Wow, No Thank You.

How does one even begin to describe Samantha Irby as a writer? She sets you off breathless from page one with her raunchy, articulate banter about her life and the complications of being a black, gay essayist.

While one may think they are nothing like her in personality or even life circumstances, the familiarity of the way she recounts her drinking, dating, and clubbing days is so spot on you can’t help but feel like you just pulled an all-nighter with her.

The best part is she is, at heart, an introverted writer and always contemplating the perplexities of living… show more.

Reading Samantha Irby’s raw, hilarious, and totally uninhibited essays, you feel like you just found the funniest person at the party, and all you want to do is settle in with your drink and listen. Irby’s third essay collection finds her at forty, writing about everything from aging to friendship to bodily functions (lots of bodily functions!) with her signature self-deprecating humor, hyperbole, and cut-through-the-B.S wisdom. 

A writer with a hyperactive inner world makes a life with her partner whose existence seems wildly different from her own. It is easy to fall in love with Irby and her rollicking humor. Someone whose brilliance, independence, and talent sets her apart enters into marriage, stepmotherhood, and full small-town regalia. How does that work? Very well, in fact.