Get out your plastic and go use the restroom, because this book will leave you holding your sides. Samantha Irby mines what ought to be old material but isn’t, at least not by the time she is done with it, and her edgy, plain-truth humor may leave you breathless by the time the last page is turned. My thanks go to Net Galley and Knopf Doubleday for the DRC, which I received free and early in exchange for this honest review. This book has just been released and is available for purchase.

Much of the base level subject matter is eternal and well worn: needing to use the bathroom while stuck in traffic; dating; racism; attempting to lose weight. But Irby has a fresh take on everything. She refers to herself as “old”, and since at 36 she is the age of this blogger’s eldest child, I suspect that I am not her target audience. But so much of what she says is eternal, and her take on current social concerns such as cop violence and the horror of stumbling upon a bunch of white people in the hinterland performing a Civil War reenactment complete with Confederate flags is welcome and resonant. The thread in which she voices the horror of being away from a major urban center is one I share. I have not laughed at potty humor since I was twelve, but the essay containing the traffic jam bathroom emergency on the way home from the dorm made me laugh hard enough to shake the bed, and my husband—a silver-haired Japanese gentleman old enough for Social Security—laughed hard enough that he was doubled over. The passage where she discusses having squandered money on things she doesn’t need just to prove she can do it is just one instance where I laugh because I am surprised. What writer ever admits this? Irby does.

Other aspects of this wonderful collection of essays were more educational than resonant, but also good to read. Can Black women admit they have mental health issues and still be Black?

Her cover model represents the cat from hell, Helen Keller:

“’I know where they keep the euthanasia solution,’ I whispered into the downy fur on top of her head.”

Every book blogger knows the pressured feeling that comes with scooping up a galley right before publication. When I begin the book, all I want is to read it fast so I can review it in a timely manner; yet by the time I turn the final page, I am disappointed that we are done here.

Highly recommended to strong women with an offbeat sense of humor, and those that love them.