#No thank you game review how to#

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense.

Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.Įveryone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). There’s lots to chuckle at here, as Irby remains a winning, personality-driven, self-deprecating essayist. Ultimately, though, the author manages to shake things up and keep most of her observances fresh and funny, and she also incorporates more details of life with her wife. Regarding children, she writes, “I jump away from children the way most people jump away from a hot stove-though she doesn’t “dislike them.” Some of the material in this latest collection has been covered in her previous two books, but Irby’s devotees won’t mind because her personal hyperawareness, brazen attitude, and raunchy sense of humor are in fine form, even when the writing is haphazard and frenetic. She envies those who can go out on the town and not become hindered with bathroom issues or people who effortlessly manage a household. A lot of the best anecdotal material springs forth from the more embarrassing and cringeworthy moments of the author’s life. Even when the author describes pitching show concepts to Netflix or battling Crohn’s disease, her one-liners and comic timing remain intact.

#No thank you game review how to#

“I have been stuck with a smelly, actively decaying body that I never asked for,” she writes, “and am constantly on the receiving end of confusing, overwhelming messages for how to properly care for and feed it.” A linear timeline chronicling Irby’s attempt at partying while “staring middle age right in its sensible orthopedic inserts” is particularly hilarious and relatable for readers of a certain age. Among countless other topics, the author discusses her confusion about health bloggers’ obsessions with “adaptogens and other beneficial herbs,” her “hostile, elusive, disrespectful” menstrual cycle, and her body. In this third volume of essays (this one “dedicated to Wellbutrin”), outspoken blogger and essayist Irby offers opinions and reactions to many of life’s more uncomfortable and inconvenient episodes.

More humorous life reflections from a seasoned raconteur.