As an elder millennial and fan of Kate and her podcasts, I was very excited about One in a Millennial. Overall, I enjoyed the book and the nostalgia but I did find some of it too be a little bit meandering and didn't really flow well for me.

If you enjoy Kate Kennedy’s long form, meandering podcast, you’ll understand the style of One in a Millennial. Kennedy has a quick wit and a gift for wordplay and makes interesting connections between cultural phenomena and the state of being a millennial woman. However, if you want something quick and to the point, this writer’s style won’t be for you.

Sadly, this was a DNF for me at 21%. I was so looking forward to the journey down millennial memory lane, but I couldn't get into it.

I always find it difficult to review memoirs and personal essays because it feels wrong to rate someone else's experience. But here we go.

If you haven't figured this out yet based on following me, I am a millennial. A proud millennial. You can pry my skinny jeans from my cold, dead hands. As soon as I read the description for this book, I was so excited to read it! I haven't listened to Kate Kennedy's podcast, Be There in Five, but I may have to after reading this book. This was an extremely nostalgic visit to my childhood/teen years, and I was here for every single second of it. I related so much to everything Kennedy wrote about and found myself laughing out loud many times. What I also enjoyed about this book was that it also went deeper into some of the trauma culture we grew up with - heroin chic thinness and extreme fatphobia being one of them. I found myself nodding along to Kate's experiences - some that mirrored mine very closely. There is something to be said about seeing yourself reflected on the page.

While this book is not marketed as a memoir, I did feel like it could be skewed toward that genre. There are, of course, many essays on millennial culture, but there were probably even more personal stories that gave the reader a glimpse into Kennedy's life. Either way, this book was incredibly enjoyable, nostalgic, and touching.

While the writing can feel a bit disjointed, I didn't really mind it. Plus, I find that books that are marketed as "essays" tend to feel that way.

Don't expect this book to be a deep social commentary on pop culture - it really is just the author's experiences and stories, and it should be taken as that. Regardless, I really enjoyed this one and would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for a quick non-fiction.

Kate Kennedy nailed it with this one! I appreciated her analysis and perspective on millennial culture.

Loooooved this book! It takes a lot for me to be interested in a nonfiction book, but this one was so fun! I had the best time remembering parts of my childhood that I had long forgotten. Such a fun read for millennials!

A fun trip to retro Nostalgia! The author does a wonderful job of bringing memories to readers. Anyone a fan of the 2000s and/or wish to know what it was like during that time period should check out this book! My thanks to net gallery for a copy of this book.

As an elder millennial, I felt very drawn to this book and appreciated Kate Kennedy's take on some key elements of pop culture. And, she cleverly captures the hold that AOL Instant Messenger had on us all.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me.

DNFed - I chose to DNF this book in the past. I am typing as a review so it doesn’t harm my %. I haven’t chose to pick the title back up.

I really wanted to like this book, being a millennial myself. However, I found the author used too many unnecessarily big words that I had to keep stopping to look up. The prose was also filled with too many runon sentences and was quite sing-songy in nature. Unfortunately, I did not finish this book.

What I did like: I related to many of the author’s references to life in the 90s, as I’m sure many of my generation do.

I preordered the physical book but I’m so glad I ended up reading this via audiobook because I could listen to Kate talk for ages (there’s a reason she has a podcast audience). This was funny, emotional, and nostalgic with clever writing and rhyming. Can’t wait to see what she writes next 🤞🏼

I loved going down memory lane with Kate. However, there were moments of depth you don't really expect, and that was really lovely to experience. I've especially felt lost as an aging millenial, and felt Kate did a great job of connecting our childhoods to our childbearing years. I enjoyed it a lot.

Highly relatable and deeply funny memoir of a generation. I felt like I was reading my own journals from my adolescence and I'm sure many other people felt the same way. I found myself reading portions aloud to friends and family. Would recommend.

This felt like the author wrote it for an audience of 1. It’s possible that as an older Gen Z that I just really wasn’t a part of the target demographic for this book but the lengthy introduction was a bore and the rhyming into chapters was so cringe I couldn’t stand it. Maybe if you’re a millennial, it would work for you because you can relate more?

One in a Millennial is a fun and, at times, serious account of what millennials have lived through and what has shaped them. With generalizations about the collective experience, along with personal anecdotes and opinions due to her personal evangelization experience. It was an interesting account overall.

This was very nostalgic with great commentary on the millennial experience. I thought this did well as a memoir type story while also speaking more generally to all millennials. Being in the younger side of the millennial spectrum and the author being on the older side, I was worried I wouldn’t relate, but I was pleasantly surprised!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced reader copy.

1 ⭐️

A politically preachy memoir of someone I have never heard of before and doesn’t have an interesting backstory… no thanks. DNF at 40%.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a copy of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.

This was a love letter to my childhood in so many ways, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Kate Kennedy does a fantastic job blending personal storytelling with the media of the years, allowing the reader to get nostalgic in the best ways. If you were a child of the 90's and early 00's, especially if you were socialized as female, this book is a beautiful walk down memory lane as an adult. 4.5/5

This book is filled with clever turns of phrase, puns, and pop culture references that I wish I would’ve thought up first. It’s funny at times, while emotional and deep at others. Overall I found this book to be highly enjoyable!

I'm what you'd call Millennial adjacent as a late Gen Xer woman without children but I still related to 100% of the content As a listener of Kate Kennedy's podcast, the audiobook was perfect, it felt like an extra long episode. ;) Beyond all of the nostalgia was the heart of this book - don't let anyone tell you what you care about is stupid. Like what you like! Like it loud and proud. And let's remind all the girls in our life of this important truth we see so clearly now, so we can light the way for them!