Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes: Essays

Following up her previous best-selling books (You Can’t Touch My Hair; Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay), stand-up comedian Robinson, who rose to success with the podcast and TV specials 2 Dope Queens, now presents a collection of laugh-out-loud essays and introspective musings on her life and career so far. Fans of Robinson’s podcast and previous books will be familiar with her love of U2 and her path to embracing her natural hair; she writes more on those subjects here and also muses on womanhood, motherhood (of lack thereof), Blackness, and more. Here, like in her previous books, Robinson’s writing feels like talking to an old friend, especially when she recounts living with her boyfriend during the pandemic and learning to embrace each other’s flaws. The author is at her most vulnerable when detailing her path to launching an imprint, Tiny Reparations Books, and the challenges she faced along the way. Other standout essays relay both the stress and freedom of traveling as a Black woman, unpack the pitfalls of self-care, and interrogate the performative activism of 2020; Black women, especially, will feel seen and heard.