Wow, No Thank You.: Essays

“After feeling like a boring failure for a while, I pivot to watching TV. If I don’t want to feel like a total scumbag, I’ll watch something on the iPad, which I can quickly disguise as work if, oh, I don’t know, the mailman glances through the blinds while delivering my mini boxes from Amazon prime.”

In her initial discussion of her daily routine, Irby’s feelings of remorse and self-loathing are readily apparent. Expressions of Self-Deprecation are abundant in every essay. Here, Irby describes her shame at a routine she describes as self-indulgent, avoidant, and sedentary. The title of the essay implies that readers will likely find her daily practices to be disgusting as well as uninspiring. Beneath the indulgent life she lives, Irby describes fantasies of a glamorous existence in which she is a beautiful, envied influencer.

“Convenience is the number one driver of everything I do.”

Throughout the essays, Irby depicts herself as taking the easy route in every circumstance of her life. She offers a multitude of examples, explaining that she knows nothing about home maintenance, wears the simplest clothing she thinks she can get by with, eats easily prepared food from convenience stores, and avoids large social gatherings when possible. These traits, though honestly portrayed, belie the reality that her physical health challenges require constant oversight and that living in abject poverty for decades robbed her of the opportunity to invest in those typical life choices—cooking, self-care, quality wardrobes—that she admits to desiring.