Funny, Creative and Honest: Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh

I love memoirs more than any other type of book.

When I searched "great new memoirs" Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half: unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened kept appearing.  It looked promising, so I ordered it.  Unlike many of the reviewers for this book, I had never read Allie Brosh's blog titled "Hyperbole and a Half", but I did hear her interview on NPR last week where she started to cry as she talked about her bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts.  I was more than intrigued and did a bit of a happy dance when my Amazon box arrived at my door.

The book reads like a graphic novel because Allie Brosh illustrates her stories.  The drawings are rudimentary, but hysterical (especially the dogs).  I read the whole book in an evening and laughed out loud and reread her chapter "The Helper Dog is an Asshole" to my husband.  He laughed, too, because it is funny and when you read it, you can't help but laughing.

Here's a tip, though - you may want to just check out Allie's blog (which is an award winning blog) since most of the stories in this book are taken directly from her blog posts.  This book really is a compilation of her best blog posts, so you don't even need to buy it UNLESS you are looking to buy a funny (and sometimes sad and disturbing) book for someone this Christmas.  I realized while perusing her blog, that the posters the English teacher put up about the A LOT came from Allie's blog.

Brosh's sense of humor and her ability to show her stories through the pictures is worth reading and discovering and passing along to friends and family members you know won't be offended by the stick figure with the triangle pony tail.