Fans of Samantha Irby will enjoy this new book of her essays. She writes about her book tours, her IBD, friends, family. Sardonic, self-deprecating, yet funny, wise, and compassionate.

I've been following Irby for several years, and I've enjoyed watching her career progress in various ways. With every book release, I find that I enjoy her essays more and more. I love her writing style and her sense of humor, but this book has been the most relatable for me. She talks about marriage, home ownership, and career changes, which mirrors the phase of life I'm currently in. I do think that Irby has the ability to make any circumstance of her life relatable to the reader, but I also know that I needed someone else to express my random questions about home repairs. If there's any distinct weakness in this book, it would be that a couple of the essays drag on for too long to the point that the humor is lost.

In Wow, No Thank You., Samantha Irby writes essays about adulthood, aging, marriage, moving from Chicago to lil 'ole Kalamazoo, freelancing and famous life. Her self-deprecating humor had me laughing with her versus at her, sometimes in public which garnered strange looks but ah well. I just continued chuckling and held the Kindle up as an explanation. From the very first chapter until the hilarious end, I nodded my head in agreement and said "me too, girl" aloud too many times to count.

Women nearing or in their 40s will most certainly relate. Do you randomly check your phone to see what others are saying in the Twitter streets? Is the Amazon Prime driver a regular to your mailing address? Do you have a bedroom television set? No? Just me and Samantha Irby? Be honest with yourselves. Let Wow, No Thank You. liberate and entertain you.

Happy Early Pub Day, Samantha Irby! Wow, No Thank You. will be available Tuesday, March 31.

LiteraryMarie

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love Samantha Irby’s sarcastic, self-deprecating sense of humor. Equal parts poignant, relatable, and hilarious, I loved this book and Irby’s truth-telling. Her voice is refreshing and honest. Do yourself a favor and read it.

This much buzzed about book is a short story collection about the author's life. I'm glad I read it so I can know what all the fuss is about but that's about it. It did have some humorous stories but this book was not for me. It was vulgar, depressing, and just not good. I found her un-movitation not interesting and so much of it was just gross. I wish I could have the time I spent reading it back.

Thank you to Netgalley for the free, advance copy.

While this has some very sharp and funny pages, it doesn’t seem quite as consistent as Irby’s past titles. There was not as much laugh out loud sections.

Wow, No Thank You is another hilarious read from Samantha Irby. It follows the same tone as her previous work, including an abundance of adjectives and the occasion cuss word. Her books are easy to read and can be put down and picked up again with significant gaps of time between. By telling stories about her body and its shortcomings, she makes it all the more normal when we, as fellow humans, have similar struggles. She practically screams, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!.

WOW, NO THANK YOU is another rip-roaring collection of snippets from Samantha Irby's life. I've been a fan of her writing for a while, and this book (her 3rd) does not disappoint. While there isn't a thread connecting all of the stories like her other two, it's still a fascinating glimpse into her life, making you feel like you could be best friends with Irby because yes, I have also felt the same way about many of these life frustrations!

My favorite story was about how she came to write the pool party episode of Shrill, my favorite moment of television from last year. Hearing about how she wanted to created a space for fat women on TV, making the idea of going to a party with other people who look like you and wear a bikini without feeling embarrassed or shameful, was full of such pure joy that I still think about it at least once a week. It was also interesting hearing about her forays into making television from her own work, which have not been as successful (though I wish she had expanded on that a bit more, though maybe she is not allowed to).

I also loved the shoutouts to Tori Amos, the list of things you should have if you get a dog, everyday life reasons to call 911, people with sensitive stomachs (literally), and trying to make it in an American suburb after living in a big city. While her writing isn't for everyone, I still think it's worth a try because her style is singular and very much hers. It can often just sound like complaining for half the book, which I had some trouble with, but who doesn't love a good complaint every now and then?

I enjoyed Irby's previous two collections of essays, but I ended up putting this one down before I finished it. It didn't held together in the same way and felt more commercial volumes.

This is Samantha Irby's third essay collection, and the first book I've read from her. Irby pulls the reader in immediately with wry social commentary, hilarious hyperbole, and relatable anecdotes. Whether she's talking about being too old to party in a night club or the frustrations of being without your phone, there's a sense throughout the collection of sitting down with a close friend. Irby is comfortable with her audience, open and honest and vulnerable in ways that quickly endeared me to her. I frequently found myself highlighting jokes and passages that I wanted to share with my friends.

While this was an enjoyable reading experience, I did find myself wishing for a connecting thread throughout the essays. The variety of the topics is nice, but I wished for a common theme that would help tie them together. I also felt some of them could've been edited down (for example the long mix tape section).

Irby frequently intrigued me with hints of topics she's discussed in past books (such as her relationship with her family and how she met her significant other). While those books aren't necessary to following this collection, it certainly made me want to pick them up so I could learn more about Irby's life and read more of her humor. I'd recommend Irby to readers who enjoy nonfiction, fans of Shrill, and readers looking for a laugh.

Samantha Irby bring another dose of her brand of smart humor to these essays. I love sharing her essays with my students as a study of audience, form and choice of detail. Irby knows how to share the right details to engage her audience; while also maintaining her clear, concise, “not having it” voice. Thank you for the opportunity to read and it will be added to our library.

Samantha Irby makes the mundane into comedy gold. This is a great book for anyone who enjoys memoirs with wit, but I also love how she talks about chronic illness without making this a Book Only About Chronic Illness.

Ahh, another five start read from Samantha Irby. I will continue to recommend this book, along with her past essay collections to everyone! This collection is vulnerable, sincere, and HILARIOUS. Incredibly relatable, I found myself nodding along, reading aloud passages to my partner, and literally laughing out loud. Can't wait to handsell this at the shop!

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.
The title is what caught me. I had never read anything by Samantha Irby before, but I am A FAN now! From the first story I was hooked. She is so relatable and absolutely hilarious! I'll definitely be picking up a hard copy when it's released, and recommending this book to customers!

I had a lot of fun reading this. The writing was delightfully snarky and very relatable to the point where I was smiling like a clown in public while reading it. I can't believe I waited so long to read a Samantha Irby book. Definitely recommended for anyone who needs a laugh at everyday life.

I'm a huge fan of Samantha Irby and have really enjoyed her other books. I thought this one was really her best so far! I think she and I are around the same age so I really enjoyed the section about her favorite music and the "hello, 911". I love her open, honest, views on life and her ability to really put it all out there. I'm already looking forward to her next project.

I love Sam Irby. I've been a fan since her first "Meaty" release, so not all the way back, but pretty far.

Each book of hers is like going to coffee with a hilarious friend who maybe overshares slightly. She's super relatable, even if you haven't had similar life experiences. She's one of our national treasures, so I hope we're treating her right.

Irby seems more frustrated than ever in her newest book of essays. I found myself laughing a lot throughout the book. Sometimes she comes across as complaining for the sake of it rather than making criticisms for an overall point or big picture. For how much I giggled, though, I'll let her get away with those parts! Her writing is enjoyable, snarky, and often relatable. I like how honest and vulnerable she seems, and that she paints herself as a pretty messy person. The older I get, the more social anxiety creeps in for me. It's nice to read from the perspective of someone who's had my (new) worries for much longer and how she deals with them haha!

Confession time: I own a copy of We Are Never Meeting in Real Life that I have never read, which I only own because I was the first person to borrow it from the library, and almost immediately managed to upend an open bottle of iced tea in my book bag, having to replace the copy. I bought a new copy for the library, kept the damaged copy, and, because I now owned it, promptly put it on a book shelf, where it still sits.

This is all to say that, after reading Wow, No Thank You I really need to pull the other off my book shelf and spend some more time with Samantha Irby.

I loved this series of essays. Irby is honest and refreshing and said things that were immensely relatable to me, but that I've never really said out loud to anyone. But the entire chapter entitled "Girls Gone Mild" could really and truly be my life, most especially the "do I eat?" dilemma. I do not have Crohn's disease, so really don't know what Irby's pain is like there, but I do know what it feels like to fear the whims of your gastrointestinal system any time you make social plans. So holy moly, could I relate to places in the book where she addresses that.

I also absolutely adored "Late- 1900s Time Capsule" chapter, where she shares her mixtape tracks. Also highly relatable, despite being unfamiliar with like 90% of the specific songs that she mentions. She does a great job of capturing the era of mixtapes, but also the feeling of using music as a teenager/early adult to process emotions and wallow, and express feelings you don't know how to on your own. To embrace the angst and the things that are being sung about that you definitely don't understand yet, but still feels incredibly important and necessary anyway. Ugh - yes to all of that, and to hearing those songs bringing you RIGHT back to that place, while also allowing you to look back as an adult and see everything in a totally different light. So good. So, so good. Also, I will be creating her mix in a playlist on Spotify because -- isn't that what you do when someone provides you with a song list?

There were a few chapters that worked less well for me - "Lesbian Bed Death" was decidedly not my favorite - it was clever enough at first, but went on too long for me. Ditto for "Hello, 911?" except there were a few gems in here, like panic over a place not having online ordering (because...COME ON!).

Even though there were a couple misses, though, overall I really really enjoyed reading this. I actually laughed out loud a few times, and silently said "OMG YES!" because I could relate so much at others.

So, yeah, check this out, while I go pull her last book off my bookshelf!

Also, thanks to Netgalley, who provided me with an advanced copy of this wonderful book.

Look, Samantha Irby is hilarious and perfect and can do no wrong for me. If you loved MEATY and WE ARE NEVER MEETING IN REAL LIFE (which you obviously should), then you're going to love WOW, NO THANK YOU. In her newest collection, you'll find the pop culture criticism, avoidance of socializing, and horrifying poop stories you know and love. But now that Sam's married with step-kids and living in small town Michigan, she's got even more in store. I laughed. I cried. I wished I was friends with Samantha Irby. So in short, it was everything I wanted it to be.