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I'm of two minds here. On the one hand, it was kind of fun tagging along with Lin to the hangouts of his past. I'm familiar with many of the ones in San Francisco and it was amusing to revisit them. On the other, I found him--to use a dated phrase--too cool for school. I thought the book was overwritten and that Lin was kind of impressed with himself. Maybe that's the only kind of person who is going to write a book like this in the first place, which is fair. There were just certain literary conceits that seemed unnecessary. Why is his partner--whose identity is certainly not hidden in the acknowledgments--Famous Blue Raincoat, Famous for short? Why can't he just be Jamie? Lin has clearly thought a lot about the idea of himself in these spaces, which is partially the point of a memoir like this, and by extension relates to how all gay people might experience gay bars, but it also ends up reading as remarkably self-involved at moments.

I also agree with some other reviewers who were disappointed that there wasn't more of a social historical overview of the development of gay bars and their wane in the wake of apps and online dating and hook-up sites. There were snippets of history thrown in, to be sure, but not in any organized fashion. Perhaps the publisher's description of the book was just a bit misleading on this front, which may not be the author's fault.