It's kind of perfect that this book is pubbing mid-quarantine, because if there's anyone absolutely suited for the Q-lifestyle, it's samantha irby. I also appreciate her USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS FOR EMPHASIS, especially as someone who just had all their similarly deployed capital letters turned into wimpy italics by an otherwise delightful editor.

It is heartening to know that i'm not the only one so unsuited for 92% of life everything from 'navigating social situations' to 'home ownership.' She and i seem to have many areas of same-shame/self-deprecatory overlap-i, too, am an 'ill-prepared child-person' whose body “is a toilet,” always wondering (although in less-perfect words), “Am I ever going to stop writing the horror movie I have been starring in since the day I was born?” she's funny enough to just.write, to lay it all out there without second-guessing any of it, powering through in an engaging tone as unfussy as the essays' contents, many of which are about blood, poop, and tears-the verymany failings of the body and the mind and the spirit. it's much more confident and conversational and loose it doesn't feel like writing that's been reworked too many times, its best parts buried under unnecessary zazz and flair. it felt 'off' in shape and form keeping the reader at arm's length by using too many overlaying gimmicky style-flourishes, as clunky as that sentence i just wrote. i went on and on about why in my review, but you're already here, so to summarize: i'd never read her before and a few too many of the essays came across as self-conscious and overworked, like she was trying to shove humor/memoir pieces through a short story filter. 'cuz i admit-i was not crazy about We Are Never Meeting In Real Life. This book made me love samantha irby as much as the rest of you already do. Oooh, goodreads choice awards finalist for best humor 2020! what will happen? She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with 'skinny, luminous peoples' while being a 'cheese fry-eating slightly damp Midwest person,' 'with neck pain and no cartilage in knees,' and hides Entenmann's cookies under her bed and unopened bills under her pillow.Īn extremely specific guide to publishing a book She has left her job as a receptionist at a veterinary clinic, has published successful books and is courted by Hollywood, left Chicago, and moved into a house with a garden that requires repairs and know-how with her wife and two step-children in a small white, Republican town in Michigan where she now hosts book clubs. Irby is turning forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin. A new essay collection from Samantha Irby about aging, marriage, settling down with step-children in white, small-town America.

Wow, No Thank You. by Samantha Irby