I’ll be honest, it took me quite a while to adjust to Irby’s style of storytelling, replete with exaggeration that occasionally kicked me full out of the story. Things were funny but I felt somewhat confused too, and it took me a while to get comfortable and find myself laughing out loud. This collection is packed with Irby’s life stories with a few great takeaways, all the sarcasm, heavy self deprecation, yet somehow also some powerful self love? Still trying to wrap a description around how Irby achieved that. I appreciated her frank discussions of chronic and mental illness, which isn’t the main focus of the collection but is nonetheless naturally integrated throughout.⁣
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My favorite essays were “You Don’t Have to Be Grateful for Sex” and “I’m in Love and It’s Boring”.