Wow, No Thank You.
Essays (Lambda Literary Award)
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4.3 • 12 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction Award Winner • A rip-roaring, edgy and unabashedly raunchy new collection of hilarious essays from the New York Times bestselling author of We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.
“Stay-up-all-night, miss-your-subway-stop, spit-out-your-beverage funny.” —Jia Tolentino, New York Times bestselling author of Trick Mirror
Irby is forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin despite what Inspirational Instagram Infographics have promised her. She has left her job as a receptionist at a veterinary clinic, has published successful books and has been friendzoned by Hollywood, left Chicago, and moved into a house with a garden that requires repairs and know-how with her wife in a Blue town in the middle of a Red state where she now hosts book clubs and makes mason jar salads. This is the bourgeois life of a Hallmark Channel dream. She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with "tv executives slash amateur astrologers" while being a "cheese fry-eating slightly damp Midwest person," "with neck pain and no cartilage in [her] knees," who still hides past due bills under her pillow.
The essays in this collection draw on the raw, hilarious particulars of Irby's new life. Wow, No Thank You. is Irby at her most unflinching, riotous, and relatable.
Don't miss Samantha Irby's bestselling new book, Quietly Hostile!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This overly manic collection from blogger Irby (We Are Never Meeting in Real Life) hints at the author's talent, but ultimately disappoints. In recounting a period in her life that saw her attain success as an author, endure a frustrating flirtation with Hollywood, and move from Chicago to Kalamazoo, Mich., "where the most popular bar has a mechanical bull," Irby primarily aims to amuse, but the humor is one-note, leaning too much on double exclamation points, triple question marks, and caps lock, and too little on original observations. She also overemphasizes showbiz references at one point, she imagines her life as a wacky Hollywood comedy, and at another point, as several seasons of a TV show. Irby can be remarkably candid, as when she admits to having a "running inner monologue recounting every horrible thing I've said or done since I can remember first publicly humiliating myself," one that "never shuts the fuck up or goes away even for a minute." This emotional honesty is the book's best feature, but is less appealing than it might have been, due to the hectic tone. Readers will be disappointed by this strained attempt at comedic memoir.
