New Year, Same Trash: Resolutions I Absolutely Did Not Keep (A Vintage Short) by Samantha Irby

New Year, Same Trash: Resolutions I Absolutely Did Not Keep (A Vintage Short) Reviews

• 
  len ❀

  my goal for 2023? to not make any goals.
  
  last year, i read
  Consent: A Memoir as my first 2022 book. i think the title says enough. for this year, i wanted to read another memoir, one “similar,” of an author/celebrity/famous person and their life. i wanted to make a tradition of it, where i’d start the year off a certain way. although not exactly the same type of memoir, it focuses on the author.
  
  i’m the type of person who likes living life as it goes. plans and i never go well. there’s a reason i always procrastinate. the only ‘reading goal’ was this: to read a non-fiction, biographical-type story.
  
  so here we are.
  
  i ended up writing my 32-page thesis for my capstone class this semester in 11 hours, even though i had four months to work on it. every time i went to class, the professor would remind us to please not start the project last minute because of how crucial the research is. although my topic is one i’m passionate about (i’m going for an honors thesis next semester!), there was a lot i could’ve worked on and done better. but you know what happened? i got 49/50 on that paper. 32 pages of non stop research done in a single day. i can’t tell you how many times i have proven myself how much better i work under pressure.
  
  one of my goals was to not procrastinate as much this year. well, OBVIOUSLY i succeeded in that goal, no?
  
  irby’s short work, “new year, same trash,” was so vividly real, it hurt. i felt like i was listening to her tell me all these new year’s resolutions she had; i felt like i was there watching her try to come up with ways to make them successful. sometimes i saw myself in her goals because i had the same ones.
  
  i mean, why call someone when you can text? why go out and use your $75 ticket for the concert you bought when you have a grub hub coupon to use for food to be delivered to you? why grocery shop when you can click click click a screen and avoid having to look at people and make small talk?
  
  in all honesty, i don’t have any goals for this year, per se. sure, i have some things i wanna change, but there are no priorities i have set for myself to change in my life in the span of 365 days. i’m someone who’d rather to it impulsively. i wanna start going to the gym? great, i’ll do it. at some point. when i make a rash decision. if i actually plan it, i’ll fall even more behind. i plan when necessary—trips, lists for what i’m gonna buy, what time i need to get out of my house to avoid missing the train—but i won’t plan the rest—homework? getting to class on time? cooking? cleaning? it comes and goes.
  
  planning is hard for me, making goals reality is frustrating. 2023 is the year i have planned to let go and enjoy life. i’ve bought tickets for a couple concerts i’ll be going alone to, which i have never done. i’m tired of relying on people to enjoy my life. too many concerts came and went in 2022 that i missed out on because oh i didn’t have anyone to go with. boohoo. i’m tired. i wanna wack my brain sometimes and tell it to get a grip because life is short and i’ll always end up regretting that chance i didn’t take. it’s not a new year’s resolution to attend a concert alone. it’s not a goal. it’s just something i wanna do. and i will. and i’ll do more things too.
  
  having this short work of non fiction as my first read of 2023 was a good choice. it has made me feel better about who i am, what i didn’t achieve, and what i probably, most likely, without a doubt will not achieve this year. and honestly, i’m content with that. if you’re someone who likes/wants to plan and make a list of goals you want to achieve this year, good for you! i admire that. i admire going over a plan for a whole year and trying to check off that list. i wish i could do that, but the moment i start something, i stop.
  
  i do have some goals. i do have some resolutions. but they’re all unconscious. i’m not writing them down anywhere. i’m not pasting them anywhere to remind myself of them. they’re too pressuring, and i feel like i’m gonna be forced to do them at the wrong time. so i’m just letting it be. before i know it, i might just start doing them, and if i don’t, someday i will.
  
  as my dad says: we’re all gonna die anyway.
  
  happy new year, friends.
• 
  Esil

  This year, I made no resolutions -- especially no reading resolutions. Other years, I've always planned to be disciplined about reading what's on my shelves, what's in my kindle, what's on my tbr and books friends have lent me or recommended. And I always break those resolutions. Reading is supposed to be fun or at least not to feel like a job or a chore, so I decided to give myself the freedom to wander from one book to another footloose and fancy free.
  
  And then I read GR friend Andrew's post about planning to read more humour in 2017. And I decided that that was one resolution I would latch on to. Because 2017 is definitely a year in which humour -- including lots of acerbic political satire -- will be much needed.
  
  All that to say that I was delighted to get an ARC of Samantha Irby's Same Trash, New Year today. I know nothing about Irby, but looking her up I saw that she's smart and funny. And how fitting that this very short piece is about her 70 mini resolutions -- all pretty much broken and with rationalizations provided. Funny and recognizable -- good fun for 30 minutes of entertainment.
  
  Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.
  
  By the way, I am open to suggestions for other funny reads this year. I just can't promise I'll read all or even any of them...
  
• 
  Julie Ehlers

  LOL. I had briefly forgotten how hilarious Samantha Irby is. If you're always feeling guilty about not keeping your New Year's resolutions, read this essay and give yourself a break.
• 
  chantel nouseforaname

  Funny little short. I decided to read this because the year is winding down and a new year is upon us all. 2019 beckons.
  
  A New Year always puts me into two mindsets that are at odds with one another. One where, I'm incredibly happy for all the new possibilities that the coming year has to provide and the second where I'm also sad about a whole heap of things. Sad about things that happened or didn't happen in the past year, to things that I know I'm going to struggle with in 2019 because I'm bringing them over with me. It's a complex mindset, a "new year". The entire concept around the term "resolution" gives me hella anxiety and I don't suffer from anxiety like that, really... so I try to fight back those emotions by reading books like this one.
  
  I decided to read this to help myself transition from 2018 into 2019 and I realized that everything Samantha Irby wrote here is super on point. Who needs a resolution that probably won't make it into the second week of your "new year, new me" phase? Resolutions are dumb and this short book helped me laugh through everything that I thought I wanted to plan and incorporate into my life. It helped me laugh off everything I try to tell myself about what I think I need to do and it helped me find my way back to a more logical reality before the clock strikes midnight on Dec 31st, 2018.
  
  Thanks, Samantha!
• 
  Corrin Foster

  God damn Samantha is funny.
• 
  Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨ Campbell

  
  
  
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  This is pretty short for a "book," but all of the positive reviews said it was worth it. So I was like, "Here Samantha Irby, have my coin." NEW YEAR, SAME TRASH reads kind of like a published blog piece in which Irby details some of her new year's resolutions and how she failed to keep them. Whether it's eating healthy, traveling more, or learning how to adult properly, sticking to your goals is #hard.
  
  
  
  I honestly found this pretty humorous and found myself chuckling several times. I feel like Samantha Irby is me, only she's, like, a superior evolution of me. Like, she is the anxious Charizard to my anxious Charmander. I found it incredibly relatable how she cancels plans to stay at home and read trash in dirty socks (YES), and harbors an unreasonable fear of speaking on the telephone (I let everything go to voice mail and then just text people back). I also have a Tumblr, allegedly, because I receive emails about my Tumblr, but I never use it because people on Tumblr scare me and also I'm seriously uncool and don't feel like I'm funny enough or young enough to be posting on there. The only thing I can brag about is eating pretty healthfully but that's only because I have some pretty serious food sensitivities that are conveniently found in most processed or fast food, and because of what happens to me when I eat them, I've developed such a taste aversion to these things that just smelling them can make me go UGH.
  
  
  
  It's less than fifty pages long but I consider this 99 cents well spent. I think it would be especially fun to read at the end of the year when you're planning out next year's resolutions while contemplating last year's failures. And by "fun" I mean masochistic, but hey, whatever works, right?
  
  
  
  3.5 stars
• 
  Selwa

  I recently read a short story by
  Samantha Irby
  Samantha Irby (contained in her book
  We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.: Essays) and it was so funny I recommended it to 2 people and made my husband sit through my reading of it to him haha! Anyway, I thought this short would be a good introduction, and also a good way to see if she's funny beyond one short story. This was hilarious and I'm looking forward to reading more by this author :)
• 
  Sarah Obsesses over Books & Cookies

  omg i love this woman
• 
  Sandra The Old Woman in a Van

  This itty bitty 99 cent Kindle book is THE perfect pick for a rear-end book club. I read it in a nano second, it made me laugh, and we’ll have plenty to talk about.
  
  It’s also the perfect essay (blurb?)to read before you compile your NY resolutions. Especially in 2020, because we all know how this year’s resolutions went, right?
  
  
• 
  Wayne McCoy

  'New Year, Same Trash: Resolutions I Absolutely Did Not Keep' by comedian and blogger Samantha Irby is a short essay about how most of us actually deal with resolutions. It's pretty funny.
  
  Samantha Irby for 2016 wrote down 70 short resolutions. The idea was simple goals that could be met. In this essay, she lists them, and how she fared. As the subtitle might suggest, she didn't do all that well with most of them.
  
  The resolutions are grouped into categories like writing, or eating well. They include entries like: 21. Wear clean socks every day, and are followed by the results: "Noooooooope. Nope, nope, nopety nope. I did not manage to do this."
  
  It's pretty funny, albeit a bit crude at times. It feels a bit like an extended blog post, but it is less than a dollar for the Kindle edition. I think it's worth at least a buck.
  
  I received a review copy of this ebook from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Vintage, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.
• 
  Cristina

  I was ready to give this another 5 star rating thanks to that sweet Jibri call-out again, but it loses a star for terrible pizza opinions. I read 2 pages dedicated to cat anuses in the last book, but the anti-NY pizza line was the most offended I've ever been.
• 
  Vio

  I enjoyed very much this super short read. Samantha Irby writes like she thinks, I guess. Easy and fun.
• 
  Sara Thiel

  Quick and hilarious!
• 
  Megan Graham

  Samantha Irby makes me LOL love her for that
• 
  Mehsi

  Everyone tries to make New Years Resolutions, though I can honestly say I never had more than 2 or 3. :P But Samantha Irby has tons. In about 20-30 pages she will tell us all about her resolutions. From a diet for her cat to spending less money on stuff to eating more healthy or taking daily showers. Each resolution is met with a funny comment/story, and I was just laughing so loud at several "excuses" or remarks of her.
  All in all, a very short book, but it was oh so much fun to read. Before I knew it I was done (and quite sad as I wanted more). Definitely recommended.
• 
  Katie

  If you haven't read her blog, bitches gotta eat, go read it. Don't even come back because she is FAR funnier than me, and I know you'll be there a while.
  
  
  
  I snort laughed so many times reading this I lost count. Not that I was counting. It was just that...well, this is some funny shit and you should read it.
  
  Mic drop.
• 
  Jessica

  Are we the same person???
  
  After having finished "We Are Never Meeting in Real Life" earlier this week, I knew I wanted to read more of Samantha Irby's work. This one solidified my initial takeaway: she and I are either the same person or very closely related. Like separated at birth related. Henceforth and forevermore I self-identify as a Samantha Irby. And y'all will deal!
• 
  Kirsti

  In a preview for her next book of essays, Samantha Irby lists dozens of "micro-resolutions" she made and explains which ones she kept. (Spoiler: Not many.) It's only 30 pages long, but it's well worth 99 cents and half an hour of your time.
• 
  Matt

  Always a Delight
  
  Seriously, Sam Irby is always worth reading. She could write a poem on a soiled napkin in, I dunno, ketchup and I would cherish that thing. Get it framed. This neat little list of “resolutions” is way better than a soiled napkin. Read it!
• 
  Meghan

  I can't wait for her next full-length book to come out! Samantha Irby is so funny.
• 
  Bryony Nelson

  So brilliant and so funny! I need more Samantha Irby in my life.
• 
  superawesomekt

  2.5 stars?
  
  Even when I was a teenager it was a fact generally acknowledged that I am an old woman at heart. I suffered through Adam Sandler movies in high school, but secretly P.G. Wodehouse was more my jam. After an irritable bowel disease diagnosis in my 20s and having diapered three kids in my 30s you would think my tolerance for potty humor would be higher than it is. Okay, it *is* higher now—but only slightly. And it wasn't worth the colonoscopies and soiled diapers to get here, either.
  
  So while even now at 40 I'm *trying* to lighten up a little and not be such a stick in the mud when my kids find bodily functions amusing, I've accepted that there is only so much change I can expect in this regard.
  
  Yeah, okay, so Irby is funny but she is never going to be more than mildly so for me because she loves potty humor peppered with all kinds of profanity (which, reminder: my spiritual age = 80).
  
  In other words, if you are a salty 7 year old at heart, you may love this. I did give some stars because she was generally funny and I liked her self-deprecating humor.
• 
  emily gielshire

  Sam Irby has never once in her life missed and obviously this vintage (2016 lol) list of New Year’s resolutions that she failed to keep was no exception. Also feeling very seen because there is a line about how much she went to Olive Garden the prior year and wow, yes, me too, so validating.
• 
  Rachel

  Quick, light, funny. I love Samantha Irby.
• 
  Sam

  I laughed out loud so many times and related to lots of these a bit too much. Read it if you need a pick me up!
• 
  Marilyn Maitland

  Hilariously self aware. Even Lol’d a few times. Thank you Sam Irby!
• 
  Emily

  A quick read but I can always count on Samantha Irby for a good laugh. As someone who is quite found of resolutions I can’t imagine trying to commit to 70!
• 
  Paul

  What a great idea - list all of your resolutions (she calls them "intentions") and then admit that you didn't do any of them. Very funny.
• 
  Llyr Heller-Humphreys

  Wish this author had 100 books out. I love her writing!
• 
  Felice Cohen

  As always, laugh riot.