Wow, No Thank You.: Essays by Samantha Irby
Pages: 319
Published by Vintage
Publication Date March 31, 2020
Goodreads
A new essay collection from Samantha Irby about aging, marriage, settling down with step-children in white, small-town America.
Irby is turning forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin. 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. This is the bourgeois life of dreams. 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 [her] knees," and hides Entenmann's cookies under her bed and unopened bills under her pillow.
Wow, No Thank You was a book club selection way back in 2020, and being the bad book clubber I am, I’m just getting around to reading it. I was originally excited to read it as it reminded me of David Sedaris and his unique humorous essays. Sadly, this was far from the truth.
A large chunk of the book (especially the first half) felt more sex-related with the author using “bitches” as a descriptive word in almost every sentence. For me, it felt like Samantha Irby was trying a little too hard and was going for shock value. The last half of the book was a little more life experience oriented which I enjoyed more but I’m not sure it made it up for my overall enjoyment of the book.
Overall, Wow, No Thank You wasn’t my cup of tea and if it hadn’t been a book club selection I probably would have said no thank you.
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
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