Tag Archives: Allie Brosh

Book Review: Solutions and Other Problems

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Book: Solutions and Other Problems
Author: Allie Brosh
Release Date: September 2020
Source: own
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

If you’re familiar with the name Allie Brosh, you know where this is going. Allie Brosh maintained a blog called Hyperbole and a Half, which was half personal essay, half comic (drawn with child-like simplicity). The blog discussed her rather unusual childhood, her struggles with severe depression, and her very silly dog. It was at turns hilarious, heartfelt, sobering, and very very recognizable to those of us who also deal with severe depression.

In October 2013, her first book was published, also titled Hyperbole and a Half, which contains some essays/comics from her blog, as well as new material. It did very well. She went on book tours and all that. And then she disappeared, seemingly off the face of the planet, for seven years.

When Simon & Schuster announced the imminent release of her new book (I think I first heard about it no sooner than July of this year), it was a SHOCK! There had been no news of Allie Brosh for AGES. I had wondered often how she was doing, and if she had perhaps lost her battle with depression and suicide ideation after all. And suddenly here she was again! I was ecstatic! And I still am.

Her new book, titled Solutions and Other Problems, covers a lot of ground. It covers the reasons for her long disappearance, including severe physical health issues (she nearly died!), a divorce, and the death of her sister. It also covers, in far more detail than her first book, how truly strange she was as a child (and still is!). Just like her first book, and the blog before it, it is both hilarious and sobering. And heartbreaking. I laugh so hard during the first few chapters I could barely breathe. A few chapters later, and I was crying.

The simplistic child-like drawing style is the same, and her characteristic wit and humor are still there, but this book is angrier and sadder than her first book. And for good reason, as you’ll see if you read it.

And yet, it is still laugh-out-loud hilarious. I’m not sure how she manages to hold these conflicting tones and feelings in balance, but she does. Constantly. I suspect it is how she lives her whole life, and is probably the only way she has managed to survive as long as she has.

Now, to help you understand the true hilarity and insanity of this book, I would like to share just a bit of the second chapter. In this chapter, Allie Brosh explains how she discovered she could sneak into the cat door of her neighbor’s house, and proceeded to…. go insane… It is probably the funniest chapter in the book. Here is just ONE page to illustrate:

I need you all to understand that this is pretty early-on in the proceedings. It gets a LOT more insane from here…

In any case, if you want to laugh and cry and have your heart ripped out of your chest; if you’ve dealt with depression, or the death of a loved one, this book (and her first book) might just be for you.

Recent Acquisitions and a Mini-Review

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My book buying habit has been a bit out of control recently, and so I have a bunch of recent acquisitions to share. So! A catalogue of recent book purchases that have been added to the TBR pile:

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix (a new book by one of my favorite authors! I received an ARC of this through work, but never got around to reading it, and I knew I wanted to buy a copy anyway, so here we are!)

Each of Us a Desert by Mark Oshiro (I have not read Mark Oshiro’s other work, but this book sounds really interesting and unique, and I watched a virtual book tour talk he gave, and he seemed really cool too, so I bought it!)

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini (I have had this book on pre-order for MONTHS. I was so excited when it finally showed up!)

Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh (I ADORED Allie Brosh’s blog, and I bought her first book and loved it with a fiery passion. I was shocked and delighted when I found out she was releasing a new book after 7 years! I ordered it immediately!)

Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First-Person by Anna Mehler Paperny (this title, and the subject of this book, is something I understand deeply, and struggle with on a daily basis, so… yeah.)

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson (I got this as my August Book of the Month book, and then kinda just forgot about it. But it looks amazing and its definitely on the TBR list!)

The Arrest by Jonathan Lethem (I received this ARC through work, the book comes out in November. I’m about 1/3 of the way through so far, and I really like it. I’ll do a full review of this one later!)

So that’s my recent acquisitions. In addition, I wanted to drop a very quick short mini-review for a book I did not finish. I received an ARC of Midnight Bargain through work, but…

The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk
Release Date: October 2020
Status: DID NOT FINISH

I only got about 1/4 of the way through this book, which is a shame because I really tried to like it. It’s basically a second-world version of a Victorian fantasy romance, which I usually love. And the basic premise is, if a bit derivative and well-worn, was enjoyable enough. The basic plot is this: in a world reminiscent of Regency or Victorian England (but not), where magic is real, a young woman named Beatrice wants to be a sorceress. Both men and women are capable of magic, but only men are allowed to practice it, and women are barred from it once they become married because of fears of danger to an unborn baby. Beatrice doesn’t want to get married though, she wants to practice magic, and she is willing to make a deal with a mischievous spirit in order to make that goal a reality. Unfortunately, for her, she just happens to meet a charming man who seems to actually SEE her for who she is, and the romance that threatens to blossom between them, could undue all her ambitions.

It’s not a bad plot. Like I said, a bit well-worn, but certainly capable of being made interesting, entertaining, even compelling in the right hands. But the characters were very one-note, especially Beatrice. The love interest has a tad more personality and could be a very swoon-worthy leading man, but the very SUDDEN nature of his romantic interest was… hard to swallow no matter how much “suspension of disbelief” I threw at it. The dialogue was clunky and inauthentic, and the narrative prose was… not great. I was surprised because C.L. Polk’s other books (Witchmark, etc) are very highly regarded, so I was expecting this to be better. But overall, I was just unimpressed and uninterested. I’m a little worried it might just be ME, that I’m missing something, or being too critical, but… *shrug* There are too many books, and time is too limited to keep pushing through something that is clearly not working for me.

Ironically, I am currently also reading Clariel by Garth Nix – it’s the fourth book in the Old Kingdom series – and it has a somewhat similar plot to Midnight Bargain, and does it SO MUCH BETTER. The main character, Clariel, comes from a family with distant connections to the king, and a series of political machinations mean to marry her off, put her on the throne, and make her a political puppet. But Clariel has no interest in marrying anyone (I think she’s written to be aromantic/asexual even!), she has no interest in the throne, or magic, or the city: she just wants to go be a solitary hunter/border patrol in the great forests, and she’s willing to do some questionable things to get what she wants. Like I said, somewhat similar plots, but the difference in writing is ENORMOUS. All the characters in Clariel are much more real, flawed and complex and interesting. And the prose is just WORLDS AWAY better. It’s been a very apt comparison, and its pure coincidence I happened to be reading them at the same time, to make that difference in quality so much more apparent. But here we are.