Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer (2021) by Rax King

Looking back, I was well advised before embarking on this collection that it would be, as is written in the blurb, “personal,” and the content matter would be approached with “heartfelt honesty” and “King’s trademark humor.” All true. All a bit, well, understated. In retrospect, though, I was warned.

Backstory: After reading Chuck Klosterman’s The Nineties (2022), I quickly scrambled for a book of the same nature about the 2000s. I clung to the little bits of nostalgia that I could respectfully claim with Klosterman’s brilliantly researched and skillfully written deep-dive, but I was constantly haunted by visions of my slightly older aunts and second cousins reading The Nineties and having more numerous anecdotes and memories about the subject matter than I ever could. I knew what I needed! And thus, after some brilliant research of my own (Twitter), I marched to the nearest Barnes and Noble and picked up Tacky.

All stars present above are a reflection of King’s writing ability. She genuinely does put into words the feelings I, and I think most people, associate with early 2000s consumerism nostalgia. The book, as we are told it will, does contain essays that revolve around cultural artifacts of the 2000s. We’re talking Bath and Body Work’s Warm Vanilla Sugar Spray/Body Wash, Jersey Shore’s cast, America’s Next Top Model, Hot Topic, the Cheesecake Factory, and a brief mention of Limited Too! King deciphers the momentum that propelled early teenagehood to covet the above places, shows, and things.

And, genuinely, if I were out looking for a memoir-prioritized style of reflection on culture, I would look no further. But the issue is that I was, in fact, not. And, to that end, I wasn’t alone…according to Goodreads’ review section, at least.

I would have put the book down had it started out so unabashedly personal and confessional. By the time we got to the bits about Degrassi, I was thinking, wait a minute, are we just using a wildly iconic TV show as filler? To check a box? It was too late. I was already nearing the finish line.

Unfulfilled expectations aside, it’s clear that King has a particular gift for putting it all out there and being hilarious while doing so. She makes some really traumatic moments read as if they happened to someone else. And maybe they did, though I suspect the honesty in Tacky really is genuine. In any case, know what you’re getting into before you get into it.

Originally published at http://isabellaagostino.com on May 14, 2023.