Let’s blame Sassy for the brand of journalism where the writer becomes as much a part of the story as the celebrity she’s interviewing. Of course, that sort of thing happened before 1988—but part of what made Sassy unique was the bond between its readers and writers. Subscribers knew the regular contributors on a first-name basis and looked up to them as big-sister types. Jane Pratt was, at 24, the youngest editor in chief in the business, but Christina Kelly (who would go on to head YM and ElleGirl before each folded) was the real star.

That’s according to this new book, anyway, called How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time (out in April). Though it comes close, it isn’t completely rah-rah cheerleader-y about Sassy. Writers Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer praise the mag for cluing rural teens in to riot grrrl, “discovering” Chloe Sevigny and Spike Jonze, and educating the nation’s youth on sexual matters when no one else would. But they balance the fun stuff (like the founding of the staff band Chia Pet) with the bad, including all the inside cattiness and Sassy’s ultimate demise after being sold to the publisher of Teen. The excessive dissing of rival titles like Seventeen and YM seems a bit unnecessary in this otherwise well-rounded profile, especially when Sassy could in some ways be seen as just as exclusive as its competitors.

How Sassy Changed My Life views the magazine as a creature not much unlike the teenage girls who read it: sometimes brilliant, sometimes bratty, but always full of potential. And just like the staff of Sassy did, Jesella and Meltzer know that’s something to celebrate.