I loved Maeve Higgins' last book Maeve in America and I love her on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, so I had high hopes for this book, which was marketed as funny and hopeful: something we all need in times like this! Several of the essays felt skippable to me, like the opening one about how COVID made us all realize we need people. Others were a bit too meandering, sometimes attempting to weave in three or four topics on a theme in a way that felt like a bit of a stretch. The laughs were also few and far between. I did really enjoy the essay on immigration and refugees, which treated a serious topic appropriately while also introducing humour by framing it in the context of the hit reality show(s) 90-Day Fiancé. Her last essay on New York, gentrification and diversity also packs a punch and left me in tears.

But I would be remiss if I didn't mention the controversy around the title of the book. "Tell everyone on this train I love them," were the dying words of Taliesin Namkai-Meche, who was killed at age 23 when he intervened in a racist attack against two young women on a commuter train in Portland. In the context of the final essay it's clearly used with respect, out of a desire to love everyone in her community as much as Namkai-Meche did. However, as the title of the book that's marketed as a "humour memoir" it's in questionable taste, and some of Namkai-Meche's friends have called out Higgins for this. Authors don't always have full control over book titles and marketing and it is possible that Higgins did talk to his family, but I couldn't find her respons anywhere. Regardless it's a situation that would benefit from greater transparency from Higgins and the publisher and accountability to Namkai-Meche's family and friends.