The dedication in Samantha Irby’s latest book, Wow, No Thank You., is made out to Wellbutrin. Fitting, then, that the pages that follow are an antidepressant in their own right. And it came just in time—the book dropped on March 31, 2020, right around the time we first lost all hope of ever leaving our homes. But who needs to go outside when inside is a list of more than 100 “sure, sex is fun, but have you ever . . . ” jokes that are actually funny? Who needs to go to a bar when you can instead read a detailed, time-stamped account of a night out in the city in the winter of 2002? Who needs to socialize with others when your new best friend Sam has given you 300 pages of witticisms far more entertaining than anything anyone else has to say?
That being said, new work from Irby is a welcome gift at any time. With Wow, No Thank You. she blessedly proves that she isn’t going to run out of things to write about any time soon and that she just keeps getting funnier and funnier while doing it. The release of this book gave me an excuse to round out my personal Irby collection. I bought this and the title before it, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life., from local bookseller Semicolon Bookstore. I hope others are inspired to do the same—no Chicago bookshelf is complete without the hilarious, all-too-relatable words of Samantha Irby.