Assessment:
Plot/Idea: Kathy Biehl, a columnist and zine creator, presents a series of light, charming vignettes exploring life, relationships, and distinctively 1990s coming-of-age experiences.
Prose: Biehl's reflections on an era before our collective lives played out on social media are humorous, candid, and occasionally profound.
Originality: Biehl offers an intriguing framework with dispatches of single life in the 1990s. Many of the pieces cast ordinary (even rather dull) events in an extraordinary light, a testament to the author's engaging prose style.
Character/Execution: Confessions of a Third-Rate Goddess features a colorful array of characters and circumstances, including chronicles of Biehl's confusing and largely unsuccessful romantic exploits. Although the book sometimes lacks punch and is a tad overzealous, readers will appreciate the cultural touchstones and the author's amusingly idiosyncratic observations.
Date Submitted: November 30, 2023