Hyperbole and a Half (by Allie Brosh)
So you are a person and you are on the internet, thus you already read Hyperbole and a Half, thus you don't need to tell me this book is awesome. This book is awesome, and when it was done I just wanted a second volume to materialize immediately in the direction of my eyeballs.
The end.
The end.
Labels: nonfiction
posted by mo pie at 9:59 PM
8 Comments:
If I might play devil's advocate for a moment: do you think this book would be interesting to someone even if they didn't know "Hyperbole and a Half" as a website? I guess what I'm asking is, would the book appeal to someone who hasn't followed the website (as I have)? Would it make sense to them as a stand-alone book? I want to read this eventually, but I'm having a harder time imagining this as a book than I was with, for example, Kate Beaton's "Hark! A Vagrant".
Just curious about your thoughts on this!
Interesting question. It doesn't really coalesce as a complete narrative, and I don't think it's even chronological. But the individual stories are just terrific, as you know. I'm guessing this would bother you more, maybe, if you were coming to it blind?
I was just wondering because I feel like the art and the narrative style lend themselves to a long internet "scroll"-style progression (see also: The Oatmeal), and I have a hard time visualizing these pieces in page-turning book form. I don't know. I guess I should just buy the book and find out for myself!
I see what you mean--on that level it definitely does work, though, I think. Maybe it's the charming font.
I think it would work for a non-Internet person. My eight year old son was cracking up over it. My favorite is the "salt plus pepper" in the first story.
Mine was the banana. Oh god the banana!!
I actually am not sure it would work. The funny stuff is still funny, but I am not a regular reader of hers (had only seen the funny bits) and I found myself just impossibly irritated by the navel-gazing parts. I think you might have to care about her as a person/blogger/internet presence in order to appreciate those parts, unless they happen to just really speak to you personally. I think this is a 5-star read for her regular fans and maybe a 2 or 3-star read for everybody else.
I take your point Beth--I do feel like you could build an investment in her as a person if the stories had a bit more narrative flow and connectivity, which I think could and maybe should have been done.
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