Hyperbole and a Half
Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
By: Allie Brosh
[Fulfilling “A book with pictures” as part of the 2021 Spring/Summer Reading Challenge]
I had vaguely heard good things about the blog this book came from so when I saw it at Half Price Books for $3, I thought, ‘Why not?’ And then it sat on my shelf for the next 3 years.
Thanks to the aforementioned reading challenge I created, I was forced to actually read it!
Having just read Jenny Lawson’s book Broken (in the best possible way), Hyperbole and a Half felt very similar in humor and writing style. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Jenny Lawson gave an endorsement and blurb on the back of this book. Maybe they’re best friends!
If you are familiar with Allie Brosh’s popular blog (with the same title) then you already know what to expect in this book and you’ll probably love the book. [You may not need this review but keep reading for something unexpected I found in her book]
If you are new to the scene, I’ll tell slash show you some things to help you know if it’s worth your time.
First- the book is mostly pictures interspersed between short text to illustrate her stories and introspection about motivation, animals, cake, hot sauce, getting lost, and adulting. Here are a couple pictures of the types of drawings she makes:
This is her caricature of herself. The yellow ‘shark fin’ is her blonde ponytail.
Charting the inner struggle of being a good person but not wanting to donate a kidney.
Sometimes her drawings are in the form of charts or graphs.
She already had a ‘simple’ dog and then she got a ‘helper’ dog that actually turned out to be quite a nightmare, per the list of grievances in these drawings.
Although there were some that I found funny and entertaining, generally, the drawings didn’t really keep me engaged. Based on the FAQs of her blog website, she creates all of the drawings in MS Paintbrush and they are all done very deliberately. To her credit, the consistency in the drawings is pretty incredible.
I’m a big fan of Nathan W. Pyle’s Strange Planet drawings, and I find those more humorous than these. I can’t really put my finger on why. Maybe it’s that, here, her ponytail always looks like a birthday hat and as an artist I, personally, find it a terrible rendering choice. Maybe because they’re a smidge on the creepy side. I don’t know.
As for content, there are a lot of dog stories. I don’t have a dog and don’t particularly desire to, so I didn’t connect with those chapters, however, I feel like most dog-owners/lovers would find them highly relatable.
It is similar to Lawson’s book in that it is all random, crazy experiences she has had with a few chapters here and there talking about mental illness. Both Lawson and Brosh deal with severe depression.
I found her transparency in talking about her thoughts and feelings with depression very enlightening. Having not experienced depression before, it was really interesting to understand more of what might go on in the head of someone struggling with depression.
One particular example she gave (complete with corresponding drawings) was that she says “My fish are dead.” And people are saying things like “I’ll help you find your fish. They must be around here somewhere!” or “Can’t you just make them not dead?” or “Have you tried feeding them?” or “Fish are always deadest before dawn.” To which she says, “WHY CAN’T ANYONE SEE HOW DEAD THESE ARE?!” “You’re maybe just looking for someone to say ‘Sorry about how dead your fish are,’ or ‘Wow, those are super dead. I still like you though.’”
She definitely helps you understand how crippling depression can be and the inner turmoil of trying to fight it but not being able to, or fighting it in little ways at a time.
I think the main thing that was a turn off for me was the swearing. Also like Lawson’s book, there is quite a bit of it (including s- and f-words). On her blog, she says, “I like swear words. I think they can be really funny. I try to use them sparingly because I know that some people don't feel the same way. If I've used a swear word, I have probably thought long and hard about whether it was necessary and decided that it was. In my opinion, they are just words and should not be given so much power.”
So, while I think the drawings and story content could grow on me and could become more humorous the more I read, the regular swearing will always be there and I’d rather find other funny things to read. Allie Brosh is fine with that.
I do want to address something I found very fascinating, though.
Her last two chapters are titled Identity Part One and Identity Part Two. She begins saying that she would like to believe she’d “behave heroically in a disaster situation” but that she doesn’t think she would. She says her ego (identity) wants to be great and do great things but has to constantly deal with the bad parts of her and that her ego can’t overpower them. She then talks in length about how she has urges to do weird or mean things to people and that she doesn’t know what’s wrong with her.
She also explains how she tries to find loopholes to being a good person or feeling like a good person by just ‘thinking’ about doing good things because thinking about them almost feels like you actually did them.
(Don’t worry, I am going somewhere with this. Stay with me…)
She says:
“When I look at myself, I don’t want to see the horrible, loophole-abusing monster that I am. I want to see a better person. Someone who is genuinely good and doesn’t need to resort to lies and manipulation. Because deep down, I feel like I’m better than this.”
“I don’t just want to do the right thing, I want to WANT to do the right thing. This might seem like a noble goal to strive for, but I don’t actually care about adhering to morality.”
“Every day—against my will—I am bombarded by all these [crappy], selfish thoughts, and I don’t want to find out that the reason I have them is because that’s what I’m really like.”
“Unfortunately, the source of my [crappiness] is the fact that I’m [crappy]. I just am. It is not possible for me to not be that way. I can prevent myself from being actively [crappy]. I can do things that a not-[crappy] person would do. But the [crappiness] is always going to be there, just beneath the surface, straining to get out.”
Hello sin nature! She nailed it.
She has discovered what people in general are trying so hard to avoid knowing, or are trying so hard to justify. Our natural tendencies are towards sin. We think, do, and say things we wish we didn’t. And sometimes it’s hard to want to do good things.
Paul identifies with these sentiments. He says in Romans 7:
“What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise… I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.” [The Message translation]
People like to think that humanity is inherently good, that deep down everyone is a decent human being. But like Allie has transparently admitted— and like we see exhibited even in young children uninfluenced by society— we are not good people. We are selfish. We want to do whatever we want and we want it to be okay.
Romans 3:11-12 says:
““None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.””
‘Wow,’ you might be thinking, ‘Way to keep the positive vibes going. Thanks for telling us we’re all bad people. See ya later.’
But keep reading!! I have Good News! Awesome news!
There is a hope for us crappy people that is not dependent upon us doing enough good things to get it. We’ve already established that even when we want to do good things, we don’t always do them. So really, the only hope for us to become good people, or ‘justified’ people, is if there was a way that didn’t require us to achieve it. Because when it comes down to it, we never could.
And there IS a way.
His name is Jesus.
Allie Brosh hates that she is this way and doesn’t understand what’s wrong with her. She ends her book saying that she just tricks herself into believing she’s a good person. Is that real hope? No, it’s not, because she knows the truth.
Allie might not be asking for an answer to her dilemma, and maybe you don’t care either. And maybe tricking yourself or hoping against hope is enough for you to live your life, but I don’t want to continue living every day knowing I’m a “horrible, loophole-abusing monster” and not looking for true hope.
And so I am happy and compelled to share with you true hope for you and me.
Romans 8 says,
“For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly… God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him…we also celebrate in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”
Continuing down our own path of self-destruction leads to death. “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) As soon as we are born, we are running down this path of sin, as Allie said, “The [crappiness] is always going to be there.”
Yet. Yet, Jesus loved us, even in our sin, and died on the cross, rising again and defeating death, because he wanted to pay the price of our sin and make us right with God. We didn’t have to choose the right things enough times to convince Jesus we were worth dying for. He already loved us.
“If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
“Whoever comes to me [Jesus], I will never cast out.” (John 6:37)
There you have it. Our hope is to believe and trust in Jesus. If our lives are hidden in Christ, there is no sin that can separate us from him, his Spirit working in us, and our eternity in heaven.
While there are many factors at work when someone struggles with depression, one thing I would bet Allie would love to know about is that our identity and worth is not determined by our sin nature. God is in the business of restoring and our identity and worth is found in being a new creation in Christ.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
That doesn’t mean we will never feel depressed, but it does mean that we understand our crappiness, and it means we are not slaves to it. We have hope outside of ourselves.
I can’t help but be reminded of Jared Wilson’s book, ‘The Imperfect Disciple.’ Wilson also struggles with depression. He wrestles with hating himself for the things he does that he doesn’t want to do. And so he wrote a book telling the truth about how Romans 8 frees us from having to be good enough for heaven. He says:
“Here’s the good news. That real you, the you inside that you hide, the you that you try to protect, the you that you hope nobody sees or knows—that’s the you that God loves. No, he doesn’t love your sin, of course. But he loves your true self. Without pretense, without façade, without image management without the religious makeup. You the sinner, you the idolater, you the worshiper of false gods—that’s the you Jesus loves… God loves sinners. Jesus died for sinners. He didn’t wait for us to get our act together. (He knew we never could!)”
“Every other religion in the world has man in the gutter trying to figure out how to get to heaven; only Christianity has heaven coming down to the gutter.”
“I take a look at my messed-up soul every day. I feel completely overwhelmed and under-equipped. And so I hold on to the gospel. I pour some gospel into my soul. I am good to go another day. I might be crawling through that day or I might be balled up in my bed, unwilling to charge the Valley of Elah that is my life, but the smile of God is over me continually. Day and night his steadfast love sustains me.”
We are “following Jesus not on some religious quest to become bigger, better, or faster but to become more trusting of his mercy toward our total inability to become those things.”
I know you came here for a book of laughs, and if you read Brosh’s book, you’ll probably have that. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to encourage you to also read Wilson’s book, post-Brosh. He takes up where she leaves off and I think you’ll find it food for your soul!
Thank you for letting me continue the incomplete gospel message that Allie Brosh started in the final pages of her book, Hyperbole and a Half, but didn’t finish. [Maybe she should have called her book ‘Hyperbole and Half a Gospel’?]
Her last pages embody a note of sadness, and if I truly believe the Good News I’ve just shared with you, I couldn’t talk about her book without contributing a note of hope. When we accept what Jesus did for us on the cross, there is freedom from our crappiness. And it is no hyperbole. The astonishing truth of the gospel is wholly true.
Wilson reminds us that “the key to following Jesus not as a defeated person but as a person of confidence, of hope, of glory” is that “you are free to own up to your true sinful self because you are set free from your true sinful self.”
I hope Allie Brosh finds the rest of the gospel, and I hope this for you too. I appreciate Allie’s honesty; we would do well to follow her example in recognizing our own sinfulness. And to go one step further—accept our Savior.
And now to conclude this more-for-your-money review with a summary sentence that pertains more to the book in general, which I understand is what you came here for:
Overall, I give her credit for uniqueness, transparency, consistency, and some humor, but because the drawings didn’t engage me and the content was hit and miss, the swearing prevents it from being more than a mediocre read for me. But, then, I’m probably not really her target audience.
*For further reading on how God loves us even when we are crappy:
The Imperfect Disciple by Jared Wilson
Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund
oh and The Bible, obviously.
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