot). I have been a fan of Jill's writing on Vulture and on Twitter for the past few years, so I was thrilled when I saw she was writing a book. It did not disappoint, and can say I will read anything she writes going forward!

Incredible topics include Swifties (if you are a Swiftie, this is also a must-read for you), why queer women want older women to step on them, Perez Hilton/Lindsey Lohan/Samantha Ronson, Orange Is The New Black and lesbians on television over the past few decades, queer paparazzi photos, and how not to have the FBI show up at your door because of something you've tweeted. Her stories can also be heartbreaking and and heartwrenching -- my personal favorite is the last essay, which begins as a rundown of Taylor Swift's latest album, but ends unexpectedly with a poignant look at life during a pandemic and coming to terms with what matters in life (something that I have been struggling with at the moment, so this punched me in the gut out of nowhere -- in a good way). I learned so much about lesbianism in pop culture, something I thought I knew about but really appreciated Gutowitz's deep dive into the history and framing of it in new ways. I can't recommend this collection enough.

This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. It comes out March 8th, 2022!

Gutowitz is even sharper, funnier, and more insightful in essay form than in the 280-character limit dictated by Twitter. If you’re looking for a quick but engrossing and thought-provoking read to pull you out of the pandemic doldrums, this is the one.