Hyperbole and a half

Book author: Allie Brosh

Hi-hi-hi-hilarious…...

The book starts by a letter to the author's two-year-old self. Then another letter to another childhood self and so on. Gradually the author discussed many incidents of her childhood and adulthood. These are all funny or embarrassing incidents that we probably like to gossip with our friends. When we look at those poignant, pathetic moments of our past and try to reason why we did those in the first place- it really makes us laugh.

Allie tried to express her inner routine. How she presents herself, what she wants herself to be and what she actually is or what full-of-shit she actually is (according to her narration). These seemed related to me. I am also kind of a person who likes to think highly of herself. Sometimes I would do something not because I like to do it, but because otherwise I would deviate myself from the ‘standard good person’ I like to think I am.

The simplicity and honesty of this book caught me strongly. Inside one’s inner self, there are so many vulnerable things. We are selfish. But we don’t like to think of ourselves as selfish. So we imagine, we would probably act as selfless persons if situations come. We procrastinate. We let ourselves drive by shame. Reading these basic things in a book made me feel that someone else is thinking the same, so it’s alright to be like this!

The illustrations are simply humorous. If I had to sketch a funny scene I would probably spend an enormous amount of effort to do it intricately. But Allie Brosh’s illustrations look like they are drawn by a three-year-old who has just learned to hold a pencil and yet the illustrations convey the emotions of every situation in the most funny way. The happy and naive face, the disappointing face, the surprising face made me laugh so hard.

I just disliked one chapter in this book- ‘Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving’. Allie’s two dogs- the simple dog and the helper dog as named by her- seem to be very stupid. Their stupidity is funny. Allie also expressed a huge amount of disappointment for them. But I don’t understand, if two dogs cause so much pain, why one has to keep the dogs in the first place. Maybe I won’t get it as I don’t live in America. It seemed to me that the dogs are fine. They are just dogs, why to expect civilized behavior from them constantly and expect them to obey you. Why can’t humans leave other animals alone instead of making them docile. So this one chapter seemed more pathetic than hilarious to me.

Aside from this, I liked everything. And the best part of this book is, it makes you think that you are normal even with your vulnerable sides. A hilarious and self-discovering read. And obviously an exceptional one!