Irreverent and {sometimes} irrelevant, Allie Brosh’s clear, self-deprecating debut story collection cuts down to the core of human emotion. What I love about Hyperbole and a Half is that it’s endearing because it’s about flaws – Brosh is completely unafraid to put the silly, ridiculous, sad and even embarrassing moments of her life and aspects of her innermost self on the page.
There are stories about depression, next to stories about Brosh’s very dramatic childhood, and in between stories from her recent adult life (including some priceless dog stories that remind me of my own simple dog). The beauty of these vignettes is that there all laugh out loud, roll around on the floor, can’t keep your sides from hurting funny, even the ones that touch on serious topics. It’s a dark and delicious kind of humor that’s impossible to put down until you’ve read the entire book… And once you finish it you’ll be rushing out to read her blog and discover all the stories that didn’t make it into the published collection (don’t worry – there are plenty of hours worth of procrastination there, so you shouldn’t even bother getting dressed that day).
From the first moment you pick the book up you know what you’re in for. Her “About the Author” bio reads,
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!
You already want to read it, right? Don’t worry, I won’t blame you if you stop reading this post right now to go and buy it and devour it yourself.
In fact, I’ll keep this post short and sweet. This is a book you HAVE to read. It’s hilarious, it’s a quick-read (there are tons of pictures, after all), and Brosh is clearly intelligent and witty with a way with words. You won’t regret picking this one up, but you will regret not reading it as soon as possible.
Rating: 10/10
Overall Reaction: I laughed so hard I cried several times, which made me look like an idiot in public more than once.
Up Next Week: Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Sorry for how late this post was, but I’m graduating in a week (I promise I finished the book with plenty of time to spare, I just didn’t write this post!).
Until next time,
Caitlin