Hyperbole and a Half

This book will inevitably be showered in five star ratings from readers of Brosh's blog, who will fill their reviews with the memes it generated. I don't feel it's earned all of those stars. But I think it's solid anyway.

For those unfamiliar with the author's work, Brosh writes the “Hyperbole and a Half” blog, which became famous quickly after she wrote a piece on depression that touched a nerve for a lot of people. That piece appears in this book, and I think the others were also featured on the blog, but I'm not sure about that as I'm only an occasional reader there. (The famous “Alot” piece is not present.)

You can think of this as something of an essay collection, but the prose is interspersed with Brosh's trademark drawings. For Kindle readers, I thought they were quite readable even on a tiny iPhone screen. Mostly they work well; once or twice they feel shoehorned in and don't really add anything.

The individual pieces range in theme from the heavy (depression, self-perception) to the light (a letter to her dogs). Topically, it's as scattered as the book's title, which I find is a common problem in humor books, especially those written by comedians with little writing experience. The piece on self-perfection, which closes out the book, was probably my favorite. Mostly it's a light read, but not always.

This probably won't change your life, but I enjoyed it. Definitely did laugh out loud more than once.