Tacky

Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer

De: Rax King

Narrado por: Rax King

An irreverent and charming collection of deeply personal essays about the joys of low pop culture and bad taste, exploring coming of age in the 2000s in the age of Hot Topic, Creed, and frosted lip gloss—from the James Beard Award-nominated writer of the Catapult column "Store-Bought Is Fine”

Tacky is about the power of pop culture—like any art—to imprint itself on our lives and shape our experiences, no matter one's commitment to "good" taste. These fourteen essays are a nostalgia-soaked antidote to the millennial generation's obsession with irony, putting the aesthetics we hate to love—snakeskin pants, Sex and the City, Cheesecake Factory's gargantuan menu—into kinder and sharper perspective.

Each essay revolves around a different maligned (and yet, Rax would argue, vital) cultural artifact, providing thoughtful, even romantic meditations on desire, love, and the power of nostalgia. An essay about the gym-tan-laundry exuberance of Jersey Shore morphs into an excavation of grief over the death of her father; in "You Wanna Be On Top," Rax writes about friendship and early aughts girlhood; in another, Guy Fieri helps her heal from an abusive relationship.

The result is a collection that captures the personal and generational experience of finding joy in caring just a little too much with clarity, heartfelt honesty, and Rax King's trademark humor.

A VINTAGE ORIGINAL

Disappointed

Wanted to love this book- i love tacky culture, and the premise of jersey shore and diners drive ins and dives drew me in. After a couple hours of reading, however, i was bored the whole time. I thought it would pick up, but it didn’t. I’m a huge non fiction reader, so it’s not like i was expecting anything crazy. It’s an ok read, just a lot more boring than i would’ve hoped.

Loved it

I don’t know if this was marketed as humor or I imagined it. I don’t want to click out of this review to go see but I don’t think it’s necessarily humor. It’s humor OUS, but it’s also heartfelt. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting but I’m so glad I got it. I’m pretty sure I paid a full credit for it (impulse buy) but I still say it was worth it.

If you can’t handle language or mature content you probably won’t like it. If you’re open to that, you’re in for a treat. :)

Good, no perfect - in the best possible way

I rewatched and re-listened to all the favourite books, tv, movies, and music from my childhood thanks to this book- and it was AWESOME

Searingly honest and funny personal essays

Rax King does an incredible job narrating this partial auto-biography, partial cultural apologia of tacky culture, including but not limited to her love for Creed, the movie Josie and the Pussycats, the television show Jersey Shore, Guy Fieri, the Cheesecake Factory, and Meat Loaf’s landmark album Bat Out of Hell. Where King’s work shines is in her unflinching, brutally honest examination of her own choices, mistakes, needs, connections. This is a work that defies irony and the distance it presumes. It is rooted in sincerity and the kind of storytelling that is only possible when you face things at an uncomfortably close distance. The energetic pace, smart writing, hilarious anecdotes, and painful honesty all make for a great read. And if I’m being honest, it also unexpectedly led to a lot of introspection about my own life.

Don’t judge this book by its cover…or summary or media coverage

I got this because I heard an interview on NPR and I thought it was an interesting thesis. When she talks about brands and things that have fallen out of fassion, it is interesting. Additionally, her sex talk is interesting but a lot. I feel the lede sort of slipped away more and more as the chapters went on. It felt like became more about how these “tacky” things have something to do with the story I am going to tell you about my sex-life. It’s all well as good, but unexpected based on the NPR segment and summaries. I even went back and listened to the NPR segment to see if I missed something, I did not.

As I think about this, I enjoy nonfiction books like this to get new perspectives on the world. This book delivered but not in a way I expected.

Overall, I think it was good, but I think many people may not be ok with that much surprising sex talk.