Notes from the Bathroom Line: Humor, Art and Low-Grade Panic from 150 of the Funniest Women in Comedy

Comedian Solomon gathers dozens of pieces from female comedians in this bland collection of cartoons, one-liners, script fragments, songs, and comic essays. Themes run the gamut of standard stand-up fodder: dating undatable men, insecurities, becoming one’s mother, awkward social encounters, and obsessing over things then obsessing over being obsessed. The results tend toward the underwhelming (“taking my socks off and throwing them on the floor” is Naomi Ekperigin’s answer to the question “What’s a Bad Habit You’ll Never Get Rid Of?”) and common (the punch line of Mitra Jouhari’s “A Time You Sent a Text to the Wrong Person” is she sends a nude selfie she meant to send to herself to her aunt of the same name). There are some amusing pieces, including Alexandra Petri’s parody of a Star Wars novel as written by Ernest Hemingway, but they are outweighed by reams of banal material (“Different groups of people experience different aspects of my personality,” explains Rachel Sennott regarding her multiple social media accounts). Solomon aims high, but too often the pieces fall short. (Mar.)