Hyperbole and a Half - Allie Brosh

Title: Hyperbole and a Half
Author: Allie Brosh
Genre: Essays
Rating: 5/5
# pages: 288 pages
Date read: November 2013, September 2014, April 2020

Touching, absurd, and darkly comic, Allie Brosh's book showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations.

This full-color, illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, "The God of Cake" "Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving" and her astonishing "Adventures in Depression" and "Depression Part Two" which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written.

I'd better start out with a confession -- I've never read the Hyperbole and a Half blog. I've tried a couple of times, but just never really got it.

Despite that, somehow this book found its way into my claws, and when I saw that it was making the finals of the Goodread's Choice Awards I figured "Why not?" ... and that was all it took.

Just two pages in I was completely sold. I devoured the book in two quick sittings (would have been one, but I had to go to work), and am now slowly working my way through the blog - trying not to gorge on it all at once. Now I can honestly say I understand all the hype - Allie Brosh is brilliant, and the mix between text and cartoons in her essays makes for a very different reading experience that - IMHO - works perfectly.

Her letters to previous selves was probably my favourite essay, but the two essays on depression were heartwrenchingly relateable.

Terrific read.