'wow, no thank you.' by Samantha Irby

'Everything is boring. You're boring.' — Review #142

Before I read Samantha Irby’s collection of personal essays, I never thought anyone else besides me was confused about whether you should wash your legs in the shower. I also felt alone in my disdain for Halloween. But we have had similar experiences at costume parties where no matter what get-up we wore, people assumed it to be our regular clothes, so we felt uncool and judged. We share other similarities, too. We are wary of children. We play spades. We love mixtapes with Portishead songs. And we prefer cats to dogs. Many of the essays in this collection, Irby’s third and latest, normalize and give visibility to our foibles, be they physical, mental or scatological. Her goal is to show readers that messiness, imperfection and social anxiety is normal and totally fine. We are not alone in our awkwardness. In that sense, this book is essential work. Here’s the cover:

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But I have some gripes. I knew little about Irby, her writing or this book when I ordered it back in May. My purchase was based on positive posts I saw on Instagram. I figured, here’s a hot writer who’s big on Substack (like me!), who book-loving people (my demo!) seem to enjoy. But while I support the mission of this book, and am happy that others like it, it was not for me. Stylistically, I found it hard to follow. Many of the stories were too long, went off on random tangents and contained such relentless torrents of words that I empathized with ‘Wonder Woman’ that time when she fended off the machine-gun blasts, like:

Also, many stories were hard for me to relate to. Normally, I relish books that offer me a chance to see the experiences of people different from me. But I didn’t feel that way here. There was the essay that repeated variations of the same Twitter meme, and the one about lifestyle blogging and skincare products, and the one about going out when you’re over 40 (even though I’m over 40!), and the one about almost getting a dog. I didn’t get much from these. The jokes didn’t land. My mind wandered. I felt lost, old and too male, like a tourist out of their depth, like:

Even so, there were essays I enjoyed. In particular, there was the one that recounted her battle with various medical issues, and the one about how she overcame childhood poverty, deceased parents, homelessness and other issues to become a successful writer and land a gig writing for the Hulu show ‘Shrill.’ I want very much to watch the episode she wrote, because what she writes here about the portrayal of fat people on television, and how it needs to change, is spot on and vital. On that issue, I was like:

So would I recommend this book? It’s tough to say. Because it didn’t work for me doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work for you. I was not the target audience, and that’s completely fine. If you’re into the personal essay genre, you might enjoy ‘wow, no thank you.’ more than I did, and I don’t want to discourage you from checking it out. Donna has just started reading it, and I’ve heard here lol a few times.

How it begins:

I live for a glamorous lifestyle blog featuring some gorgeous ingenue with piles of secret wealth that she never divulges to the unsuspecting slobs on the other side of the screen. How does she afford three-hundred-dollar eye cream if her job is listed as “freelance editor,” and why is it tossed so casually on her nightstand like she wouldn’t cry if she lost it? I want to admire her floating through a bright and clean apartment in photos so beautiful and overexposed that it hurts your ugly regular-person eyes to look at them as she describes the minutiae of her daily routines, but all the cat dander clouding my eyes makes it difficult. “Maybe I should try alkaline water,” I murmur to myself as I squint through the unidentifiable goo dried on my phone screen, making a mental note to look up what “adaptogens” are after I search for the cheapest gratitude journal on Amazon. “Wow, she got that skin just from vitamins??” I sigh, taking a sip of warm Crush grape soda I opened either three hours or three days ago. I subscribe to so many of these blogs and newsletters, I can’t even tell them apart. Partly, I’m curious about the stuff people buy (oh, I am not curious I am actually obsessed and, if I pee at your house, I will make note of the hand soap you use and immediately copy you if it’s fancier than mine, but in an admiring way not a Single White Female way, I promise). But mostly it’s just straight-up awe, because I love STUFF so fucking much, and I want to know how people get to be so pretty and chic.

My Rating:

‘wow, no thank you.’ by Samantha Irby was published by Vintage Books in 2020. 319 pages. $14.67 at Bookshop.org.

Disagree with my review? Let me know:

Up next:

Review #141: ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ by Bernardine Evaristo

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Contact me: booksongif@gmail.com.

Before you go:

• Read this: ‘Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in “anti-intellectual times”’ is an important Q&A in The New Statesman. I found Butler’s perspective on Rowling, transphobia and feminism to be informative and fascinating. I learned from this piece.

• Also read this: You may have seen that earlier this week I posted a discussion thread asking what books you read and enjoyed this summer. Some good recommendations were made. Check it out and join the conversation!

• Read and listen to this: On Friday night while Googling Portishead videos, I came across this 2019 article from The Guardian that argues ‘Dummy wasn’t a chillout album. Portishead had more in common with Nirvana.’ Did you know Portishead covered Abba’s ‘SOS’? IF SO WHY WAS I NOT ALERTED? My mind is blown.

Thanks for reading, and thanks especially to Donna for editing this newsletter!

Until next time,

MPV

Review #142 used GIFs from @studiosoriginals via Giphy.com.

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