New York Times review

Entertainment Weekly

Kirkus Reviews

There isn’t a lot to say about Samantha Irby’s new set of essays that hasn’t already been said by a lot of people smarter and more highly paid than me. I think that when I read her work, I see a life that is possible. Inherent permission to live a life that is unapologetic, that is focused on the true self and pursuing what makes that actual self happy (or at least less miserable). People focus so much on the things that we should to or are supposed to do, but they never realize that most of the time they don’t need someone’s permission to choose to do something else.

I also appreciate that Irby weaves in the obstacles and problems with the search for such a life in with humor and sarcasm. We’re all laughing and crying because, for the most part, women have experienced a lot of these struggles before. I would give literally anything to have my doctor agree to microwave my uterus so I don’t have to dread having another IUD inserted in 2021. I am not using it and all it gives me is despair, if you will not remove it please kill it and save us all the trouble.

I worry though that these high paid people, people smarter and higher up than me feel like they are vacationing in someone else’s life, which is basically what anyone does when they read a memoir sure. What I mean is that unless you’ve experienced poverty, a landlord that basically fucks with you, HUNGER, anything that Irby jauntily floats us all through with humor and self-deprecation, you’re not hearing the fear, the desperation, and the relief in a lot of these essays. A few of the above linked reviews talk about how these essays feel different. When I read that, I balked at it because it was almost like they were saying she wasn’t struggling enough to be as edgy as she was in the past. This most recent collection feels different because life feels a lot different when you don’t have to constantly worry about getting kicked out of your apartment and are getting proper healthcare and enough to eat. Life feels different when you have people around that love and support you and that you can love and support in return.

Irby’s books are a journey to this stability, and each collection of essays feels different because each one brings us closer to what every poor kid wishes for themselves and others: seeing that Irby is going to be okay. Does she still have health problems and other issues that we love to hear her complain about? Sure, but I feel a lot better reading them knowing that at the core of them, she’s relatively safe and happy. I can’t wait to hear more and will be preordering book 4. Wow, yes thank you. 🙂

Kitchens of the Great Midwest

The Lager Queen of Minnesota is a story of two sisters and their split over underage drinking.

Helen drinks beer for the first time in her teens and discovers an almost obsessive love of all things beer: lagers, IPAs, stouts, you name it. At first she tries to get her hands on beer to drink, but then she decides that she wants to create beer. She hooks up with (and eventually marries) a local beverage heir (Blotz Brewery) and talks her elderly dad into selling his farm to help fund her venture. The trick is that she does not split this money with her sister, Edith, which causes a rift of silence that lasts until they are in their seventies.

Most of the story follows Edith’s descent into poverty with her husband, who dies and leaves her alone. They do not own their home, they rent, and so when she eventually loses her jobs in the recession, she has to move to a cheaper apartment in a more touch and go neighborhood. Events transpire that also cause her to be the guardian of her granddaughter, who somehow finds herself employed at a local brewery instead of going to college (see also: crippling poverty).

I have to be honest and say that I did not like this one as much as Kitchens of the Great Midwest. While Kitchens was able to weave one woman’s influence through many different stories, Lager Queen is laser focused on beer, Beer, BEER! almost to the point where certain story turns are unbelievable. The final resolution of the story lacked the weight of Kitchens, even though everyone coming together should have felt very emotional. The story almost begs me to wish for Helen’s ruination, and yet it also wants me to crave her reuniting with Edith? Bringing Helen back into Edith’s life at all demands a level of redemption that this book just does not allow time for. I want Helen to fall from grace, to experience want and poverty, to reap what she has sown with her greed and manipulation before she has to come crawling back to Edith because Edith has built something successful with her granddaughter and Helen could still have what she loved but because she had to finally share with Edith. There is a lesson in this book that is lost in the seemingly rushed ending.

I will say that Stradal’s portrayal of how the economy and education works for people who are struggling was very spot on. Poverty hiding in plain sight, kids working jobs to help their parents pay bills, trying to avoid shaming at school by putting up a front, and the list could go on and on. I was uncomfortable reading the second half of this book if only because it immersed me in so much of what my life has been like so far. One of the reasons I kept reading was to see how it all turned out – and low and behold like so much of being poor, getting out often takes luck and charity and sometimes even that is very shaky.

Stradal’s writing is still amazing, and Edith’s story is compelling enough to enjoy it on its own without knowing anything about Helen, so I finished the book and was happy for the group of brewing grandmas having fun making beers they thought would be cool. Pick this one up and see if you feel the same way. I wouldn’t miss one of Stradal’s books and you shouldn’t either.