It is a doodle-dominated book with a thick, glossy print on colorful pages. The stories revolve around Allie's childhood, her dogs, and her encounters with clinical depression.
Hyperbole and a Half
Allie Brosh
ISBN 978-0-224-09537-2
Random House
Hyperbole and a Half is the first (text-cum-doodle-) book by Allie Brosh, first published in 2013. She has a blog by the same name.
When my copy was delivered, it was first opened by a friend who instantly liked the subtitle, claiming that the book seemed apt for them. The subtitle reads, 'unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened.' I am unsure if that friend would relate to it if they read it. I am not even sure how this book got into my wishlist; perhaps Reddit is to blame, or maybe Amazon's recommendation system (searching for comic relief).
It is a doodle-dominated book with a thick, glossy print on colorful pages. The stories revolve around Allie's childhood, her dogs, and her encounters with clinical depression. The book reads like a blog, the posts amusing and mostly enjoyable in small doses. Trying to read them like a book made no sense and made me feel more tired than amused.
Since I'm writing this review after much time has elapsed, I barely remember most of the stories except two. The first is about the time when Allie's mother took Allie and her sister to explore the forest and got completely lost. I remember it because my wife and I talked about it (she read it too). And the second story is about Allie's depression - or rather, the recovery from it. I'll skip the details, but here's the kernel - or the corn - of it:
If someone ever asks me "What was the exact moment where things started to feel slightly less shitty?" instead of telling a nice, heart-warming story about the support of the people who loved and believed in me, I'm going to have to tell them about the piece of corn. And then I'm going to have to try to explain that no, really, it was funny...Nobody can guarantee that it's going to be okay, but - and I don't know if this will be comforting to anyone else - the possibility exists that there's a piece of corn on a floor somewhere that will make you confused about why you are laughing as you have ever been about why you are depressed.
This strangely reminds me of a passage from Khaled Hosseini's 'The Kite Runner' which talks about forgiveness in a similar vein:
"...I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night."
To summarize - read it like a blog, and the stories would entertain; read it cover-to-cover, and one will likely feel the humor bludgeoned through doodled repetition. For example, the story where Allie doodles about how an external observer may be taking notes on her behavior. First, there's an account of the observer, followed by three doodles elaborating the same thing. It is amusing, all right! It is real and relatable. But, it's repetitive! Perhaps, I've grown old and unappreciative of this creative art.
P.S. The doodles are awesome. They retain their caricature-like consistency and yet express completely.