Rating: 
Summary: Finally, a truly fresh voice in ...women's fiction!
Review: This book recently won a Lambda Literary Award, and I for one couldn't be happier about it. Tea's hilarious writing captures perfectly the urban grit and glamour of the youth-oriented queer punkrock scene, a way of life (dare I say "lifestyle"? Feh!) far too underrepresented in contemporary literature. You call it depravity, I call it a breath of fresh air and a genuinely enjoyable alternative to the five million mainstream lesbian romances out there. Nothing to like about these characters? Au contraire: they're funny, bright, utterly alive, and appropriately flawed. Michelle is a twentysomething writer chick trying to find her way among the open mics, parties, tattoo parlors, and butch-femme dynamics of San Francisco, and I loved coming along for the ride. The poets and artists, queer party girls and prostitutes, are all as much a part of New York as they are SF--and they all ring true.Turn off your television, buy a Tribe 8 album, and dare to explore a world outside of "Will and Grace"...if you're already there, you'll relate to Valencia and love every minute of it.
Rating: 
Summary: a book about life and love
Review: This book takes the time to remind you of all the feelings you have when you have a crush on the girl you're afraid to talk to, when you're in love, when you're falling out of love, and when you detest love. I loved the way it made me think of the relationships that I've had and the ones I want. Michelle Tea writes with such a pleasant tone that you don't want to put down the book, because you start to feel like you're living the crazy San Francisco girls life. It may not be the book if you're looking for a lot of insight, but it's a pleasurable read.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written, completely entertaining.
Review: This book transports the reader into the San Francisco lesbian scene. Having lived on the east coast my whole life and being rather shy, i found myself living through her on her adventures with woman after woman.
It's a quick read, a no-brainer, but highly entertaining.
I'd recommend this book as a weekend fling!
=)
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written, completely entertaining.
Review: This book transports the reader into the San Francisco lesbian scene. Having lived on the east coast my whole life and being rather shy, i found myself living through her on her adventures with woman after woman.
It's a quick read, a no-brainer, but highly entertaining.
I'd recommend this book as a weekend fling!
=)
Rating: 
Summary: Fast and fun
Review: This humorous and madcap story of one girl's life in San Francisco is perfect for those once into Judy Blume and now into riot grrls and Ani DiFranco. Taking place in one year, the narrator pursues her desires through a number of women in search of enduring love and great times. Tea also delivers a classic line: "Desire... is all about stink." It's a very visceral and madcap story that certainly is aimed at a narrow audience. I almost didn't finish it, but Tea's narrative did encourage me to follow to the end.
Rating:
Summary: Ground breaking
Review: This is another example of how all the best, most innovative writing is being hidden away on the gay and lesbian shelves. Michelle's writing is almost unbearably creative yet totally honest. Every page of this book could be read as a poem, it's that good. But there's still a great narrative thread throughout, the story of a girl trying to find her feet in San Francisco. One gets the sense that Michelle could write about anything well.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting once, boring twice.
Review: This memoir follows Michelle Tea's endless train of thought through a series of, for her, day-to-day activites in and around the Mission district of San Francisco. Her cloyingly self-aware run-on sentences beg of you, the reader, to think of her as the dykiest punk dyke in Dykesville. You can just see her at the Lexington Club, standing drunk on a stool shouting "I'm the greatest!", while everyone else in the bar expresses their utter boredom. A summary: Ms. Tea drinks a lot, does various drugs, knows a lot of people, feels lots of feelings about girls, works as a prostitute for awhile, dyes her hair green. There you go. I followed the trend within the queer scene when "Valencia" was first published, heralding it as genius & thrilling and calling Michelle Tea a "poet of our times". I have since waned in that opinion. Each subsequent time I read the book, it is more cold, detached, and self-centered. Like so many other cellophane-thin components of homocore/queercore, "Valencia" does not resonate with any lingering importance.
Rating: 
Summary: Sorry I bothered
Review: This was the first book I seriously considered not finishing; having given up any thought that the author had something to say to me. Purportedly a study of the young San Francisco dyke scene, the main characters are one dimensional caricatures. A chronicle of there rather boring lives the book celebrates their lack of work ethic and their poor taste in tattoos. This may appeal to children with a chip on their shoulder and no desire to function in society at large, but its message was lost on me.
Rating:
Summary: Am I Too Old To Read This Book?
Review: What was up with this book? It just annoyed me so much. I couldn't finish it after a few pages. The character did not inspire me nor did I feel sympathetic towards her. Therefore, it was time to move on to another book. Perhaps at 38 I'm too old to read this book. Nah. It just wasn't for me.
Rating:
Summary: couldn't put it down!
Review: wow, what can i say about valencia, except that i could not put this book down! it was amazing. personally, i have a very short attention span when it comes to books, but michelle tea, has this way of always keeping me on my toes. i still cant decide if i liked this better than her first book or not. lets just say they were the two best books i've ever read.
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