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Avidly Reads
Avidly Reads Making Out
Avidly Reads is a series of short books about how culture makes us feel. Founded in 2012 by Sarah Blackwood and Sarah Mesle, Avidly--an online magazine supported by the Los Angeles Review of Books--specializes in short-form critical essays devoted to thinking and feeling. Avidly Reads is an exciting new series featuring books that are part memoir, part cultural criticism, each bringing to life the author's emotional relationship to a cultural artifact or experience. Avidly Reads invites us to explore the surprising pleasures and obstacles of everyday life.
Mid-kiss, do you ever wonder who you are, who you're kissing, and where it's leading? It can feel luscious, libidinal, friendly, but are we trying to make out something through our kissing? For Kathryn Bond Stockton, making out is a prism through which to look at the cultural and political forces of our world: race, economics, childhood, books, movies. Making Out is Stockton's memoir about a non-binary childhood before that idea existed in her world. We think about kissing as we accompany Stockton to the bedroom, to the closet, to the playground, to the movies, and to solitary moments with a book, the ultimate source of pleasure.
Mid-kiss, do you ever wonder who you are, who you're kissing, and where it's leading? It can feel luscious, libidinal, friendly, but are we trying to make out something through our kissing? For Kathryn Bond Stockton, making out is a prism through which to look at the cultural and political forces of our world: race, economics, childhood, books, movies. Making Out is Stockton's memoir about a non-binary childhood before that idea existed in her world. We think about kissing as we accompany Stockton to the bedroom, to the closet, to the playground, to the movies, and to solitary moments with a book, the ultimate source of pleasure.
176 pages, Paperback
Published October 8, 2019
5 people are currently reading
105 people want to read
About the author
Kathryn Bond Stockton
11 books28 followersKathryn Bond Stockton is Distinguished Professor of English and inaugural Dean of the School for Cultural and Social Transformation at the University of Utah. She is the author of Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame: Where “Black” Meets “Queer,” The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century (both finalists for the Lambda Literary Award in LGBT Studies), and Making Out (finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award for memoir), among other books.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 8, 2021
Quick read that is highly entertaining and fleetingly profound, like, you guessed it, a kiss. I suspect that people who aren’t English PhDs won’t get much mileage out of this little book—Stockton delivers a memoir of her not quite becoming trans, peppered with oodles of queer theory and anecdotes about books she’s read and movies she’s seen. I, for one, found it delightful, if too ephemeral—form and content go together here. I’d recommend Making Out for Stockton’s wry humor, coyly suggestive puns, and the many, many instances of underlinable wisdom and insight, especially her reflections on the work of words as they linger and proliferate in the mind.
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August 26, 2019(Copy received from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review)
Hoo boy, this book was not for me. At 173 pages, I couldn't even finish it. Too vague, too wishy-washy, no concrete ideas whatsoever. I have a Master's in Narrative Theory and this was so theory-based, nothing tangible to hold onto at all, that it was completely incomprehensible. I got 40 pages in and I literally could not continue. The use of parentheses every other sentence (to add meaning? Usually with interrogatives? For no apparent reason?) really, really didn't help the flow. It came across as fragmented, and in a book which is already difficult to get a foothold on, that was the nail in the coffin for me.
This book might be someone else's favourite. I'm sure someone else will be able to parse some meaning from it. I wish I could be that person, but I am not.
Hoo boy, this book was not for me. At 173 pages, I couldn't even finish it. Too vague, too wishy-washy, no concrete ideas whatsoever. I have a Master's in Narrative Theory and this was so theory-based, nothing tangible to hold onto at all, that it was completely incomprehensible. I got 40 pages in and I literally could not continue. The use of parentheses every other sentence (to add meaning? Usually with interrogatives? For no apparent reason?) really, really didn't help the flow. It came across as fragmented, and in a book which is already difficult to get a foothold on, that was the nail in the coffin for me.
This book might be someone else's favourite. I'm sure someone else will be able to parse some meaning from it. I wish I could be that person, but I am not.
January 6, 2025
Unfortunately, me and this book will not be making out.
Leaned far into the parts of cultural studies that I detest. It had some beautiful pros, but was so theory heavy that it became muddled and self-indulgent.
Way too much tongue!
Leaned far into the parts of cultural studies that I detest. It had some beautiful pros, but was so theory heavy that it became muddled and self-indulgent.
Way too much tongue!
July 27, 2021
Although this is a shorter read, it's one I absolutely recommend taking your time with! I read about a chapter a night, and even a short chapter will give you a lot to mull over.
Perhaps not a good fit for a literal reader, but a lovely fit for a reader who likes to meander with their thoughts and see where they good. A lovely and tactile read for me.
Perhaps not a good fit for a literal reader, but a lovely fit for a reader who likes to meander with their thoughts and see where they good. A lovely and tactile read for me.
October 1, 2019
Not was I was expecting, and not in a good way. This memoir in essay form is written in a very poetic and abstract way, but ends up being vague and confusing and I coudn't actually bring myself to finish it.
February 9, 2020
‘Fragments of the world embedded within a kiss’
Two items to praise with this book – the author’s immensely interesting musings on kissing, and the very fine Avidly Reads concept. Avidly Reads, referencing Avidly, an online magazine origin, are books that are ‘part memoir, part cultural criticism, each brining to life an author’s emotional relationship to a cultural artifact or experience.’ The author of this edition is Kathryn Bond Stockton, a Distinguished Professor of English, Dean of the School for Cultural and Social Transformation, and Associate VP for Equity and Diversity at the University of Utah (? Utah...?)). Her precious books are THE QUEER CHILD: GROWING SIDEWAYS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, and BEAUTIFUL BOTTOM, BEAUTIFUL SHAME: WHERE “BLACK” MEETS “QUEER.’
Kathryn’s thoughts, well distilled in this fascinating book, address the act/concept/execution of kissing, aka ‘making out.’ Her comments are at times hilarious and at all times insightful and thought provoking. Little phrases such as, ‘Here’s the thing with kissing: it matters intensely or not at all’ and from that stance she explores so many ideas about the act of understanding ourselves by reading her personal takes on the experience and meaning of kissing.
Shouldering a significant portion of the book on gender choices and lives, Kathryn offers the following, referencing the fictional Myra Breckenridge – ‘By the time I’m ten – my ears prick up! a man can be a woman! (that was the wording) – but a little not-girl becoming a boy? Someone would allow it? On what planet? Here on Planet Time, I must starkly settle for a split temporality. Girl by day, boy by night. With the migration of the sun goes my gender as if falling light were a scalpel I go under to change my sex, every blessed night. Darkness is a benefactor, making me feel I innately love twilight…’
And that is just one of the poetically shared thoughts this book offers. Or as Kathryn states, ‘MAKING OUT, no surprise, is about some kisses. They might prompt you to kiss, question, think, debate…This book on kissing asks about reading…Reading is kissing and sex and ideas…’ Kathryn’s experience as an English Professor is evident, as is her guidance in the arena of cultural and social transformation. She brings it all together here in a book that could be a bedside staple for all. Highly recommended.
Two items to praise with this book – the author’s immensely interesting musings on kissing, and the very fine Avidly Reads concept. Avidly Reads, referencing Avidly, an online magazine origin, are books that are ‘part memoir, part cultural criticism, each brining to life an author’s emotional relationship to a cultural artifact or experience.’ The author of this edition is Kathryn Bond Stockton, a Distinguished Professor of English, Dean of the School for Cultural and Social Transformation, and Associate VP for Equity and Diversity at the University of Utah (? Utah...?)). Her precious books are THE QUEER CHILD: GROWING SIDEWAYS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, and BEAUTIFUL BOTTOM, BEAUTIFUL SHAME: WHERE “BLACK” MEETS “QUEER.’
Kathryn’s thoughts, well distilled in this fascinating book, address the act/concept/execution of kissing, aka ‘making out.’ Her comments are at times hilarious and at all times insightful and thought provoking. Little phrases such as, ‘Here’s the thing with kissing: it matters intensely or not at all’ and from that stance she explores so many ideas about the act of understanding ourselves by reading her personal takes on the experience and meaning of kissing.
Shouldering a significant portion of the book on gender choices and lives, Kathryn offers the following, referencing the fictional Myra Breckenridge – ‘By the time I’m ten – my ears prick up! a man can be a woman! (that was the wording) – but a little not-girl becoming a boy? Someone would allow it? On what planet? Here on Planet Time, I must starkly settle for a split temporality. Girl by day, boy by night. With the migration of the sun goes my gender as if falling light were a scalpel I go under to change my sex, every blessed night. Darkness is a benefactor, making me feel I innately love twilight…’
And that is just one of the poetically shared thoughts this book offers. Or as Kathryn states, ‘MAKING OUT, no surprise, is about some kisses. They might prompt you to kiss, question, think, debate…This book on kissing asks about reading…Reading is kissing and sex and ideas…’ Kathryn’s experience as an English Professor is evident, as is her guidance in the arena of cultural and social transformation. She brings it all together here in a book that could be a bedside staple for all. Highly recommended.
November 6, 2019
I really, really enjoyed this, even though I think a lot of the more abstract ideas went over my head.
I love the idea of the intense involvement of kissing, sex and reading. Can’t wait to discuss this in class tomorrow.
I love the idea of the intense involvement of kissing, sex and reading. Can’t wait to discuss this in class tomorrow.
February 8, 2023
This book was mostly ramblings I didn't understand. Pretty much on every page I thought "what is she talking about". Very abstract and kind of sexually uncomfortable in my opinion, in a Freudian type of way. But I loved the more concrete memoir parts of it.
September 4, 2019
Avidly Reads Making Out is a dry disappointing book. I could not finish even half of this book. I really tried to get through this.
June 16, 2021
slippery, impressionistic, difficult (even) to make out at times. I think this is the point, at least in part. but it's a good gloss on--what exactly?--even if its approach to race is... 🤧
July 21, 2022
Didn’t finish. Way too abstract, even for me
June 2, 2025
recommend reading this by way of getting it as a present by the hot asexual you're dating.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews