Review: Wannabe

Wannabe: Reckonings with the Pop Culture That Shapes Me, by Aisha Harris (HarperOne 2023)

First line: “There’s a scene in the final season of the brilliant musical comedy series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend where Rebecca Bunch is lamenting her long list of well-documented destructive behaviors.”

I put this book on my TBR right when I heard about it midway through 2023. Bright, eye-catching cover, 90s-referenced relatable title, an NPR host author, what’s not to like? I finally got around to it this month, but as I started reading, I realized it was not what I expected it to be. To me, this cover screams light-hearted, humorous, nostalgic. What I got instead was thoughtful, nuanced examinations of how pop culture has affected Aisha Harris’s life, including the arguably-necessary emotional weight conversations about race and gender require. The writing is smart, unapologetic, and carefully considered. I especially appreciated her takes “On the Procreation Expectation”, in which she explains her decision not to have kids despite the societal and cultural demand to do so, and in “Santa Claus is a Black Man”, about her unexpectedly viral Slate article that rebranded Santa as a penguin.

My clash with my reading expectations versus what this actually was made it so I wasn’t always drawn to pick this one up, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great collection of essays. I also recommend listening to the audio (read by the author) which I found for free on Hoopla.