Katie HeaneyCritiques

So ages ago I read a novel by this author and must have followed her in Instagram and recently for reasons only the algorithm knows she has suddenly shown up in my feed a lot and that led me to see if she had other books at my library and it turns out this memoir was available to borrow which is how I learned that she discovered that she was gay somewhat late in life and how that all shook out.

She’s funny, I like her, I enjoyed her story but if I hadn’t read her novel I never would have picked this one up.

Another kindle sale book. Hits all the right notes in a kind of mash up between something like Devil Wears Prada and a traditional fluffy romance.

Our main character Rose is hired to do PR for a pop star and while engineering a "romance" for him with another up and coming star, he decides he only has eyes for Rose.

I found it cute and quite funny - especially Rose's relationship with her best friend. Kept me up past my bedtime.

Note: I'm reading now that the pop star is very obviously Harry Styles but as a total old person I had no idea that was the case and inserted my own idea of who it was.

Hey, look at this! Girls of Riyadh in English.

I tried so hard to like this book. But just... Social media and email is not interesting, even when you're the person obsessively checking. I kept putting this down and finally forced myself to skim to the end so I could say I didn't waste my $12.

Boring and nothing really happens. Main character is way too much like all other college kids. Points for realism, but slice of life is boring when it's a 50 year old white fit with ennui and it's boring when it's a 20 year old white girl being ghosted.

I wondered at first why I was approved for a digital galley of Girl Crushed, as YA publicists tend to get far too many requests and can be selective etc.
Anyway, now I know. It’s because if you’re a bisexual reader hoping for an f/f rom-com, this book will slap you in the face over and over until you give up and either stop reading f/f for a while or find some way to have hope again that maybe that next f/f romance will not erase or actively hate on your identity.

I was excited, I wanted to love this book. I did not.

Aha, finally it all makes sense! I've never heard of the lighthouse analogy before, but as soon as the author explained why some people just magically attract the opposite sex it all made sense! Heaney and I seem to have a lot in common - from our inability to deal with idiot men to our imaginary crushes on unattainable strangers - so it was very refreshing to read a book about dating where the girl lives happily ever after - all on her own!

Literary Merit: Great
Characterization: Great
Recommended: Yes
Level: High School

In "Girl Crushed" Quinn navigates romantic relationships, friendship, and looking ahead to college.

Quinn is starting her senior year of high school after having been dumped by her girlfriend, Jamie, just a month before. While trying to figure out what the breakup means, Quinn starts talking to Ruby Ocampo, number 1 on the "Straight Girls We Wish Weren't" list that Q and Jamie created before the breakup. Ruby is the lead singer of Sweets, a high school band, and Q is very excited to be talking with her. What Q realizes, though, is that Ruby is not exactly what she was hoping for. When a local coffee shop faces financial hardship, Quinn, Jamie, and Ruby come together to help the shop through the hard time.

This novel is a wonderful romantic comedy that deals with interpersonal relationships which include friendships, romantic interests, and familial interplay. The writing is also very gender-inclusive. There are moments where gender norms are turned on their heads, such as when Ruby and Q go to the park and see a young boy who is wearing a tutu and bestowing magic upon flowers with his wand. Additionally, they/them pronouns are used casually. There are many delightful references to lesbian culture sprinkled throughout.

Content includes underage drinking, allusion to sex, and some language.

Recommended.

It was an enjoyable book, and had some funny lines, but it wasn't especially memorable. If it hadn't been a book club pick, I probably would not have finished it. Overall, I thought it was just okay, but if you want a enjoyable, funny book about coming out, I would recommend it.

Jamie broke up with Quinn right before senior year. They were the first 'out' lesbians at their school. Quinn is heart broken. She was dreaming of going to UNC on a soccer scholarshio and visiting Jamie at NYU when they started college. But it wasn't meant to be.

Instead, Quinn hooked up with Ruby, number one on hers and Jamie's list of Straight Girls We Wish Weren't." And Jamie befriended Nathalie, number 3 on the list. But Jamie and Quinn remained friends, sort of.

Amid all the turmoil of senior year and getting into school, Jamie and Quinn also needed to help Triple Moon Cafe, a gay coffee ship/bookstore, stay in business. That also required dealing with Ruby, singer in hot local band.

Despite all the planning, things don't go according to plan. That doesn't mean it won't end well...just different.

Girl Crushed is a cute, light read and Jamie and Quinn are adorable.

While I appreciated that this wasn't a coming out story and Quinn's identity was already known and affirmed prior to the novel's start, the handling of bisexuality left much to be desired. Queer charcters being genuinely shocked and/or even failing to consider a character could be bisexual was a confusing choice and, additionally, the main character wasn't particulary likeable. The romances (both of them) fell flat for me and felt rather unearned. I felt as though I was just expected to believe in Quinn & Jamie's romance without any real proof of its existence.

I read this book so fast! It was fascinating reading about how someone was so frustrated with dating and had an epiphany moment why. You keep rooting for her to discover more and more about herself. I also love stories set in New York City.

Why is Rose trying to find a boyfriend on Tindr? The app specifically designed for casual hook-ups? Who does that? No, seriously. How out of touch are the authors of Public Relations that they thought this would be a believable choice?

This book is bad in a variety of ways. The two protagonists are very gently awful in a Twilight way. Archie is an insufferable idiot who, despite Rose's promise that he oozes charm, manages to be utterly charmless and somewhat creepy. Rose is a narcissist who is incredibly lucky to have such an amazing friend like Harper. Rose's ability to completely ignore everyone else and zero in on her problems is incredible. And her penchant for dissolving into hysterics over a fairly milquetoast Tindr message is obnoxious in the extreme. I seriously don't know why Harper puts up with her.

But what I find most insidious about Public Relations is the concept this book peddles that celebrities aren't accountable to normal relationship stakes. Rose's entire infatuation with Archie begins and ends with him being a hot celebrity. Archie treats her like crap. He ghosts her for a week at a time, ignoring her texts and phone calls, and then shows up all romantic-like and is immediately accepted back. Rose tells Harper several times that she has no idea what her relationship status is with Archie, but she can never ask because that would be presumptuous. Somehow. Public Relations operates on the idea that celebrities are better than us plebeians because they are celebrities, and therefore if they show us the slightest hint of attention we should fall all over ourselves for having been graced as such. Archie is intentionally opaque, dodges basic questions, and constantly maintains sole control over the relationship--but hey, he wrote a song for Rose so isn't he the greatest?

This is basically the American version of the whole infatuation with European royalty. Like royalty, celebrities in these novels can get away with anything because the heroine should count herself lucky to even be noticed. It's a toxic, old-fashioned concept and it pushes all my buttons.

Bad book. Skip.

I found Katie's anecdotes very relatable and enjoyable. The journey she recounts here was very interesting. I wasn't familiar with her first memoir, but I felt like her references to it explained enough to give an idea.

2018/02/25
3.5 stars, RTC.

2018/03/12

This review can also be found on my blog.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Would You Rather? is a lovely memoir about a woman who grew up in a sheltered, moderately conservative area coming to terms with her sexuality. The reason this is so revolutionary is because, as Katie herself says, there are so few widespread stories about adults realizing they’re gay. So many people say that they always knew, it leaves little room in the narrative for people like Katie, who didn’t always know. Overall, it was an enjoyable read that I’m glad I picked up! My only complaint was that it does meander at times and that the end kind of trails off for me instead of ending strongly.

Katie's writing is so open and honest. It is relatable on a lot of levels. This memoir did struggle at times to hold my attention. I would recommend to anyone struggling with their sexual identity.

Every once in a while a book crosses my path at the perfect moment, in a sort of unintentional serendipity - this was one of those books!

Heaney spends a lot of words lamenting that her story is probably unfortunately unique but I related all too well, as another woman who fell prey to compulsory heterosexuality and didn't come out until her late 20s. I think she will learn as a consequence of publication just how often this happens and how valuable and relatable her take is.

She's far more eloquent than I'd be about the dentist appointment dread with which I too viewed dating men, the weird waffling over whether knowing about the existence of gay people may have "made" one gay (LOL), and she has far more insightful comments to make about her own pre-coming-out twinky male celebrity obsession (mine was over Justin Bieber, not Harry Styles, and an old friend of mine with a similar trajectory would cite Ryan Ross of Panic! At the Disco...but same difference). It all rings so true!

I would of course recommend this book to readers who don't think they'll find it painfully relatable, too - it's funny, it's insightful and honest in its self-reflection, and it's very binge-able.

I enjoyed this one a lot! It's deeply funny, and it's a different voice -- we don't see many accounts from lgbtq+ people who didn't know at a young age anymore. Heaney was engaging and her essays are quick and fun.

I went into this one knowing it wasn’t in my wheelhouse but I gave it a shot. It was entertaining enough but I felt like as soon as we were getting on a roll she would bounce around back in time and kill the momentum. It was a quick and easy read and kept my attention, just not one of my favorites. 3🌟 thank you LibraryThing for the early review book.

“People want a clear narrative arc. Especially me. We want gay adults to have gay childhoods - the elementary school crushes, the closeted adolescence, the gradual coming to terms. We want a line, no breaks, no swerving, from point A to point B. But I broke and I swerved plenty. I feel behind, but I truly didn’t know how to get here any quicker. I didn’t even know where I was trying to go. In every moment leading up to this one, at ages nine and fourteen and nineteen and twenty-six, I have been as close to myself as I knew how to be. I may know myself better now than I ever have before, but ask me again in a year or two.”

This book was so special. It is rare to find an author, or someone in general, that you can so deeply relate to. This book gave me that sense of belonging that I so yearn for living in a place where fellow LGBTQ+ people are hard to find. While obviously not representative of all LGBTQ+ experiences, I’m so happy a book such as this one exists to show that there is no one universal time in one’s life where their sexual orientation is realized or defined (if it ever really is, because fluidity!!). Plus Heaney made me feel less bad about just wanting to stay in with my girlfriend most of the time haha.

I was very entertained by this memoir. Although I cannot relate to the author's issues with sexual identity, there was a lot in this book that I could relate to. And I empathize with her relationship struggles and authenticity of storytelling at different points in her life. I'm happy that she has discovered what makes her happy, and that she's not afraid to display her mistakes along the way. And I really enjoyed her very readable writing style. I won a copy of this book via Library Thing.

A book I didn't realize I needed to read, but I am so glad I did. I found Katie and her journey, which at its heart is about learning to reject societal expectations and to find your own path to happiness and truth, so relatable. She explores and shares her own personal discoveries with honesty and wry humor. Sometimes when you ask yourself an honest question, you'll learn something about yourself you never knew or expected, but that will make you a more true and complete version of yourself. A great read!

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers in exchange for my honest review of it.

Despite such an odd title and the many thousand uses of the word "I," I very much enjoyed this book. It's her voice, I think, and how honest and introspective (albeit rather self-absorbed) she is. I hope things continue to go well with Lydia - so happy that she found someone to love who loves her.

Just took half a star off because of my feeling her writing hasn't quite matured yet. But it will, and I will keep reading.½

I m not familiar with this author but was curious after reading about her. This book chronicles the author’s journey dating men while she was in her twenties. She slowly comes to realize that she is attracted to men. I thought this book started out really holding my interest but as the book went along it started to drag. There just isn’t anything really new to make his book unique. I will pass this on to my gay sister to get her opinion on it.

This memoir takes the reader through the process of coming out. It is told in a funny, relatable voice (as a married, straight woman, I know relatable isn't the first word that may come to mind about another young woman's sexual preference discovery but oddly enough it was). Katie is funny and witty, weaving her story together in stories of college and young adulthood which coalesce into this kind of "ah-ha" scenario where everything just sort of clicks and makes sense.

I saw a lot of myself in Katie, the OCD bed making tendencies (because really, what kind of heathen gets into an unmade bed at the end of the day?!), her boyband infatuations (just trade One Direction for O-Town at that was me circa 2000), and her preference to sit at home and order take out versus people. While our stories are obviously not the same (who's really is when it comes down to it) it was something that I could connect with, and I think may people can connect with regardless of the particulars of your journey into adulthood.

A truly engaging memoir, Katie has a new fan. I would gladly read anything written in that lighthearted and thoughtful voice.

In her first book, Never Have I Ever, Katie, still single and a virgin at 25, chronicled her unsuccessful love life.
In her second book, Would you Rather? she digs deep and realizes something big about herself: she is not straight.

In "Introvert Problems" Katie discusses her introversion and anxiety, the latter of which she sought professional help for.

I found this piece to be the most relatable for myself, underlining sentences and putting exclamation points in the margins. SOMEBODY GETS IT.

Katie also writes about her worries that she's "not gay enough," something that I think many people can relate to.

In Women's Studies 101, Heaney briefly talks about feminism, acknowledging how different it is for her as a cis white women than it is for women of color.

She explores how dynamics in friendships change when one enters a relationship, thinking that she wouldn't be one of those people who hang around less when they enter a relationship, and realizing it's not that simple.

Though I did not spend my life identifying as straight only to realize that I am anything but, Would You Rather? made a point for me that is the truth: that we can surprise ourselves, that getting to know yourself can happen at any age, and most importantly, everyone has a different path, and there is not one that is superior to others.
We are never really done growing up.