Adulthood and stuff with Hyperbole and a Half

I can spend the whole day in front of my computer just surfing the Internet. The world wide web is a treasure trove of information waiting to be explored, and every corner offers a new piece of information I wouldn't have had any other way of learning. At any given time on weekends I'd have five tabs open in my browser: my personal email inbox, Blogspot, Facebook, Twitter and an extra tab I keep open for spontaneous Google searches for anything at all. I have a list of bookmarks that stretches to infinity, and every day is a hazy blur of right clicks and opening links in new tabs to read whatever it is I stumbled on.

It's through this way that I found out about Allie Brosh and her blog Hyperbole and a Half. I've been racking my brain trying to remember how I first came across her site to no avail; I just know that I spent almost the whole day and several days thereafter reading every. single. post. When she announced that she's writing a book, I knew I had to have a copy regardless of the fact that it will include some anecdotes that are readily available on her blog.

I pre-ordered a copy from Fully Booked but because I have the EQ of a pillow and their stocks were taking too long to arrive, I decided to get from Book Depository instead.

Hyperbole and a Half: unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened
by Allie Brosh

Delivery took longer than expected and I was growing impatient with each passing day, but when I finally got my copy only thoughts about how the long wait was worth it occupied my mind!

For those who are abreast with memes, Allie was the one who came up with "___ all the ___!" taken from This is Why I'll Never be an Adult.

Be prepared: the book is heavy and made of 371 glossy pages of awesome stories and illustrations in full color! Don't let these fool you, though; there are a lot of cuss words here so you might want to refrain from letting young and impressionable kids in your house read it.

The book is an anthology of some of Allie's notable adventures from her childhood to her journey towards adulthood. I wouldn't exactly describe her writing style as "beautiful" nor "lyrical" (my favorite kind of writing) but it's witty, honest, and bitingly funny in a way that will make you wonder how much more fun yours would have been if you knew her in real life. I know I would want to be her friend in real life. There are a couple of melancholic posts like those that tell about her depression, but those were treated really well. Those actually originally came from her blog - you may check them out here and here. I remember wanting to leave a comment showing my support when I first read it, but I wasn't allowed to because the post has already received 5,000 comments. FIVE THOUSAND. That's the most number of comments I've seen in any kind of post ever!

From my favorite anecdote: The God of Cake

This is my fifth book in my 40 Books for 2014 challenge. I am also reading Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down at the same time so this offers a nice break when the suicide talk gets a little bit too much.

Seriously, if you don't feel like checking the book out, at least check the blog Hyperbole and a Half and read one of Allie's posts. You won't regret it. I just hope she would update her blog more regularly. Another recommended blog of the same league is Adam Ellis of Books of Adam. I also have his book and although it's not in full color, it's pretty awesome as well. God bless the funny people of the Internet.