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.

DNF. 0/5 ⭐️

Did not find it relatable or interesting. Was difficult to get into. I thought it was be a fun, nostalgic read but I felt the storyline going in all different directions.

In one word - AMAZING! Kate is a voice for a very specific subset of women who came of age between 2002-2009. Every story is somehow relatable, even though we didn’t grow up in identical situations. She writes conversationally, as if she’s sitting across from me having coffee and debriefing last night’s events. A great book about millennial girl-and-adulthood and a fantastic read.

This was a lot for me. There were some chapters that made me feel so seen and others than just did not strike me as millennial. Maybe the other kids were doing it and I didn't know? What was this handwriting thing? And also, I remain confused about why "Limited To" was capitalized constantly in the book. I truly thought it was a type for the store, and maybe it was, or an allusion to what the store stood for, but that could just be me making this up.

I was excited for this book because of the content rather than the author, but I bet others are coming for the author rather than the content. If so, they will probably be thrilled.

Full disclosure, I didn’t finish this book. I’m a little over 1/3 of the way in and it has taken me over 30 days to get that far. Despite the nostalgia of American girl dolls (likely where my love of historical fiction began), the girl talk game, gel pens, instant messenger (I was an MSN girly instead of an AOL queen myself) etc., I couldn’t get into the book.
My biggest complaint is that the chapters are just way longer than they needed to be and the prose, while funny and riddled with puns, was a bit too much at times for me.
I could relate a lot to the author’s experiences as a millennial that grew up in the 90s and early 00s, I think the writing style just wasn’t for me.

I was already a fan of Kate Kennedy from her podcast, Be There in Five, so I was thrilled to see that she wrote a memoir! Kate Kennedy truly has a way with words and this book is no exception. She expertly navigates pop culture, art, life and coming of age as a millennial. Obviously, her experience is unique, but I related to so much of it. Her words took me back in time and also helped me make sense of where I am today as a woman who grew up in the 90s and early 2000s.

I felt so seen by Kate’s writing and highly recommend this to all my millennial friends who liked American Girl dolls, used AIM, wore a tank top under all your tees, listened to the Spice Girls, went to youth group, desperately wanted to be cool, still think about the source of all our body image issues and like Taylor Swift. This one is for me and you!

The cover of the book is perfection and I loved how she interspersed her poetry and side tangents throughout the memoir. Since she narrates the audiobook, I plan to listen to it as well for a second read of it. I can't wait to see what else she does in the future!

before starting this book, i don't listen to be there in five and i don't know much of anything about kate kennedy. it was a great dose of nostalgia but beyond that, there's not much there to be invested in. though i am also a millennial, i remember enough of my childhood and before college years where i don't need to read almost 350 pages of someone else's

As an elder millennial, born in 1984, this book was such a fun trip down memory lane. There were multiple parts I found myself telling a similarly-aged-friend about the next day. In a lot of ways this felt like a story I could have written myself and I loved that. This is definitely a book I will be recommending to my fellow millennials as it feels nice to not feel alone in how we grew up and to share in the laughter of some of the nonsense we go into.

I thought this book would be more pop culture and less memoir. Even though she says repeatedly that it isn’t a memoir, it pretty much is. I loved the American Girl Doll chapter, and any pop culture references were really fun, but it talked a lot more about personal religious experiences, and life events than I expected. Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy.

Even though I didn't read this one cover to cover I did enjoy the walk down memory lane as a fellow millennial. And the problems she talked about us facing now were spot on. But the chapter that I related to the most was the one in which she talked about how big purity culture was in the 90s and 00s. And she was right it was big and it was problematic to say the least. It affected a lot of us girls, and while I didn't lose my faith because of it it did effect me to the point it took therapy to straighten me out. But this was an enjoyable read and a walk down memory lane.

I enjoyed One In a Millennial but thought I’d like it more. I am an Xennial who’s obsessed with nostalgia, and I thought it would be a deep dive into wonderful pop culture that was crucial to my formative years. Instead, everything was woven around the author’s memoir. Normally I wouldn’t mind, (and she’s a very good writer) but I had a hard time staying focused and progressing through the book. It’s a shame because I enjoyed so many of the references (I mean she brought up the evilness of the devils food SnackWells era as well as the only Sheryl Crow lyric I’ve ever related to.) Maybe it was hard to read because I was cringing for a good chunk of her preteen stories. It’s most likely because I saw myself in her desperate need to be liked and the simultaneous immersion into tv, music, etc. But I did love reading about this generation and feminism. And I caught 90% of her deep cut references which is always fun. If you were born between 1980-1990 and enjoyed feminine pop culture growing up, you’ll most likely enjoy this. I was just looking for a different twist to the material execution. 3.5 stars but I’ll round up for the copious amounts of references.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for kindly providing a copy of this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Despite being a millennial, I don't think I was the target audience for this book. I'm at the tail end of the millennial generation, and often fluctuate between relating to millennial and gen z culture. This book was heavily reliant on references (most of which I understood) and explaining life during a certain time. I just didn't relate in the way I was meant to because of my age.

There were certain essays that I enjoyed (the popular girl handwriting one comes to mind), and others I didn't.

I think fans of Kate Kennedy and older millennials will really enjoy this one!

This book was so wonderfully sweet, weird (in a millennial way) and authentic - and I can say that as a fellow millennial.

Each chapter is filled with references to the things that made growing up equal parts cringe and empowering. Did I discover what girl power meant via the Spice Girls? Yes. Was I, as a redhead, forced to be Ginger Spice (aka Sexy Spice) when dressing up as the girl group with my friends at a time when I was in the throes of puberty? Also yes. It was…a time.

I know this is a very *millennial* phrase but this book made me feel very seen. Thanks to St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!

I truly cannot express just how much I loved “One in a Millennial” by Kate Kennedy. I was intrigued during just the first paragraph of the prologue &, by the time I reached “Serotonin, Plain and Tall,” I was convinced that Kennedy & I must be the exact same person. There’s no doubt - when it comes to audiences, this book is not going to be for everybody, though I do believe that everybody should read it. Not only is it a love letter to a very specific experience that was shared by many within the Spice Girls Generation, Kennedy also has laid out layers of our generational experiences in a way that truly illustrates the whys & the hows of who we are.

From late night sleepover conversations to going out-out, Kennedy writes with brutal honesty & with such a uniquely lyrical style that I’ve never experienced but want to read more of. This book had me laughing & crying & noting things to share with others like, “see! I wasn’t alone or crazy or misguided.” (Let’s be honest y’all, I’ll be sharing a lot of this with my therapist because Kennedy manages to put words to feelings I could never identify, let alone accurately describe.)

If you grew up spending hours choosing the perfect AIM screen name based on the interests of your current crush & dreaming about the vacation boyfriend you’ll one day meet, this book is for you. If your love for pop culture & “girly” things only ever made you feel uncool & unworthy, this book is for you. If you relished in sleepovers & MASH & Light As A Feather, Stiff As A Board, this book is for you. This book is perfectly timed to the release of media like Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” movie, which shows that we are not too much & that there is space for us in this world, even if we love trendy fall drinks & popular boy bands.

Oh, & I have to declare: “Girl, Boss Your Face” is my absolute new favorite phrase & I’ve already entrenched it deep into my daily language.

Thank you to NetGalley & St. Martin’s Press for providing a digital advanced copy of this book for review. All thoughts & opinions expressed are my own.