Everything's Trash, But It's Okay by Phoebe Robinson

Everything's Trash, But It's Okay (non fiction, memoir, I now know this is book #2 in series of 3) by Phoebe Robinson was one of my February book group assignments. 

This is the evening book group that middle now attends with me. Middle started out with hardcopy, then switched to audio. I listened on audio. We both finished the book. I went on to read the other two books in the series.

The publication order -

1. You Can’t Touch My Hair (New York Times Best Seller List)

2. Everything's Trash, But It's Okay (assigned by my book group)

3. Please Don’t Sit On My Bed In Your Outside Clothes (suggested by my DIL)

Because 2 was assigned and I did not understand these were nonfiction, definitely written as a series, I read them in this order 2, 3, 1.  Sigh. 

Absolutely these books should be read in publication order. Book 2, my assigned book, would have been much better, if I had read book 1 first. 

Everything's Trash, But It's Okay was chosen in support of Black History month/February.  

I give credit to Black History/February. I would never have read these three books or known about this author without my librarian emphasizing black authors this month. 

Middle started, Everything's Trash, But It's Okay, before I did and had annoyance with the abbreviations and jargon and the style. She understood it, she just didn’t like it. 

I thought I was going to have a hard time. I thought I was not going to understand it.

We both had a tough time with the intro and chapter one. 

By the second chapter things settled down. By the third chapter things were much better. 

If we had read the first book first, I suspect, we would not have had this trouble starting book 2. 

I paced myself to finish Everything’s Trash in three days. I did 2 hours the first day. On the second day we had an ice storm. I was homebound. I sprinted to the end. I enjoyed the second half of this book. 

Phoebe Robinson, the author, is 40. I am 63. This worked in my favor. There were a lot of references in the book. Lots of people and pop culture references. I recognized almost all of them, like 98%. I looked up the few I did not know. 

Middle is 30, she is NOT a pop culture person. She did not recognize many of the references. I started out assuming I would be too old for this book. Nope, middle was slightly too young for this book. We think the target audience, just by nature of the author’s age, is age 40 or older. 

When I finished, my opinion based on book 2 accidentally read first, I was confused how this author was on the New York times best seller list. I decided to try her other books. 

I decided to try the third book, Please Don’t Sit On My Bed In Your Outside Clothes next, to read the series in at least partial chronological order. 

This was a good decision. Book 3 carried on from book 2. I actually finished book 3 in one day. Book 3 was better than book 2. I enjoyed it. 

Then, I tried her first book, the one from the New York Times best seller list, You Can’t Touch My Hair. 

I finished it in a couple days, and really enjoyed it.  I understood why it was on the best seller list. It was very good and had a unique voice/viewpoint.

Book 1 and Book 3 were nearly equal in my opinion, book 1 was just slightly better than book 3.

The beginning of Book 2 (intro and first two chapters) is definitely the weakest part of the three. OR I had this opinion, because I read these books out of order. OR I had a learning curve in getting used to Phoebe Robinson’s writing/reading style.