Hyperbole and a Half

The subtitle for Allie Brosh's book Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened, could double as a subtitle for this blog. Anyway. Bad Things™ happen, but also good things. Like this book.

Oh, Simple Dog.

Allie Brosh has been running the extremely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half since 2009, narrating the ups and downs of her life through prose and comics. I first got into reading webcomics around that time, and I fell in love with her drawing style and humor. And Simple Dog.

It's incredible just how accurately Brosh can convey specific feelings and attitudes through simple line drawings. It's a style that looks easy but I know must take hours of work to get exactly right.

Probably one of Brosh's most relatable entries to her blog is her latest dealing with the issue of depression, which you can read in full here: Depression Part Two. It's heartbreaking and hilarious, and I've yet to see anything else that portrays the hardship of explaining depression to your peers and loved ones as this does.

Here are some snippets from the book.

"If you were sitting quietly on your couch, waiting for your girlfriend to come back inside so you could finish watching your movie, and while you were waiting, someone called you up and said "I'll give you a million dollars if you can guess what's going to happen next," you absolutely would not guess "I am going to be brutally and unexpectedly attacked by a goose in my own home." Even if you had a hundred guesses you would not guess that."

So, buy the book, check out her blog, and watch this delightful clip of Brosh reading the first chapter and a Q&A session with fans.

369 pages
7,678 / 20,000 page goal