Greenpoint

Popular ‘Hyperbole and a Half’ blog soon to be a book

Brooklyn BookBeat: Author to speak in Greenpoint

October 21, 2013 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Allie Brosh (1).jpg
Share this:

Allie Brosh, the author behind the wildly popular blog “Hyperbole and a Half” and the #1 Indie Next Pick for November, “HYPERBOLE AND A HALF: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened” (on-sale: Oct. 29), will visit WORD Bookstore in Greenpoint on Wednesday, Oct. 30. She will read, take audience questions, and sign (plus maybe draw a bit for lucky fans!).

Brosh’s blog regularly receives up to five million unique visitors per month, as fans eagerly await each hilarious story of Brosh’s rambunctious childhood, the challenges of life as a “real adult,” the many misadventures along the way—and especially her moving, yet purposefully humorous, recounting of her struggles with depression.

Brosh has more than 117,000 Twitter followers and 380,000+ likes on Facebook. Strikingly, on May 9, after almost two years of online silence while she battled severe depression, Allie reemerged with “Depression Part Two,” a blog post which has been universally hailed as one of the best descriptions of depression ever written. The post received over 5,000 comments on the blog, while her accompanying Facebook post received more than 36,000 likes and 15,000 shares.  

Subscribe to our newsletters

Prachi Gupta at Salon wrote: “Brosh recounts her travails with chronic depression using crude but funny MS Paint drawings, a dash of absurdism, and leaping wit, creating something that conveys both the gravity of depression and the hopefulness that awaits those on the other side of it.”

In “Hyperbole and a Half,” Brosh brings her artful, poignant and uproarious self-reflections (and the intentionally rudimentary illustrations that accentuate her unique wit) to the printed page to chronicle the many “learning experiences” she has undergone as a result of her own character flaws, the horrible incidents that other people have had to endure because she was such a terrible child and the highs and (mostly) lows of owning a smart, yet neurotic dog and a mentally challenged one. Moving, honest and darkly comic essays also tackle her struggles with depression and anxiety.

Kirkus has said, “Brosh is a connoisseur of the human condition…She tells personal stories that name things we can all relate to, including fear, love, depression and hop….Part graphic novel, part confessional, overall delightful.”

The Indie Next quote reads, in part: This book takes readers into not just the fun and fuzzy world of candied cakes and dumb dogs, but also into the brutally honest self-evaluation and exploration of its unique author. Always balancing the serious with the silly, the dark with the ridiculous, Brosh says the things we wish we could, admits the things we’re ashamed of, and explores what we’re afraid of, always with color and humor and, ultimately, with hope.

The Oct. 30 event will take place at 7 p.m. WORD Bookstore is located at 126 Franklin Street in Greenpoint.


Leave a Comment


Leave a Comment