A very entertaining and clever read. Kelsey McKinney brings up some truly interesting points and topics that I had never thought of when considering the ins-and-outs of gossip and all that it entails.
Readable and witty non-fiction!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this advance copy in exchange for honest feedback.

I was so stoked when I got an ARC of this book a few days before it came out. I love the cultural conversation about gossip and loved Kelsey McKinney on Normal Gossip!

Unfortunately I had a hard time getting through this, especially at the beginning. I think part of it is how long each essay was. It didn’t feel like something I could put down in the middle of the chapter, yet I had a hard time staying interested enough to power through in one sitting.

The book does pick up toward the end and the author is so sharp and smart and funny, so there are parts I genuinely enjoyed. I think I would’ve liked it way more if I’d read the audiobook.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC! I’ll definitely keep my eyes peeled for more from McKinney :)

Enjoyable, if uneven.

As a long-time fan of McKinney's from her work at Deadspin, Defector, and eventually Normal Gossip, I was excited to hear she was releasing a book. Her writing/voice is distinct and has always been highly readable to me. If you're familiar with her work, you'll hear that voice clearly in You Didn't Hear This From Me. Reading like a series of loosely connected essays on gossip, I found parts of the book to be highly enjoyable. Her look at the role of whisper networks, what the West Elm Caleb story tells us about modern life, and the truth about urban legends are all great. In other places, I found that the book lagged, and the tie to gossip became more tenuous. Perhaps this is just me not being intellectual enough, but I also felt like the book needed a much stronger through line to tie the pieces together. The conclusion begins to do this, and I found that chapter to be a strong end to the book, but it feels a bit 'too little, too late."

* Thank you to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review! *

I started but DNF'd as I wasn't really connecting with the book overall. I love the Normal Gossip podcast but this didn't engage in the joy of gossip for me in the same ways

Kelsey's passion for the topic of gossip and its place in society clearly shines through in her writing. Very well researched and coming from a voice that I enjoyed via podcast for years, I enjoyed this so much. I loved the flow of the book, carrying through generations.

In *You Didn’t Hear This from Me*, journalist and podcast host Kelsey McKinney explores gossip as a powerful social force, examining its roles in culture, community, and identity formation. Blending personal narrative, pop culture, and historical analysis, she challenges the stigma around gossip and reveals its surprising capacity to illuminate truth, shape narratives, and foster human connection. Diverging from her typical podcast format, the book reveals the reasons why gossip is persistent and an essential part of the human experience while maintaining the author's breezy narrative style.

What do you think of when you hear the saying, “You didn’t hear this from me, but…? Does some juicy gossip come to mind? Your neighbor’s affair with his son’s teacher? Your favorite celebrity entering rehab? Your aunt isn’t speaking to her cousin over a family heirloom? Gossip has been around since biblical times and is mentioned several times in the book of Proverbs and other books of the Bible. Women seem to be natural gossipers, but I’ve heard plenty of men share some juicy stories as well. They just don’t call it gossip because that tends to have a negative connotation connected to women. When I asked AI what gossip is, I got this response…

Gossip, at its core, is informal talk or reports about people, often their private lives, that might be unkind or not true. It can involve sharing information, whether true or false, about someone without their presence, and can be seen as idle, unconstrained conversation. While some view gossip as a trivial or social activity, others see it as hurtful and unproductive.

Kelsey McKinney, host of the Normal Gossip podcast (which I have never listened to), knows a lot about gossip. On the podcast, listeners share stories of gossip, which are then aired and reacted to. Again, I’ve never listened, but McKinney shares numerous stories, urban legends, and reactions in her book.

McKinney talks about the closeness we feel to celebrities due to social media and being able to voyeuristically be part of their lives, making us, in our minds, view them as “friends”. As we watch them on social media, we also make assumptions about them and their personal lives. This “Halo Effect” is feeling like you know them because you follow them on social media, you see them with their kid or spouse, listen to their music, or read their poetry, and buy the items these celebrities recommend. Well, if Demi Lovato uses this lip gloss, I need to have it too, so I can be more like her. It is a bit of a twisted reality where, as long as the celebrity keeps sharing with you (the public), then I’ll keep liking them and buying their product. But if they stop and want to be more private, then the gossip train starts running.

I was reminded of how my “Grandma,” an elderly woman whose home I went to after school or when my parents needed someone to watch me, received The National Enquirer. I remember looking forward to reading it every week at her house. She is the one who got me interested in soap operas (I was a CBS girl), the ultimate gossip TV show back in the day. I would watch the soap operas and read the Enquirer, and be all caught up on the celebrities. Of course, we believed every word of it. But, as I got older, and I would see the magazine covers in the grocery checkout aisle, I realized that really nothing that was printed was true, and the magazine was making money off of gossiping about celebrities’ lives. It made me feel icky about all the stories I read and believed as a kid.

“The public, for its part, is indisputably titillated by celebrity gossip but also disapproves of the media for the invasion of privacy required to provide them with the gossip it finds so fascinating,” Walls wrote.

~Jeanette Walls

As a Survivor fan, I loved McKinney’s perspective on the game of Survivor. Being surrounded by gossip, lies, and betrayal is a basic requirement for the show to work, and someone to win a million dollars. “On reality television, gossip can be your lifeline, but it can also be your downfall.” We can observe situations unfolding before us and learn how others respond. For example, a player shared that this particular tribemate had an idol, which ended up blowing up their whole game, then they got everyone on their side and voted the original player out of the game. I can take this situation and in real life, if I share this secret about someone, it may come back to bite me just like on Survivor, so I think I’ll keep this secret for now.

Since I live in a small town (approximately 700 people) and work at the school, I have had the opportunity to get to know many people after living here for over 20 years. It’s never fun to be the center of small-town gossip, but when you are, you know it won’t last long because pretty soon someone else will be the center of attention. A year ago, we were moving our son from his college house to his new apartment in a different city. Overnight, we had a U-Haul truck in our driveway with his belongings. That next week, the gossip around town was that I was moving out and we were getting a divorce. I never found out who started that rumor, but it gutted me. I obsessed over it for weeks. It was the furthest thing from the truth, and I couldn’t figure out who would say that about us. We live on a dead-end street, so I felt like it had to be someone close to us. Since then, I have been careful about gossip because it was so hurtful to me. Gossip and betrayals can also be tough lessons for kids, and one that our daughter learned early, HERE.

“The title itself begins this work. YOU DIDN’T HEAR THIS FROM ME is, of course, a lie. You are hearing it from me. I am right here telling it to you. But that is the truth about gossip: We want to separate ourselves from it, at the same time we want to drown in it. We want the truth, all of it, not told slant, until suddenly we don’t.”

There is a high that comes from knowing something no one else knows and being the center of attention when you get to tell the story. I think we’ve all been there. But the older I get, the less excited I am about gossip and being in the know. Gossip to me usually equals drama, and I want to be as far away from the drama as I can get. Not having kids in school or teenagers anymore has allowed me to be more selective with the people I hang out with. I’ve removed myself from people who feed off of drama and/or gossip. I don’t need it. In places, this book gave me that icky feeling and made me feel a bit anxious. In others, it reminded me that someone is always listening. Eavesdropping has taken on new levels with cell phones. Be careful if you do gossip at your next girls’ lunch, because someone at the next booth over just might be listening and rat you out on social media.

Overall, I enjoyed the research, the perspectives on gossip, and the stories shared in McKinney’s book. If anything, it reinforced the message for me that gossip can be hurtful, isn’t necessarily truthful, and frankly, isn’t going anywhere. It’s all around us, and being self-aware may be the only way to stay as far away from it as possible.

This book blends a bunch of things - pop culture, historical facts as well as memoir-style aspects into a fun kind of "snapshot" around the history of what we now call "gossip" and how that has shaped how people relate to one another and communicate.

I didn't know this author had a podcast, so I went into this book blind, and requested it purely based on the title. BUT I really found myself enjoying it! I am what one would call a bit of a gossip myself (in the sense that I like to know what's going on, who said what, and all that - not in a mean-girl type of way), and so I was excited to dive into this!

While I found some parts of it to drag a little (as non-fiction does sometimes), overall I really enjoyed it! I can see how this author would probably have an engaging podcast to listen to, and I might honestly give it a try!

Such a well-researched take on an interesting subject! I’ve always been very anti-gossip, but this gave me a great understanding of the cultural benefits of gossip, how it can protect and inform.

A book about gossip? Who can I tell? It was cute!

(Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the audio ARC in exchange for my honest review.)

Gossip is a great topic. Who can't relate!? I'm sure my listeners would love this topic if the author wanted to come on Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship.

While very interesting in terms of changing some of the context of how some people may think and feel about gossip, I think it was just a little too academic feeling for this casual fan of McKinney's former podcast.

You Didn't Hear This From Me by Kelsey McKinney is a poignant and entertaining dissection of gossip, its effects and its purpose within our society. In each chapter, serving as contained essays of sorts, McKinney breaks down phenomena concerning gossip such as parasocial relationships with celebrities, the allure of anonymous gossip and the function of reality TV.

I really enjoyed You Didn't Hear This From Me! I think it's both informative and incredibly entertaining. McKinney does a great job of drawing from research, personal anecdote, and pop culture occurrences to evaluate how gossip brings us together and moves throughout the world. I learned so much that I didn't know previously!

Overall, this was a throughly intriguing read and I can't wait to see what McKinney produces next!

As a fan of reading gossip, I thought this had interesting research on the whys and hows of gossip. I hoped for a little more juicy storytelling than was given, but that’s mainly because it wasn’t the function of the book. Just my wishful thinking!

I loved this book of gossip reflections from the host of one of my favorite podcasts! This was such a great read and the tone throughout struck such a good balance of informative and fun.

Thank you to Netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I've been listening to Kelsey McKinney's podcast Normal Gossip since the very beginning, so I was excited to receive this arc for You Didn't Hear This From Me. It was just as good as I expected! McKinney's audio version is like listening to an episode of the podcast. She is able to expand upon ideas we've heard on the podcast with history I would never have pondered to be gossip. The personal anecdotes were interesting, and I loved learning a bit more about gossip as a whole. I wish it went deeper, but still a great read!

So in one way this book is exactly what it says it’s about but in another way I feel it is lacking and too surface level. I feel the latter has more to do with me than the book or author. I didn’t know of McKinney or her podcast prior to this book; I was drawn to this book because I am someone who simultaneously loves and hates gossip and was hoping for some insight into our obsession with it at a more psychological and social science level. This largely discusses celebrities and reality tv shows.

I would recommend this for anyone familiar with and fans of the author and similar podcasters and writers.

"You Didn't Hear This From Me" was so freaking interesting! I've read a lot of social science/anthropology/linguistic books and this one was so much fun to read.

You didn’t hear this from me 😉 but this book is well researched and entertaining, like a chat with a smart friend. The author seems WAY more into gossip than me but I was intrigued by some of the gossip pages mentioned. The deep dive on Gossip Girl dragged a bit making its point about anonymous gossip, but I really enjoyed the discussion in later chapters of how and why gossip sticks and becomes urban legend, folklore, or conspiracy theory. And, I like the thought of gossip as play … morsels of celebrity gossip + speculation = harmless coffee talk.

An interesting take on forms of gossip:

“Memoir is the art of codifying gossip. Gossip, at its best, can be used to grab back power that has not been given to you, and there are few greater forms for that practice than memoir.”

Thank you to @netgalley and @grandcentralpiblishing for the advance copy of this book!