Absolutely excellent. Nailed my millennial upbringing on the head. I am both delighted and disappointed to know that no one lives a unique life!!

The thoughts on purity culture were so funny and prosaic and then SPOT ON. Her reflection totally made me re examine some of the more difficult concepts I have grappled with as exvangelical millennial.

Will absolutely need to own a physical copy of this book as well as burn it into a disc that I can decorate exactly like the cover and keep in the overstuffed with burnt cds cd holder in my car.

As someone who loves Millennial culture this was a perfect time capsule for me. I enjoyed the discussions about not only pop culture, but the world, politics, and society at learge. This defeintely felt more like a memoir about Kate's life and experiences - and I could see so much of my upbringing as a 90s baby in this.

Definitely a fun read for all millennials, older and younger. I’ve also seen the inside jacket of the hardcover and it is CUTE. This book made me want to dig out my Walkman and blast B*Witched while I write in my password journal.

This is much ore a personal memoir than I was expecting, seeing how it was billed as an examination of how millennials are viewed. Not necessarily a bad thing to have personal connections, but it leaned too much in the personal anecdote direction for my tastes.

3.5/5 stars

"By detailing some of my millennial memories, I hope you'll honor yours all the same."

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If Lorelai Gilmore ever wrote a book filled with her ultra-connected and highly stylized thoughts and experiences, it would look a lot like One in a Millennial.

Pretty much any and every website and census-style review will vault back and forth on the argument of whether or not the years of 1997-1999 can be crowned the end of the Millennial epoch, or doomed to the beginning of Gen Z. Personally, as a '98 baby, I think we should be our own little group, and like others, I propose the name of Zillennials. Is it cringe? Sure. But isn't that a little part of being a Millennial and Gen-Z? I think so.

There was a lot in this novel that I could personally relate to—whether it was similarity to the actual events the author lived through or the knowledge and insight she has looking back on them now. I found myself laughing at some of these shared experiences, and getting teary-eyed at others. There's something really profound in relaying emotions and experiences in a way that a large group of people can immediately relate to, and find solace in the knowledge that they aren't alone and someone gets them.

While I don't have any knowledge of MySpace or LimeWire, I remember the awe and draw of the American Girl Doll and their constantly expanding catalog of accessories, and have personally experienced added to the phenomenon of 'Popular-Girl Handwriting' and wondered if maybe God Must've Spent a Little Less Time on Me, too.

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One in a Millennial was published in January of 2024. Thank you to St. Martin's Press, NetGalley and the author for the digital advanced copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Kate Kennedy spoke SO much to my little millennial heart. I appreciated her thorough exploration of topics such as Limited Too, purity culture, boy bands, and AIM. She writes with humor but also self-reflection on how the culture we consumed as tweens keeps affecting us later in life.
The chapter on American Girl dolls was perfect.
loved her reading the audiobook!

I LOVED this book! I have been a long-time listener and follower of Kate but this book absolutely blew me away. Kate is an incredible writer and *perfectly* captured the Millennial coming of age. I laughed, I cried, I was in awe that she had so many of the same feelings and experiences that I had, which seemed so singular at the time.

I am buying this for all of my girlfriends and recommending it to everyone!

This spoke to me on so many different levels. I understood the way Kate felt in so many of this essays and didn't know that anyone else felt the same way. I loved Kate's voice, how honest and earnest she was throughout every essay.

I have listened to Kate’s podcast for years and was delighted to learn she’d be releasing a book. For faithful podcast listeners, this book will feel like a retread of topics many of us are used to hearing her thoughts on, but she is able to expand, provide new insight, and hopefully reach a new audience who wasn’t previously familiar with her. She is sharp, insightful, funny, and thoughtful. Sometimes the puns/wordplay were a bit much and I can see where people who aren’t used to her may not love it but I’m excited to see what she writes next!

I am the exact demographic for this book. as a millennial as a former party girl lol as a woman in her 30s trying to conceive and as a girly who just loves some pop culture. This book made me laugh. It made me smile and it made me feel very very very seen for my Alpha choices in the early 2000s. Made me all my ups and downs, including my wardrobe choices and former hookups. I really needed this book.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. Even though I didn’t relate to some of the author’s perspectives, I felt like she did a nice job unpacking so much about millennial stereotypes, as well as the many ways millennial culture impacted the world and how previous generations impacted what would become millennial culture.

She touched on purity culture, how women are/were portrayed in media, capitalism, the importance of friendship, and finding/being proud of one’s identity.

There were a few bits that felt repetitive, and I honestly didn’t like all the puns. A few would have been fine, but it got to the point that they were taking me out of the headspace of the book. The book also felt like a memoir even though the author stated several times that it wasn’t.

Otherwise, though, I felt like this was an excellent dive into millennialism in the US, and I’m curious to find out more about how some of these aspects of life impacted millennials in other countries.

Thanks so much to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the advanced copy!

I finished this book a month ago and forgot to give feedback before the archive date. I requested this cause the summary stated a "commentary on pop culture" but really, it was mostly about her. Which was fine but if I knew it was a memoir, I probably wouldn't have requested it. The writing was well done. It felt like a friend was talking to me which I enjoyed!

So thoroughly enjoyed this book and laughed out and found myself choking up each time I heard Kate’s voice waver on the audiobook. Millennials will love the nostalgia, remembering perhaps suppressed memories (yikes cringe) and seeing how our generation has actually weathered this storm of life pretty impressively. It was well really well researched considering the topic and I appreciated seeing how the culture affected young millennial girls.

This book was ultimately not for me at this time in my life, but it brings me a lot of joy to see other women enjoying Kate and her reminiscences of Millenial girlhood so much! Her memories and ability to conjure so many details of her (our) childhood is genuinely extremely impressive! I’m excited to see where her career goes from here.

I love Kate Kennedy’s podcast Be There In Five, and was excited to hear she wrote this book.

One In A Millennial is a lot like her podcast, which is always so smart and insightful—this time covering topics like the Spice Girls, popular girl handwriting, college sorority life and going out tops. Overall, I enjoyed this book and appreciated the message to freely love what you love.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an e-ARC. This is my honest review.

5 ⭐️ alert!!!! Wow. I don’t know if I’ve ever laughed so hard while also feeling so seen in a book in my life. This was the 48th advanced digital copy from Netgalley that I’ve read and the first I’ve ever bought in print after finishing. I had to highlight all of the beautiful and poignant parts that Kennedy put to the page. But let’s be real, I really wanted to highlight the whole damn thing.

Kennedy takes the reader on a journey back to growing up in the 90s, examining seemingly light topics like American Girl Dolls or the Spice Girls with a deeper lock and more critical eye of how we were shaped in these@crucial years. Revealing personal information, this book is part memoir and part essay, delving into the problematic and fun ways we were shaped by the pop culture of our time as millennials.

Kennedy writes this in the novel, which so encapsulates this book’s intent:
“Some of these chapters represent life phases I’ve moved on from, but others represent things I still have to work on every day, and that’s okay too. I wish I came with fewer reflections and more solutions, but the point is that I’m trying to hold space for the ways I didn’t know better, to criticize the ways I was set up, to take accountability for when I should have done better, and, all the while, to allow myself to acknowledge the ways in which it was fun. It’s confusing how I see this time period as a source of personal remorse and also a magical time of generational lore; I’ll add it to the list of my many millennial contradictions.”

While Kennedy in no way is saying she writes for all millennial experiences, it all really resonated with me. From the diet snacks we were told to have in middle school to purity culture, so much spoke to me. I hadn’t been a “Be There in 5” podcast listener prior to reading this, but now I am a big fan of Kennedy and diving into her past episodes.

✨Trigger Warnings: Infertility, Miscarriage, Misogyny

This book made me feel so seen. I knew I’d love it because I love everything Kate does, but wow, I didn’t expect to love it this much. Kate ability to share personal stories in a way that makes you feel seen, summarizing the experience of girlhood as grown a millennial shouldn’t feel like a mix of nostalgia and sisterhood, and yet! Kate is an absolute gift.

I ended up DNFing after trying over and over again into One in a Millennial. I unfortunately feel like the book was so wordy and had so many caveats that I couldn’t keep up. I wish all the best to Kennedy, this just wasn’t the book for me.

I’m on the very young end of “millennial” but I absolutely related to so much of this book. I found it so entertaining and giggled my way through so much of it. It was the perfect mix of funny but serious when it needed to be but also had the perfect amount of nostalgia

“One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In” by Kate Kennedy is a nostalgia-laden exploration of the writer’s 90s/00s youth.

Categories — Nonfiction, Memoir/Biography Adjacent, Essays, Nostalgia, 90s/00s (US) pop culture, Girlhood/Youth

Pub Info — St. Martin’s Press. January 23, 2024. Currently has a 4.15 average and 1.3k ratings on Goodreads.

The Author — Kate Kennedy, who is described as a “pop culture commentator” and host of a “popular millennial-focused podcast ‘Be There in Five’”

More Info & Thoughts ⤵️

💿 This book is half about the author’s life and half about “millennial” pop culture (1981-1996). She was born in 1987. Even though it’s marketed as “not a memoir” I would describe it as heavily using your personal life experiences to reflect on cultural themes. Sometimes, I felt it went too far away from the premise of pop culture, eventually steering back into the plot path.

💿 The writing style is important to describe. The author preemptively notes it. It’s absolutely drowning in puns and wordplay. Sometimes poetry. It all depends on your taste whether this works for you. It’s a lighthearted book for the most part, not stuffy or self-important.

💿 Chapters are laid out thematically. Some themes I’ve identified are — shopping/consumerism especially toward girls and women, media pressures, feminism, girl friendships & how they spent time together, the internet, boys & relationships, religion/purity culture, brand obsession & clothing/fashion, fitting in (or not), etc.

💿 Within these overarching themes, you get more specific things like AIM, music and bands, Limited Too, “popular girl handwriting” — like how did this happen at my random small town school too? 😂 — tv show references etc.

💿 The book is reflective of a middle class, US-centric city/suburban upbringing. I found some parts refreshingly relatable, some a bit out of my reach growing up, but overall this different perspective is interesting and valuable just the same.

💿 If you’re a fan of nostalgia-core and can find millennial experiences relatable, you might enjoy this. If you like the author’s podcast work, you might also like this book.