THE SUNDAY REVIEW | HYPERBOLE AND A HALF – ALLIE BROSH

I’ve been a fan of Allie Brosh’s blog, also called Hyperbole and a Half, for quite some time now. So though I was given this book a while ago (thanks, Martha!), I’ve been saving it and saving it. Not only are Allie Brosh’s drawings fantastic, but the words she puts with them have been known to make me both laugh and cry. Sometimes, very attractively, at the same time. Her book (not surprisingly) did the same. It probably didn’t help my emotional stability that I read the entire thing in a day, but I really couldn’t help it. Once I started, I had to keep going.

In this book you will find a wide variety of stories and anecdotes, ranging in topic from her childhood letter to her grown up self (and her grown up response to her childhood self… at various very embarrassing stages), her adoption of two dogs – both of which turn out to be “special” in their own unique ways, her reign as a master hot sauce eater, and what happened when her mother wouldn’t let her eat her grandfather’s birthday cake. Spoiler: It didn’t end well. For anyone.

She also discusses her issues with procrastination (which had me nodding along because I HAVE THE VERY SAME ONES) and her experience dealing with depression. The latter, though conveyed in her trademark humourous way, is more serious in tone. I’d recommend it if you know someone who is struggling with depression but haven’t been through it yourself, or if you have been through it (or are going through it) yourself and want to feel less alone. Though you wouldn’t expect to encounter such a valuable perspective on depression in what is predominantly a humorous romp through Brosh’s most hilarious and ridiculous exploits, there it is. And it is brilliant. (If, you know, a little depressing. Given the subject matter.)

I gave my cousin a copy of this book when she came to visit me last week, and her enjoyment of it (she read most of it while traveling home from visiting me and texted me her progress) made me decide it was time for me to read it too. I’m very glad I did. I’m also very glad I didn’t read it in public like she did, because the chapter called “Dog’s Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving” made me laugh uncontrollably. Literally. I Could. Not. Control. Myself.

I highly recommend picking this book up if you’re in a reading slump and need something to break you out of it, if you haven’t had a good laugh in a while, if you have a dog you think might be a little bit simple, if you have a fear of geese, if you have been lost in the wilderness, or if you’re a human being.

In even better news, Allie Brosh has a new book, Solutions and Other Problems, coming out in December! You probably want to go pre-order it now.

This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative–like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it–but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book:

Pictures
Words
Stories about things that happened to me
Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
Eight billion dollars*
Stories about dogs
The secret to eternal happiness*

*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness! – Goodreads