Honestly, I expected this to be goofier. The Nineties serves as a socioeconomic look at what an era can do and impress upon the memories of Americans who experienced the range of media and political topics throughout the last decade of the twentieth century. Whether you lived as an adult, grew as a teen, or even developed as a child, you will find interest somewhere in this book.

Chuck Klosterman turns his wit and encyclopedic mind towards a decade that looms large in the minds of Gen Xers, the 1990s. Like all Klosterman works, there's a strong through-line with music and pop culture references, as well as incredibly funny passages that showcase what I love best about Klosterman. I did find that while the book is incredibly sprawling, this left a sense of a lack of focus in parts. However, that's my only gripe. This is still such a fun look at a decade that shifted the culture forever, and I enjoyed it immensely!

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Press for providing me with an ARC.

This was my first experience with Chuck Klosterman, and it was a good one! I was drawn to it from the amazing cover and the fact that I was a 90s kid. I learned so much from this book that I didn’t remember or notice since I was too young at the time. Klosterman created just the right info balance between pop culture and politics. Some of the discussed topics, terminology, and philosophy were a bit over my head; and the author also made some pretty big, repetitive statements about what was or was not significant to the decade. But none of that took away from my enjoyment reading this book.

I'm going to jump on the seemingly general consensus that Chuck Klosterman is at his best here when discussing pop culture (movies, TV, music, and sports, specifically). However, as someone who was only six years old when the titular decade ended, I certainly appreciated his examinations of the political and global affairs aspects of the nineties.

It'd been a long time since I'd read a Chuck Klosterman book, and I found his writing in THE NINETIES a little more dry and acadamic-sounding than I'd remembered it. It took me a little while to get back into his style, but I did enjoy this book for the most part. As someone who grew up in the 90's, it's hard not to feel the nostalgia!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

I've been a fan of Chuck Klosterman since I read Downtown Owl back in 2008, so anything he wrote would be an automatic read for me, but I was so excited to see this non-fiction exploration the nineties, the era that I grew up in.

While I did enjoy this read, I can't pretend that I wasn't slightly disappointed. While the writing was captivating and witty, the chapters felt disjointed, like each was a separate essay that was never meant to be paired with the next, and I finished the book feeling like there was really no point to what I had just read.

This was a fun nostalgic read, looking back at the cultural goings-on and major events of my childhood, but this didn't feel like the groundbreaking exploration of the era that I expected from Klosterman. Give it a go if you're looking for that nostalgia, but otherwise, there are many better non-fiction books out there to choose from.

Did you grow up in the Nineties? Are you curious about that decade? Do you think you missed something because you were too busy living in the decade? This is definitely the book that you should pick up. My daughter and her friends are super curious about this decade and they picked up this book as well as myself. All of us enjoyed the book and it left us talking about a lot of this stuff for weeks afterwards.

Gen Xers rejoice! If current times make you want to reminisce about simpler times, Chuck Klosterman is here for you. Covering everything from music and pop culture to politics and technology, there is something for everyone who yearns for the days when everyone knew who Dave Coulier was. And it is full of classic Klostermanian wordplay, my favorite being "a tiramisu of heteronormative befuddlement." I won't spoil the context. And if you're an audiobook fan, I highly recommend that format for this one.

This was the perfect stroll down memory lane of events that I would have known more about if I wasn’t so self-absorbed in the nineties. I knew the basics of lots of these events but the details are filled in here by Chuck Klosterman’s unique take on them. I loved revisiting my love of the music and personalities of the time period as well as learning more about the political events that I half paid attention to. This was exactly what I wanted it to be. Highly recommended for Gen Xers.

I really enjoyed this book, although it did suffer from the same issues that I feel many Klosterman books have: The idea presented gets lost in Klosterman’s dense, referential sentences. This didn’t happen a lot, especially in comparison to previous books of his, but it did happen periodically. At this point, it’s clear that it’s his writing style and not a lack of editing. I’d really say that you can find many people online that write like Klosterman, particularly on Twitter.

That’s neither here nor there, just a side observation. In regards to the book, Klosterman’s lived experiences play a part in making the book so enjoyable. Instead of being written in an academic tone, Klosterman talks about the nineties as though he’s in a conversation with you. This makes the book fly by in chunks, although I do wish some things weren’t glossed over or talked about about so briefly.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who was alive in the nineties. I feel like they’d get the most enjoyment out of it.

I am a 80’s baby raised in the 90’s so I was immediately drawn to the cover of this novel! I can’t even remember how many times I asked for my own landline with the clear phone. This book was the exact definition of “trip down memory lane” trope. Every single chapter was like no other. Even though I was a kid during that era, I could definitely relate to the authors work here, but I’m sure if you were an adult it will probably hit different. Will definitely recommend this to my fellow 90s kids!

I have loved some of Klosterman’s work, but this book was mostly “whatever” for me. So many parts of this decade such as Y2K, the OJ Simpson trial/ car chase, and the whole “Bill Clinton is actually a Black president” thing have been so cemented in pop culture that it is hard to write anything new about them, and the book was boring in parts. I think Klosterman really shines when writing about music and there was not enough of that. He talks about Nirvana; again, big surprise and totally something that hasn’t been dissected time and again. My boredom could also be because I did grow up in the 90s and experienced all of this. I do agree with the crux of this book, that when the 90s ended, it was no longer possible not to care, but the author takes quite the winding road to get there.

I was a teenager during the nineties. Love the movies and the music. I liked this book, but it did feel a little long. Probably like the nineties did.

I often struggle with Chuck Klosterman as a writer. Here he provides an excellent analysis of the cultural impact of the 90s as a societal turning point. However he does it with the apathy and cynicism which he describes. He also has a tendency to make arguments from an initial assumption which is erroneous and reductive, such as his argument that doxxing is only a perceived threat that in actuality is no worse than having your name and number in a phone book. This argument could only be made by a man who appears to be willfully ignoring the inherent threat and intimidation in doxxing and that you don't publish you gender, political viewpoints, or general cultural viewpoints in a phonebook. Interesting read but one that really needs to be engaged with critically and with a pinch of salt.

This book should be required reading for anyone who grew up in the 90's, whether you belong to Gen X or come just after. It's an interesting examination of the popular culture of the decade, but viewed through the wider lens of politics, terrorism, economics, and more. I think anyone could write about the pop culture of the times, but I think only Klosterman could frame it in a way that shows how 90's culture shaped the entire decade *and* the decades that come after. There were several moments while reading this book that I stopped and thought, "So THAT'S how we ended up where we are now!"

I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Chuck Klosterman is a pop culture commentator, comedian, and author. I first became aware of him several years ago when he appeared as a commentator on several cable shows. In this book, Klosterman tries making sense of the 1990s by analyzing pop culture, technology, politics, and other disciplines as they interacted and changed throughout the decade.

This book was really a mixed bag for me. About 80% of it really got me thinking about the decade’s sociological trends, but the remaining 20% left me scratching my head. An example of the latter include nearly the entire first chapter about Generation X. Examples of the 80% would include the sections about the internet and the Y2K bug. The internet chapter really got me reminiscing about how people initially accessed the internet, talked about it, and perceived it’s potential. It really drove home how much our online experiences have changed so rapidly in such a short time.

The Nineties covers a lot of material – too much for me to get into here, but it shed light on a lot of things about the decade that I had forgotten or overlooked; there was a lot more happening back then than initially meets the eye.

I gave The Nineties five stars on Goodreads. I did a great job of tying together events and trends to create a narrative that helps readers understand the decade and its significance in bringing society to where it is today.

This was the first Chuck Klosterman book that I've read and I now want to read his entire back catalog. His writing is so witty, so smart, and so funny. He has a very dry sense of humor and that shows throughout The Nineties. This book focuses on the nineties through our perspective living through that decade but it's also how we perceive it in present-day. I would've loved him to dive deeper into certain topics that I remember vividly from that era, but as he stated, it is not a full, comprehensive overview. I would recommend this book to anyone who was alive during the nineties or to anyone who is enamored by 90's culture and phenomena.

Am I the only one who still believes the 90s was the only 10 years ago? I refuse to believe it was 30! WHAT? Anyway, Chuck Klosterman is back with another fab read - THE NINETIES - and we get to see everything we know and love from the decade in his signature style. What a fab read! If you love the nineties as much as I do, I think you would enjoy this book!

Klosterman himself notes that every generation thinks that they’re living through times of intense change, and that’s because it’s always true, but the changes that occurred in the period between the falling of the Berlin Wall and the falling of the Twin Towers, as the world moved from analog to digital, were particularly revolutionary. At its core - The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman is collection of thoughtful essays that tells a loose narrative about the 1990s. 

TW - existential dread regarding age.

Not quite a boomer, but definitely boomer-adjacent.

Pop culture nostalgia is the new "grumpy old man" pastime

Chuck Klosterman has a lot to say about The Nineties. I loved that decade. It was the decade I graduated from high school and college. It had the best music. And I agree with the author it was the last one that felt like a real distinct decade and more carefree than the start of the 21st century has been. I was hoping for a walk down memory lane in this book and for most of it that was true. But Chuck rambled on more about people like Ross Perot and that bored me. I wanted more pop culture and less political talk. I also need Chuck to put down the thesaurus. His use of big words became annoying when simple language would have been just fine.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.