Rax King wants you to know that she loves Creed, and she doesn’t care who knows it. She was a big fan of Josie and the Pussycats and frosted lip gloss. She was even one of the many teens that smelled of Bath and Body Works warm vanilla sugar for years, and all of this is okay. In the new book Tacky, Rax King uses fourteen essays to both explore maligned cultural phenomena and also explore her own history. She is roughly the same age as myself, so it was really easy to latch onto her nostalgia for the things others cringe over.
A fair warning to readers that this book covers some pretty rough areas. While talking about Jersey Shore, she explains how this helped her grieve for her father. When talking about the wonders of Guy Fieri, she tells readers about the abusive relationship she fled from. She uses Sex in the City to explore her sexuality, and being used by men in ways that are cringeworthy. Rax is a podcast host, and that sheer honesty and explorative nature comes across in her essays. This book feels like a cross between a podcast confession and a therapy session, all with a topping of frosted lip gloss.
Tacky is available November 2, 2021.
