An excellent Pride Month read! I can’t say that I’ve ever read or seen a book specifically about bi history. I’m really glad that this book exists and I hope that everyone will read it. I love that this book discusses the diversity within bisexuality and how bisexual men and women are met with different challenges and stigmas. I also really appreciate that this book encompasses history and issues globally. This certainly was not something any of us learned about in school, but I wish we had.

This is arguably one of my favorite quotes ever to be written: “Let us burn our blindfolds and embrace the human capacity to love freely.”

Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality is essentially an attempt to document everything there is to know about bisexuality in one place. Shaw, the author, is a bisexual psychologist who found herself discouraged by the lack of information that existed about bisexuality and decided to do it herself. It is obvious how much Shaw cared about making this book both complete and well researched. As someone who has tried to independently learn about queer culture and specifically bisexual culture in the past, this book touched on the areas I already knew about and discussed many things that I did not.

One of the things that makes this book so great is the tone of Shaw's writing. Books like this too often fall into the trap of overly academic writing that alienates casual readers. Shaw intentionally wrote this book for the casual readers, and did not expect us to have any psychological background in order to understand. The writing stayed deliberately conversational, interspersing jokes and personal opinions at well-timed intervals throughout. I sometimes start to skim read nonfiction books like this because the text becomes too dense, but that was never the case here.

That isn't to say that this book wasn't highly informative. Everything that was discussed was research based and cited, and talked about in enough detail that I now feel knowledgable enough to have conversations of my own. I think this book was a great read especially for those looking for an introduction to the more scientific history of queer culture and bisexuality, as well as those who already have a more intermediate knowledge.

This is most definitely going on the list as one of my favorite nonfiction books of the year

This book is a deep dive into the science and social history of bisexuality. Informative and easy to read, it's a good choice for anyone interested in the topic, regardless of their orientation.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Facinating read which helped me understand my own bisexuality. It affirmed me and helped me understand the science behind us. Not the most exciting nonfiction read, but very informative. Would absolutely recommend to people to understand me.

What a fascinating read this was! In a voice that is equal parts professor, sociologist, and activist, Shaw does a wonderful job presenting the material in a way that is compelling, engaging, and informative.

Bi by Julia Shaw has the potential to change the world. I highly recommend you pick this up. I will be buying a physical copy for myself and all my friends.

Bi is extremely well researched and covers a wide variety of topics relating to sexuality. The content is novel, a lot of the research has not been extensively explored before. Shaw discusses the unique problems that bisexuals around the world face, legally, emotionally, in the media. There are so many interesting subjects that you might have wondered about, from homosexuality/bisexuality in animals and what it says about humans, to the homosexuality/bisexuality in the prison system, for prisoners that normally identity as straight.

This is such solid writing. Shaw doesn’t deify historical figures, and has no issue pointing out their flaws as well as their contributions. Her voice is strong, and personal, as she is bisexual herself. Despite being full of research, the language isn’t excessively academic, but very approachable for everyone. Shaw sees all perspectives, and makes connections to many other systems of oppression besides that related to sexual orientation.

This book is relevant to bisexuals and non-bisexuals alike, and it will force you to reconsider the standards that are in place in our world - evolutionary beliefs, monogamy, asylum and who receives it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Abrams Press for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was a deeply insightful and informative look into the history of bisexuality. Julia Shaw presented the information in a way that was engaging and easy to parse without ever coming across as condescending.

The book does not shy away from the heavy topics that are rife within queer history but does so with gentleness and a touch of levity to pull the reader through.

Thank you to NetGalley and Abrams Press for the eARC. All thoughts are my own.

This was a wonderful primer on all things bisexual, and I learned so much from reading this book. That's saying a lot, actually, because most of my research experience in graduate school was on bisexuality. So, I'm fairly well-versed in the literature, but I still managed to learn quite a bit, especially about the sexuality of animals and the difficulties bisexual people face in applying for asylum. The author did an excellent job of balancing the delivery of a ton of scholarly information on a wide range of topics with her own personal experiences as a bisexual person. I loved the focus on showing how bisexual people, and bisexuality more generally, have been around forever and may even be the natural default rather than the abnormality many people currently view it as. This book is an excellent step in the right direction of reducing the invisibility and stigma associated with bisexuality, and I really appreciated the positive, hopeful tone of the book despite necessarily pointing out the hardships of identifying with this sexual orientation. If you enjoy pop psychology books and want to learn more about the history and science of bisexuality and issues faced by bisexual people, this book is an excellent place to start. It included lots of great references that can act as a starting point for further research, if desired. I rate it 5 out of 5 stars.

Overall I thought this was a very well done non-fiction book about Bisexuality. I definitely learned some things I didn't know prior and can tell it was very thoroughly researched.

Like many non-fiction books there are some chapters that are stronger than others. I found the first few chapters focusing on the history of bisexuality, and sexuality in general to be extremely interesting. One probably learns these things in into sexuality courses, but it was something I had not previously known about. I also found the chapter on the depiction of bi people in tv and movies to be quite interesting.

There were a few chapters, specifically chapter 4, that was a bit of a slog at times for me. This was mostly due to there being significantly more statistics in this section. In the end, they all kind of ended up blending together rather than making a statement. This will 100% not be the case for all readers. And on an academic level, I appreciate this, and it does again point to the level of research that was done to write this. I prefer a more narrative approach with statistics woven in to paint the picture the author is trying to tell, which is extremely difficult, but for me is more effective in a non-academic setting.

With all of that being said, I think this book is worth a read for anyone even slightly interested in Bisexuality. It's well written and well researched, and while not perfect, is not too difficult for the average person to read and get something out of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Abrams Press for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very readable and comprehensive book, written in a friendly and accessible tone, on an important and often overlooked topic. There's some important history that will be news to a lot of people. I was disappointed to see it needs a good copyedit (it has multiple typos of the type that spell check doesn't catch, e.g. a missing word, misplaced article, or comma splice). I also felt that the author's opinion was overly represented; I would have preferred to draw my own conclusions from the interesting facts that she presents.

Not my typical read, but I'm glad I read it! It was definitely a very interesting and informational. Would recommend to anyone who wants to know more LGBTQ+ history.

I think every bisexual would benefit from reading this book. In fact I think every queer person would benefit from better understanding bisexuality and reading this book. So just consider it my queer required reading. I think it was well formatted and presented. I really appreciated the historical aspects. Mostly with these types of nonfiction books I like looking at the statistics and I appreciated the amount of research available in the index. I think this was a very author forward narrative type of nonfiction book. There was a section on polyamorous relationships and threesomes that I don’t think was exactly necessary but I can understand why it was included. Overall really appreciate it engaging with my community in this way.

Thank you Netgalley for this arc!

This was a very informative dive into bisexuality. As someone who struggles to identity as bisexual or lesbian, not knowing where I fall oftentimes, this book was very eye-opening to me in the sense that I realized that I do not have to label myself at all! I can just be queer and proud of that.

This was incredibly disappointing to read--I've been waiting months to read this, and it turns out to be complete nonsense.

My first problem is that this book is not actually about bisexuality. In this, Shaw describes "bi" as an umbrella term that includes "plurisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual, fluid, unlabelled, or any related label," and also as an attraction to multiple "genders," not both sexes. Also, Shaw goes into detail on the meaning of homosexual ("same sex") and hetreosexual ("other sex"), and although she correctly states that bisexual means "both sexes" or "two sexes," she then says that it should mean "nonmonosexual people and identities." Do words have meaning anymore, or it just "bisexual" she has a problem with?

The second this that bothers me is her excessive use of the word "q*eer"--it's used more often than bisexual is, and Shaw even uses it to describe Alan Turing which should honestly be considered a felony.. Another issue is how Shaw pays no mind to stereotypes about "consenual nonmanogamy" AKA threesomes. She even dedicated an entire chapter to threesomes, and describes it as the "sexiest" topic in the entire book, which is complete garbage.

Smaller issues that angered me were using "compulsive heterosexuality" (a term popularized by a bisexual woman who pretended to be a lesbian) as an actual talking point, calling historical women "trans" for dressing as men in a time when women literally couldn't live as full human beings, and completely misconstruing ancient societies' hatred for women as "bisexuality." No, men weren't having gay sex en masse because they weren't attracted to women, it's because they saw women as lower than humans, and it was more "moral" to rape male children and have sex with other men than to actually like your wife.

Oh, and Shaw cites Robyn Ochs, who apparently has similar thoughts and opinions to Shaw, so I guess there's a couple of books I can confidently say I will not be reading anymore.

Extremely disappointed, but I guess a 500 page book about bisexual history was too good to be true.

An important look at the history of bisexuality and its place in contemporary society. I learned a lot I didn't know. A valuable addition to an underserved part of the queer community.

I read this book shortly after “Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex” by Angela Chen, a book known in the ace community as incredibly informative about the identity label, it’s history, a touch of the many possible applications in can have in a person’s life, how that identity label fits into society, and so on. It is one of the first recommended non-fiction sources about the identity for those who want to learn more.
Even from the mirroring title, I believe this book is the bisexual version of Chen’s book, and I mean that it in all the best ways, and I would recommend it for all the same reasons. It talks about the identity at length, the history and many perspectives scientists have had on it throughout time, and provides definitions and an array potential experiences people can have. It talks on the cultural impact of the identity itself, and how it fits into our society that is based on a heteronormative marriage and family structure. The writing is very accessible to readers, without confusing high-academic style writing, as many “resources” do.

If you think you might be bi and want to know more, read this book! If your partner, friend, or family member are bi and you want to understand them better, talk to them, and also read this book! If you want to learn more about all the labels in the LG(B)TQIA+ and other elements of queer theory, read this!

This book really spoke to me. It addresses so many thoughts, concerns, feelings, and situations that I have experienced and then backs everything up with data and history. What really hit home was early on in the text when Shaw cites two different publications twenty years apart discussing bisexuality as being a "new" sexuality. This book aims to prove that bisexuality has been around since people have and shed light on how even other queer communities have misunderstood what it means to be bi.

Shaw spends this short book breaking down what bisexuality is, what it is not, how Western culture has done its damndest to erase it, and issues that communities are experiencing as they try and advocate for bi, pan, polysexual, or omnisexual identified people. I'll definitely be purchasing this for myself and referring back to it.

The structure is broken into several essays categorized into identifying what bisexual and related terms actually mean, history, biology, the "bi closet", bi erasure, politics, and finally representation and "bidentity." Reading this book felt like reading about myself on the page. That being said, it also revealed how scary things are and will continue to be without advocacy for ALL queer people.

I hope this book is just the beginning for more texts about this topic.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for early access.

This book is well-researched and encompasses so many of the perspectives and feelings of those who identify as bi. I was concerned that this book was going to be very academic. I steer away from non-fiction for that reason, some books require too much background research to understand. However, this book was straightforward and written in plain enough language to be very understandable. Despite this, the content was expansive and gave a good overview of the Bi community and the larger LGBTQ+ community. This book is a great reference and is very recommended.

Huge thanks to netgalley and Abrams books for the chance to share my thoughts and read an arc of this early!

The amount of time and research that clearly went into putting together this book is, as someone who’s a massive research nerd, impressive. There’s discussions on topics from bisexual history to understanding the different experiences/stereotypes bi folks can see, while still staying inclusive to other identities. this book is essentially a deep dive that doesn’t sneak around hard topics and doesn’t just focus on the “good parts” of bi history (and queer history as a whole) but instead faces them head on in an honest way.

From the first to the very last page, I felt so so validated in my own experience as someone who identifies as bisexual. I’m in no way an expert on the topic, but I will say that this book is very important. It showed me the nitty gritty sides to being bi, it showed me how amazing it is to be bi and it let me understand that just because you identify a certain way that doesn’t mean you’re not worthy of feeling validated. Everyone, no matter who they are or who they have silly little crushes on, deserves to feel accepted and understood.

This is probably one of my favorite nonfiction books I've read this year. As a bisexual woman, I've always felt not quite a part of the LGBT+ family or the "normal" straight crowd either. This book addresses that feeling among bisexual people, and so much more. Julia Shaw as a great way of writing nonfiction where it never feels too bogged down with jargon, or overwrought with statistics. I personally don't always enjoy when an author goes into too much of their personal life in a nonfiction book that's not explicitly a memoir, but Shaw found the perfect balance of sprinkling in her own experiences with the focus of the book never being distracted from. I would recommend this to anyone that wants to learn about bisexuality, and hope that it's a spring board for more texts to be written on this topic.