Hyperbole and a Half

It's the case where the e-reader suffers in comparison to the physical book. It's no doubt a delight to have these crudely rendered digital line drawings reproduced on paper but on the e-reader it felt like I was just rooting through her blog archives. In fact many of the stories are pulled straight from her blog.

Like any blog it's hits and misses. There are entries that made me laugh out loud and others that felt self-indulgent or in need of a good editor. I'm still surprised at the level of expression Allie Brosh manages with these crudely rendered stick figures. She nails dogs, wild eyed, over stimulated crazy children and slack-jawed adults armed only with Microsoft Paint or similar program. Like many a graphic novel, it's worth it for the art.

I have yet to meet anyone that didn't laugh until they cried when they read this book. Even my toddler begs for this one!

Simply hilarious!

Laugh out loud funny but also poignant, particularly related to dealing with depression. Brosh's illustrations alone crack me up.

So Allie Brosh makes me very jealous.

I've followed the Hyperbole and a Half blog for a long time, and in that time I have become very jealous of her ability to make me start heaving with uncontrollable laugh-sobs about two paragraphs in to any of her childhood stories. So, I was very excited when she announced her book deal. My sister got me the book for Christmas (read: I received the book yesterday) and I pretty much dropped everything to read it. The story contains some of her best works from the blog including the trials of Simple Dog and Helper Dog as well as tons of brand new material. My only sadness was it does not include “How a Fish Almost Destroyed My Childhood.” Thankfully, that story is still available on the internet. If you aren't familiar with Brosh's work, you should probably read that one right here

The book recounts some of the family legends of her childhood, her battle with identity to which I think everyone can relate, and her struggle with depression which everyone who has been depressed or has someone in their life who is depressed ought to read. I really just can't recommend the book enough. Read it.

This book, like the incredible blog of the same name, is hysterically funny and also quite poignant. For anyone looking for a funny but also very accurate and easy-ish to understand description of depression, look no further than the two-part Depression chapters.

The writing is fast and funny, honest and pleasant to read. The art is crude but oddly charming, and it conveys a lot more in its simple lines than anyone would expect.

Allie Brosh is funny, insightful and completely relatable. I've loved her blog for years, and the book is more of the same quality storytelling.

So hilarious and true! But mostly hilarious! The way she talks about motivation and depression is spot on. I will definitely be adding a physical copy of this to my library!

the story about the goose makes the entire book worthwhile

Pijnlijk herkenbare situaties, die eigenlijk niet om te lachen zijn. Honden die niet anders te omschrijven zijn dan zwaar mentaal gehandicapt. Psychoses en neuroses en traumata en misverstanden.

De helft van wat in dit boek staat, stond al eerder op Hyperbole and a Half, het weblog. De andere helft niet.

Ik vermoed dat een groot deel van de lezers van dit boek zich kapot lachen, en een ander deel helemaal niet.

Maar toch aangeraden, van ganser harte. Al was het om even te ervaren wat het is om depressief te zijn.

Allie's blog got me through some dark times. I couldn't rate her book any less than 5 stars and love having a bound version of some of my favorite posts of hers. I've cried so many tears of laughter from while rereading “Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving” that I think my neighbors were probably concerned for me.

This book will inevitably be showered in five star ratings from readers of Brosh's blog, who will fill their reviews with the memes it generated. I don't feel it's earned all of those stars. But I think it's solid anyway.

For those unfamiliar with the author's work, Brosh writes the “Hyperbole and a Half” blog, which became famous quickly after she wrote a piece on depression that touched a nerve for a lot of people. That piece appears in this book, and I think the others were also featured on the blog, but I'm not sure about that as I'm only an occasional reader there. (The famous “Alot” piece is not present.)

You can think of this as something of an essay collection, but the prose is interspersed with Brosh's trademark drawings. For Kindle readers, I thought they were quite readable even on a tiny iPhone screen. Mostly they work well; once or twice they feel shoehorned in and don't really add anything.

The individual pieces range in theme from the heavy (depression, self-perception) to the light (a letter to her dogs). Topically, it's as scattered as the book's title, which I find is a common problem in humor books, especially those written by comedians with little writing experience. The piece on self-perfection, which closes out the book, was probably my favorite. Mostly it's a light read, but not always.

This probably won't change your life, but I enjoyed it. Definitely did laugh out loud more than once.