wow, no thank you.

Staring down the barrel of her fortieth year, Samantha Irby is confronting the ways her life has changed since the days she could work a full 11 hour shift on 4 hours of sleep, change her shoes and put mascara on in the back of a moving cab and go from drinks to dinner to the club without a second thought. Recently, things are more 'Girls Gone Mild.' In Wow, No Thank You Irby discusses the actual nightmare of living in a rural idyll, weighs in on body negativity (loving yourself is a full-time job with shitty benefits) and poses the essential question: Sure sex is fun but have you ever googled a popular meme?

 

Paperback  Published late April 2020  256 pages

Recommended and Reviewed by Hendri:

"Often, we need humour to cope with our life. In this strange time, Samantha Irby's "Wow. No. Thank You" might be relevant to help us by comically looking at our domestic life and genuinely recognising how absurd it can be. Well-known for unapologetic humour she writes about her personal life, Irby talks about body positivity (and negativity), parenting, lesbian bed death, and "Girls Gone Mild," when you suddenly cancel your night out just because you don't want to leave your comfortable couch. Home (or domesticity) is riddled with both opportunities and anxieties. When you eventually have a chance to scrutinise and learn about your body, you must simultaneously confront how impossible it is to care about it fully. From head to toe, from eyelashes to nails, how much money and time must we invest in making us feel positive about our body? And that does not mean people will perceive your body the way you want them to. When Irby was sleeping with a dude living near her apartment in 2002, during sex, he would moan, "You are so warm inside," and "I love looking at your back." And Irby unapologetically writes, "...I'm sorry, what? Have you been f***ing corpses? Do I have undiagnosed measles?"

"Her personal hyperawareness, brazen attitude, and raunchy sense of humor are in fine form, even when the writing is haphazard and frenetic. Ultimately, though, the author manages to shake things up and keep most of her observances fresh and funny, and she also incorporates more details of life with her wife. There’s lots to chuckle at here, as Irby remains a winning, personality-driven, self-deprecating essayist." Kirkus Reviews