December 20, 2024
Gay, star of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, navigates the complexities of faith and fame in this follow-up to her 2023 memoir, Bad Mormon. This title chronicles Gay's lifelong struggle to balance her desire to be a virtuous Mormon with her wish to explore the world outside her insular community. One particularly heartbreaking and powerful moment occurs when Gay discusses her husband's neglect of their infant. However, when she recounts the incident of discovering that her date named Estevan is actually Steve, it raises the question of whether this uninspiring passage is simply leftover material from Bad Mormon. The punchlines sometimes seem forced, and the recurring jokes quickly lose their impact. Particularly baffling are Gay's front-and-center reference to the queer anthem "Pink Pony Club" and her gleeful recollection of harassing her camp bunkmates. While this second memoir may capture the interest of Bravo fans with insights about the drama-filled season four Bermuda trip, it struggles to engage readers with yet another dead-end story about SLC villain Jen Shah. VERDICT Lacking humor, self-awareness, or any revelatory Bravo gossip, Gay misses the mark this time.--Ingrid Conley-Abrams
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
January 6, 2025
Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Gay’s featherweight follow-up to Bad Mormon offers a humorous if diffuse look at the author’s lifelong pursuit of pleasure. Peppered with observations about men, sex, food, and fun, the narrative can read like a teenage diary (early on, Gay shares a letter from her early 20s in which she admits she only “wants to be a superstar”), but the proceedings gain a measure of gravity whenever she discusses her Mormon upbringing in Colorado. Fans of the show, or of Gay’s previous memoir, will be familiar with the bullet points of her entanglement with the LDS church: her early devoutness, her eventual divorce from her husband, and her subsequent struggle to reconcile her identity as a wife and mother with an inner desire to let loose. Unfortunately, the book’s scattered focus dulls the impact of that arc, with entire chapters dedicated to prepubescent ear piercing and Gay’s teenage affinity for Neil Young. More serious sections, including one on body positivity, can feel muddled; Gay acknowledges the harms of fat-shaming before blithely endorsing weight loss drugs. There’s something to be said for Gay’s commitment to candor, but this is strictly for hardcore Housewives fans. Agent: Steve Troha, Folio Literary.