I had this book on my NOOK for at least two years. I wanted to read it in those two years, but felt intimated because Ms. Gay is an intellectual and just highly freaking smart (I follow her on Twitter). I am now kicking myself for waiting so long to discover her writing.
Damn, Ms. Gay gets me - at times I thought she actually knew me or was in my head (a fellow SVH-er who also hated what FP did to the franchise with that SVH Confidential book). The chapter on race and pop culture was the one part that I didn't have any ideas or opinions about going in (I've no desire to see Django Unchained or Birth of a Nation). But when she laid into The Help - OMG YES. I love her dissection into the women who go on reality television shows. I did not realize Scrabble could be competitive on an official level (although playing against me makes any Scrabble match competitive because that is one game I refuse to lose to anybody).
Her writing can be all over the place at times (for example, two very different pop culture items in the same essay), but she shows how those are related and how they are part of American society and culture. She is brutally frank about her sexual assaults and rape culture, so gentle warning. She also has no problem NOT knowing all the answers; a couple of quips along the line of "I like X.....don't know what they says about me" - that kind of honesty is so refreshing.
A great read to end 2017.
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