Solutions and Other Problems

by Allie Brosh

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Allie Brosh—beloved author and artist of the extraordinary #1 New York Times bestseller Hyperbole and a Half— returns with a long-awaited collection of “hilarious and slyly poignant” ( People ), autobiographical, illustrated essays.

Solutions and Other Problems includes humorous stories from Allie Brosh’s childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life. “No one sums up the hilarity, devastation, and bizarreness of life quite like comic artist and blogger Allie Brosh” (NPR).

This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features all-new material with more than 1,600 pieces of art. Solutions and Other Problems marks the return of a beloved American humorist who has “the observational skills of a scientist, the creativity of an artist, and the wit of a comedian” (Bill Gates).

Genres: Humor, Graphic Novels, Nonfiction, Memoir, Comics, Mental Health, Adult

528 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2020

About the author

Allie Brosh has enjoyed writing ever since her mom tricked her into writing a story to distract her from her immediate goal of wrapping the cat in duct-tape. She started her award-winning blog in 2009. Brosh lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband Duncan, her two dogs, and six pet rats.

Reviews

[Rick Riordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been a while since I've read a graphic novel, or a collection of humorous essays. In fact, I think this is the first time I've ever read a collection of humorous essays that is also a graphic novel! Brosh is so good at mixing the absurd, funny, poignant and heartbreaking moments of life into a page-turning joy-ride. The illustrations are perfect. The stories are relatable and ridiculously true-to-life. The friend duct-taped to a chair in the family driveway? No, I can't explain it. You'll just have to read it. The undercurrent of Brosh's personal struggles with grief and depression are beautifully rendered. In this difficult year, Solutions and Other Problems was exactly the read I needed. It got me out of my own space. It made me laugh aloud. It was absolutely delightful. Needless to say, I immediately bought Brosh's previous book as soon as I finished this one!

[Jenny Lawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hysterical. Sad. Poignant. Worth the wait.

[karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

REREAD TO GET ALL THE NON-ARC CONTENT INTO ME.

oooh, goodreads choice awards finalist for best humor 2020! what will happen?

backtracking to add this to my book riot challenge:

fulfilling book riot's 2020 read harder challenge task: #4 Read a graphic memoir

NOW AVAILABLE!!!! FINALLLLYYYYY!!!

Sometimes all you can really do is keep moving and hope you end up somewhere that makes sense.

no spoilers, but since everyone wants to know—was this book worth waiting more than five years for?

YES. DON’T BE A DUMMY, OF COURSE IT WAS!!

it is bigger, funnier, sadder and—for those of you hoping—it does have more dumb dogs:



and one diabolically clever dog. and a cat.

i’m not going to post too many pictures, because you all deserve your own individual voyages of discovery, but FYI: the pictures i AM posting are from my ARC, which is in black-and-white—the finished book will be in full color.

i honestly don’t know how i was lucky enough to score an ARC of this, but it was exactly what i needed to get me thru another day of this dumpster fire of a year. and, in a gift that keeps giving—there are some pages in the ARC where the words are missing or smeared in a “content TK” sort of way, which means that, come september, there will still be new material for me.

because i already want more.

although allie brosh is infinitely more talented than i will ever be—what she’s able to convey with just posture in her cartoons is exquisite—there’s so much of that RELATABLE CONTENT the kids are always talking about. in fact, there were times i actually felt like she was speaking directly…to me



but even when she wasn’t breaking that fourth wall, i felt both a kinship with her and an urge to comfort her and tell her how seen and heard and appreciated she is.

i mean, i’m not a big enough liar to tell her that “everything’s gonna be all right” (or, even, as she promises her sardine-friend: it will be better very soon), but it is a fact that what she creates and puts out into the world is helping people she'll never even meet, and i hope that there are artists or writers out there that inspire or comfort her in the same way.

because, as she says, no one should have to feel like a pointless little weirdo alone.

and she’s here for all of us, in her/our grief and loneliness, anxiety and self-scrutiny, in how we approach all of life’s difficulties, great and small.

i know it’s a stupid thing to say, and it usually makes me cringe when other people say it about confessional-creators, but i’m saying it anyway—this is a brave book. it’s hard to make yourself vulnerable, and i love her for doing it.



even in the book's darkest moments, there's a filament of humor running through it, which to me suggests a remarkable capacity for resilience, and i hope she never loses sight of that.

so much of this book made me laugh with joy—the dandelion story, the car stereo story, the story about the dog and the carrots, the resolution to the poop mystery, dear god, every word of the story about her childhood neighbor, richard—witnessing the very BIRTH of social awkwardness.

and this



i love these things. i love them in a way that defies all logic or proportion.



HELLO! I AM A BALLOON DO YOU WANT TO BUY A CAR? had me laughing so hard my stomach hurt, leaving me completely unprepared for the emotional evisceration of the fish video:

I LOVE YOU!

destroyed.

it is an emotional roller coaster, full of googly eyes, goofy syntax, and hard-earned wisdom:

If you can’t win, start playing a different game and score just as many points.

even especially if it's just about humiliating some noisy-ass bird.

the wait is not long now!



***********************************

oh, honey.

review to come.

***********************************



pay no mind to my hi-gloss sheen. that's just what happens from wearing a mask for nine hours in nyfc summerheat awfulness. and am also possibly sweaty with joy? anyway, off to drink a cocktail and read this book!

***********************************

you guys.

you guys.

confirmation that this exists and a copy is heading my way.

***********************************

i'm pretty sure it's ILLEGAL to push the pub date back ANOTHER SIX MONTHS!!!

come to my blog!

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

When considering what to write in this review, I had a lot of thoughts floating around in my head akin to, “a book doesn’t HAVE to funny to be good, you just made a pre-assumption the author is funny,” “it’s not up to you to decide how someone gets to describe their experiences,” etc. Which are both true. But they also obscured the fact that, at the end of the day, I didn’t enjoy Solutions and Other Problems very much.

I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to. Like every other person and their mother on this page right now, I loved the Hyperbole and a Half blog. I still google “allie brosh pain scale” anytime I want to rip out my sides laughing. I enjoyed her first book (didn’t love, but enjoyed). I wondered where she had gone and was thus delighted to see when this emerged from pre-order. In short, I had a lot of stake in the game.

But, although I tried, reading this book just wasn’t fun. First, it isn’t funny. Senses of humor are of course somewhat subjective and I know other reviewers already hard-core disagree with me, but in over 500 pages I chuckled maybe 4 or 5 times and, of the 25 stories, would classify only one (“Cat”) as funny; even then, not to the level of her previous work. Which, on its own, is completely fine. This style of book doesn’t have to be funny. Just because I historically place Allie Brosh’s writing in the “comedy’ bucket doesn’t mean she has to continue that way. Her work can evolve and her style translated to much more series topics.

Except reading these comics didn’t feel like someone who was intentionally using her style to share said serious topics. It felt like someone who was still very much in the middle of being incredible sad and lonely and possibly self-destructive vomited her misery out into this public format in a “HA HA LOOK AT ME ISN’T MY PATHETICNESS FUNNY?” kind of way that left me as a reader deeply cringing. I’m drawn back to her famous comic, Adventures in Depresison, where she first shared her struggle with depression. The comic ends leaving the reader thinking she’s ok – but after two years of utter silence, we got part 2, which revealed she had been about to hit rock bottom and hadn’t known it. To me, this book feels like that: like the writer is portraying what are supposed to be funny clever stories, but they’re covering up something much sadder.

I want to clarify that I am absolutely 100% not passing judgment or making assumptions about Allie Brosh or her mental health. Rather, I am describing the sentiment I – the reader – was left with. (Writing this has also made me realize I do think she was trying to be funny; it just didn’t land.)

Structurally, this book didn’t work very well either. Allie has previously commented on her blog FAQ how much time she spends considering story structure, and that she’ll often pull a comic if the underlying skeleton isn’t sufficient. That self-editing didn’t happen here. I particularly recall the story where she talked about a fight she had with her ex-husband, Duncan, that climaxes in a squabble about bananas. I think the story was supposed to be talking about how ridiculous arguments are at the end of the relationship, but the comic itself so completely failed to have a beginning, middle, and end that it instead it just came off as a random series of interactions that (once again) left me cringing and uncomfortable (and not in a reflective way). Quite a few of the comics had that wandering randomness: ok…here are some thoughts and things that happened…moving on to the next one. I found myself skimming the pictures to skip to the text because, in the majority of cases, the pictures didn’t add much to the storytelling. They were just there. The nuance of observation that has previously marked Allie’s work has slipped into the humor of randomness: “ha ha isn’t this arbitrary ha ha.”

Finally (and this is going to sound odd considering how much I’ve been complaining about her book being all dark and unfunny) but at times the book would have benefited from going more into the sad shit happening in her life. She would insert it into comics like she wanted to talk about it, but then it would never come up again. It was that socially awkward moment where someone is just waiting to be asked about Topic X, but no one asks them so instead they keep dropping cryptic hints.

I would not have finished this book if it hadn’t been written by Allie Brosh. If the manuscript had been submitted to a publisher by a complete unknown, I think a good editor would have said, “This is a brilliant idea. Take another year to emotionally process all this content, and then come back and try again.” It breaks my heart, but after reading this I really just hope that Allie has found real-life support and community, that terrible awful things stop happening to her, and also that I don’t ever need to re-read Solutions and Other Problems.

(Three stars because I can’t emotionally put it in the same category as my 2-star books – if nothing else, it’s a huge amount of work and creativity.)

[Tucker Almengor]

I'm leaving this unrated (for now) because I feel conflicted. As you may or may not know, I leave books unrated when I feel that no rating properly reflects my feelings.

This book started out amazingly. I was so, so excited to read more of Allie Brosh's work as Hyperbole and a Half is one of my all time favorite books and I have reread it so many times. My body was literally quivering with excitement and joy.

The first couple stories were hilarious as in made me literally laugh out loud hilarious but then I hit a bump. There was a section were Allie talks about the rough experiences she had that delayed this book for so long.

Don't get me wrong. I think that her stories are inspirational and should be shared but, for some reason, at that time, reading her heartbreaking experiences... just broke me. It started out with my tearing up and I was like "yeah, this is normal. it's a sad story."

But then my brain was like GUESS WHAT ITS TIME FOR AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS. Don't worry. I'm fine now but there must have been some subconscious tension or anxiety or something that was just waiting for a catalyst to explode.

Anywho, my very dramatic point is that, after that point, I kind of just numbly stumbled through the rest of the book so I didn't enjoy it. That's not the book's fault. It's my brain's fault.

At some point, I'll reread this and hopefully enjoy it more.

Overall, I highly recommend this book and her first book!

Happy reading!

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[Katie Maye · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really don't understand why people are getting upset about the publish date. I consider her first book one that changed my life. It made me laugh, cry and gave me a better understanding of myself dealing with depression and anxiety. I am just so thankful that she has another one in the works and would happily wait years to experience another one of her pieces. Be patient my friends. I have no doubt that it will be worth the wait.

[jv poore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Allie Brosh’s graphic-memoir, Solutions and Other Problems, managed to make this reader chuckle, do a couple of double-takes and even stop reading, just to feel. Fabulous fake excuses like “Oh, no. 9-1-1 is calling. I should go,” are quite complementary to her ‘a-ha’ moments such as: while babysitting, “It is me. I am the somebody. I should do something.”

I’m not sure if there’s a little Allie in me, or if she is just some kind of word wizard to take my thoughts and articulate them so clearly. “And when you’re in full-on rage-ejection mode, there is nothing more infuriating than a reasonable point.” Her ability to adopt only pets with the quirkiest personalities result in charming stories, relayed in the most entertaining way.

Child-Allie had to have been a handful. Summing up the story of Rudolph: Santa realizes the outcast reindeer is “the only portable light source in the entire North Pole”. Her unrelenting need to fit into a bucket and her bitter disappointment with The Ugly Duckling (it was an insufficient answer to her questions) make me want sit down with Ms. Brosh and politely beg, “tell me more”.

I will admit, there were a couple of chapters that I didn’t exactly connect with. I’m fairly certain that is due to my advanced age and absence of cool-points, rather than any issues with Ms. Brosh’s work. So, while I can say I liked it a lot, I think “my” students are going to love it.

I won a hard-cover copy from a Goodreads Giveaway, so shout out to Goodreads for helping me grow my favorite classroom library!

[Maggie Stiefvater]

An artist's nihilistic musings on her life, told in deceptively simple graphic essays. I have seen this book shelved in both Humor and Memoir; I think her first book sits solidly in the former category and this one, published years later and with a decidedly grimmer outlook, belongs more securely in the latter.

[Jyanx]

How am I just hearing about this?

Not until next year...

[Ilana (illi69) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hm. I’ll try to find something more to say. Other than life is hard.

*

I thought about it overnight. I struggle so much. Every day, every hour, sometimes every minute is a new paradigm. My impressions of life, my feelings, my senses, my mood, energy, everything shifts on a dime sometimes. Often. I was hoping Allie would make me laugh the way she did with her first book. Can't say I was expecting it, exactly, because I know better, on a conscious level, than to let expectations lead me. But yes, I was hoping to laugh a lot more about how painful living with mental illness can be.

As many of us know, Allie Brosh's life brought several tragedies for her to deal with while she was working on this book. Losing her sister to suicide, the breakup of her marriage, cancer. Any one of which is life-changing and traumatic. Frankly, I'm amazed she pulled it off at all. Frankly, I'm amazed when I manage to get out of bed. Talent is no protection and no guarantee of productivity, heaven knows. I struggle daily with the reality that I must concentrate on just BEING and resist any temptation to define myself by achievements, even less so by my productivity, because most days I'm happy if I manage to eat a decent meal and remember to take my meds (yes, despite the reminder on my phone), manage to find gratitude for what I have. And whatever talents I'm supposed to be sharing with the world... just have to be.

This is not just another book. This is a heroic effort. And so, I'm being completely subjective and rating this book on that measure alone. I doubt Allie & I have much in common, other than struggling with mental illness, but there is recognition there. There is survival and struggle and finding humour in things that really aren't at all funny while you're living them. And frankly, I have so very little hope left for anything at all, that Allie is giving me hope that... the struggle itself is somehow worthwhile. Somehow. You can read other reviews for a more objective take. This isn't it.

*

Here is a comment I wrote before the book was released, when it seemed it might never be published (which earned 64 likes, in case anyone is curious about what people were reacting to).

A Plea for Compassion
When I saw this "new" title by Allie Brosh, I didn't know anything about it and just thought "gotta get my hands on that title!" and left it at that. Then I thought I'd borrow it from the library and obviously hit a wall. Then I saw Amazon's publication date was 2050 and I started investigating a little. Now, having read the following update provided by a kind GR member https://gazettereview.com/2015/07/wha..., it's looking like this book may never get published. Then again, there's a small chance it might be... some day in this century. Maybe. But probably not. Or the stars may align the right way for Allie and it will after all. Or not. And if not, that's really okay.

Sometimes I find sharing my own experience is helpful to illustrate a point: I struggle with bipolar and anxiety disorders and what is looking like undiagnosed complex PTSD, which are mostly expressed with near-constant depression and ever-increasing anxiety attacks despite being medicated. Also, chronic pain to top it all off, and I get it, I really get it; that feeling like there's no point to anything and even if you've got talent and have "done things" before, not being up to using it and wanting to do other things to get better. Even if by "other things" you mostly just focus on keeping on breathing and eating and sleeping and NOT killing yourself on those days when you badly want to make the suffering just stop.

You want to do things, you set out to do things, and then... there's just no point to doing those things because they just end up making you feel bad, because self-criticism and nopointoanything-ism. And on top of it all, if you're a perfectionist, if you are going to do a thing, it's gotta be AMAZING, or at least more than just okay, so there's doubly no point to doing a thing, because you're in no place to be producing anything good when you're feeling empty & worthless to begin with.

And it really doesn't make any difference how many people are telling you how good and full of talent you are. In fact the more people tell you how good you are, the more that awful thing in your head grows and and grows and convinces you they're all LYING and really, you're a sack of shit and an impostor and totally WORTHLESS, besides which there’s just no point because they’ll always expect more more more and it’s never enough.

Anyway, this isn't about me (or well, yeah it is, obviously), but I’m talking about the nature of depression and the fact that Allie was incredibly courageous when she reached out to the whole world with such open candor about a painful reality she lives with every day, and did amazing work with Hyperbole and a Half, which touched countless lives via the book itself, and all the times her relatable illustration made the rounds on the net, and made people feel less alone and less freakish, or whatever.

Considering all that, knowing she had the intention of putting out a second book but with repeated changes to the publication date, was obviously struggling in some way that should be obvious to anyone who’d been even a little familiar with the first book—even without having read the update for which I provided the link above—it's unfair to place expectations or any sort or pressure on her anymore, and it saddens me to see all those, admittedly old reviews—with people complaining about having to wait. Some are generous and express sympathy. Too many callously think they’re buying just any product and expect speedy delivery, not thinking for a moment what the message these books is about. And that what made “Hyperbole” so damn funny and poignant was that the author could only write about it like that because of living with a form of intractable mental illness that resists treatment, which is a reality for about a third of us genetically predisposed severely mentally ill creatures.

All this to say that to put expectations such as deadlines and promotions for holiday gifting and public eagerness for more more more... those expectation alone are hell to live with for someone constantly shadowed by the black dog of depression and anxiety, which are reasons enough on their own not to deliver as expected. All the more so when life throws extra wrenches at someone already struggling to hold things together.

All I can say, what we should ALL say, is “Be well Allie, thank you for sharing what you did, that was plenty enough and then some. And if you ever feel up to sharing more, then great. And if you don't feel up to sharing anything else, then great also because what you did share was tremendous and means a lot to me and I always enjoy seeing your panels again. Here's hoping you have more good days than bad ones. Sending lotsa love, and thanks for the laughs and the tears of recognition. ❤️”

[Shay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really hate to say this (and I see I'm going to be in the overwhelming minority here) but I didn't care for this book nearly as much as the first one. I got halfway through before realizing most of the stories felt "meh". Made it 3/4ths of the way through before putting it down yesterday. And I honestly had no interest in finishing it but did for the sake of review.

Every. Single. Story in the first book is either hilarious or sad & hilarious. Most of the stories in this one are "okay" and forgettable. The funniest thing to me was Duncan's face in the banana story. I've reread the originals (and her blog exclusives) many times. I don't think I'll reread this one at all. She also seems to be using more "lol it's funny because it's random" type humor.

I'm honestly sorry to be saying this because I loved her blog and first book but this just doesn't do it for me. Still glad I pre-ordered because her prior work has given me countless laughs and poignant moments.

[[Name Redacted]]

So apparently in the last three years:
--Her sister committed suicide.
--Her marriage ended (she now lives in Denver, he now lives in Seattle).
--She had a cancer scare.
--She required major surgery.
--She has redirected her efforts into public speaking and abandoned her blog.
--This book has been canceled by the publisher.

So...DANG.

UPDATE: It's been three more years, and since then she has...disappeared. No new posts. No new book (it was canceled, finally) and no-one has heard anything from her. We can only hope she's just moved on to something she cares about.

UPDATE 2: Supposedly this is coming out (with a completely different cover) in September of 2020. I've pre-ordered it yet again. But I remain skeptical.

[carol. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a hard one to like, for both emotional and intellectual reasons. It pains me to say so, as I absolutely adored Hyperbole and a Half and even gave it as a holiday present to a dear friend. This has none of the joy, almost none of daffiness, significantly less dogs, and, more tellingly, a lot more death.

In fact, if you are at all prone to low points emotional states, I don’t think I would recommend this at all, because it feels like Brosh’s therapy journal where she’s working out some stuff. As such, some of the stories go on far too long into imaginings or dream sequences (‘Daydreams,’ ‘Losing,’ ‘Loving Kindness Exercise’) and should have been edited for clarity. The stories are often interspersed with brief one-page bits or thoughts that don’t necessarily help to provide context or connection. Though some pieces have more text than others, I can’t say that very much of a theme developed over the book, beyond that of ‘ dealing with mental health issues such as crippling depression and social anxiety.’ The graphics themselves continue to have the adorable little bright-pink wrapped Allie-fish, but she frequently experiments with other styles.

This is definitely not one I’ll be adding to my library.



Table of contents

Bucket: A three year-old obsessed with fitting herself into a bucket, to the point of hunting it down when her parents hide it. What starts as amusing becomes scary.

Richard: Deeply disturbing. This was the story that convinced me I wasn’t ready to buy the book when it was first published. Child Allie stalks the neighbor man and steals trinkets. Something was seriously wrong in that family.

Neighbor Kid: A story from adult years, where a 5 year-old neighbor kid is wildly social with everyone around her (as they often are), making Allie deeply uncomfortable

Poop Mystery: Piles of poop appear in the house in the night, leading the family to take turns accusing each other. Not as funny as it could have been, but chuckles for the line-up of possible suspects.

The Kangaroo Pig Gets Drunk: Second person story about animals being confused by human behavior. Also mildly disturbing.

Daydreams: Daydreams of successful situations strung together that have not occurred. Sadness.

Dandelions: babysitting a child, taking her on a stroll through a park and discovering the child was terrified by dandelions.

Bananas: Escalating an argument with her ex-husband Duncan. Uncomfortable, because she captures the emotion of the stupidity

Losing: The art gets strange here. Allie is wrestling with her depression demons. Shrek-like ogre, nightmare blobs, sinking into a depression. Her sister suicides in the midst of it, and it is heart-breaking: “And that feels… really bad. I could go on and on about how bad it feels. When you can explain things to people who are willing to listen to you explain them, it is extremely difficult to resist fully and brutally explaining them. It feels good to explain them00like maybe you’re getting somewhere. Like maybe, if you can just… really explain them, the experiences will realize you’re catching on and stop bothering you” (p.210)

The Pile Dog I: A roommate’s hair dog and their inability to sneak.

The Pile Dog II: The dog has a hugely swollen belly because of liver disease, alternatively looking either pregnant or like a tick. Good pictures.

World’s Greatest Cup: Loses the point, I think, which is that interactive devices aren’t helpful in a way they should be.

Fairness: Next-door neighbor has a morning hammering project, so a frustrated Allie brings some randomness into his life. Echoes of ‘Richard,’ without the creepiness.

Plans: Making plans in her kid diary.

The Ultimate Plan: Utterly batshit, and how confirmation we all work differently. She decides to power-through all her fears at once by watching scary movies on drugs, then going outside into the woods alone and taking more drugs.

Loving-Kindness Exercise: A loving-kindness exercise where you imagine someone you don’t know well doing something that makes them happy, and Allie gets caught up imagining the grocery store guy knitting.

Cat: My favorite, this one captures the daffiness of Dog and Helper-Dog in the first book. She and her friend Greg adopt a cat who has a love-hate relationship with a stuffed mouse.

Fish Video: Another sad one where one wonders what the adults were thinking. They videotaped young Allie trying to make friends with a dead fish for 45 minutes instead of, you know, explaining death to her. I’m so sorry, child.

The Ugly Duckling 2: Why do we tell stories about ugly children? Imagining H.C. Andersen, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, etc. Allie wants to give them the slice of reality that apparently her parents never did. Experimented with different art styles here.

Throw-and-Find: Solitary child Allie made up games for herself and wrote down rules, including this one.

Sister: Sister and her bestie have a weird co-torturing relationship. Again, adults around much? Holy guacamole.

A Nonspecific Story about an Animal: Confusing. Allie is the animal, so I think this is a parallel to the Kangaroo story where animals don’t understand what is happening. Perhaps a survival metaphor.

Friendship Spell: Another weird one where Allie may or may not have been locked within her apartment.

Friend: A powerful piece, it served as a nice bookend. After the divorce, Allie thought she wanted to be alone and then discovered she needed a friend. She goes through steps learning how to be friends with herself.

Acknowledgements: Sweet. I’m glad some good stuff happened to her.

[destiny ♡ howling libraries · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Allie's blog and first book, but sadly, this was a letdown. I mean, I'm still giving it 3 stars - it wasn't bad and if you enjoy Allie's work in general, it's definitely worth giving a try - but I found this a bit lackluster. The funny stories and jokes didn't deliver as well for me as they have in the past, and something about the entire collection just kind of felt to me like maybe Allie Brosh didn't really want to write this, but felt like she was supposed to, or something? I could totally be projecting here, and I try to never assume an author's intentions, but that is the general feeling that stuck with me through a lot of Solutions and Other Problems: that maybe her heart wasn't in it this time.

All of that said, it broke my heart to learn some of the tragedies that have struck Allie Brosh and her family since we last heard from her. If she writes another book, I'm sure I'll still read it, too, and I'm forever grateful for the incredible impact Hyperbole and a Half had on me as a mentally ill teen who felt so alone until finding Allie's words.

This is one of the most conflicted 3-star ratings I've ever given, because I waited so many years, holding my breath, convinced that if Allie ever wrote another book, it would be everything I wanted and more... and it simply wasn't. But that's okay. I think this book is going to be the perfect fit for a lot of readers, and if I'm not one of those, I'm still glad I got the chance to read this, and I'm glad Allie decided to create something new.

✨ Content warnings for: mental illness, medical scares, cancer scares, medical procedures, death of a sibling, grief/loss, loss of pets

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[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Allie Brosh


In 2013 Allie Brosh published "Hyperbole and a Half", an assemblage of humorous and touching snippets about her life, rendered as cartoon drawings with captions and anecdotes. The following years were challenging for Brosh, but she continued drawing and writing, and the result is this follow-up book, which - though still funny - tackles some difficult issues.

In "Solutions and Other Problems", Allie writes about trapping herself in a bucket as a toddler;



having a five-year-old stalker;



horse poop appearing in her childhood home;



teaching tricks to animals;



buying bananas;



her struggle with cancer;



her sister's suicide;



her dimwitted/sneaky/manipulative dogs;



obstreperous technology;



a hammer-happy neighbor;



her cat's favorite toy mouse; and much more.



Since it's always great to have a laugh, here a few examples of Brosh's amusing tales.

When Allie was 3-years-old she became curious about her next door neighbor, a fortyish bachelor named Richard. Being a clever tyke Allie found a way to crawl out of the dog door of her home and creep into the cat door of Richard's house.



The youngster proceeded to skulk around Richard's house and occasionally watch him sleep. Little Allie would also abscond with some of Richard's things - a shoe, a spoon, a spatula, etc. - and hide them in her dresser drawer.



Allie's parents noticed that the child disappeared sometimes, and when they asked where she was, Allie said she'd been "hanging out with Richard." Horrified by visions of a child predator, Allie's folks confronted the neighbor, who claimed to have no idea what they were talking about. Allie was 'outed' when she hid Richard's live cat in her drawer.



*****

Brosh's family had a big brown hairy dog, called the pile dog, that contracted end-stage liver disease.



A symptom of this illness is water retention, and the dog developed a hugely distended abdomen. When summer arrived Brosh had to shave the dog's swollen tummy, but put a sweater on her for heat retention.



A broken air conditioner required the services of a repairman, who kept staring and staring at the pile dog.....and finally asked what kind of animal it was.



Brosh writes, "You don't even ask that question if you have any guesses - any guesses at all. Absolutely nobody wants to seem the sort of fool who can't tell the difference between a goat and a pony. If there's a chance it's an animal you've heard of, it isn't worth it.

Allie speculates the serviceman was thinking, 'Is it an illegal monster from outer space living with you here?' The family told him it was a dog, but Brosh doesn't think he believed them.

*****

Brosh's childhood diary is full of training plans, like plans to perform real magic; plans to teach her dog to read; plans to become a wolf; plans to teach her friend to draw faster and better; and more.

When Allie was six, she thought she'd discovered the secret to breathing underwater. The idea was to get a balloon, blow into it - so it's filled with air - and then breathe back and forth into it forever. Unfortunately, it didn't work.



*****

One of Brosh's most poignant chapters deals with helping 'ugly' children feel better about themselves. You can relate the story of The Ugly Duckling - about an unattractive baby bird that grows up to be a gorgeous swan.....



.....but the children might stay ugly.

You can talk about Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, whose 'disability' helped Santa on a foggy night.



Or you can tell the kids about the ugliest frog in the world.

"Once upon a time there was an ugly frog. And the world isn't fair, so it didn't grow up to be pretty or successful - it just stayed how it was.



Then one foggy Christmas Eve, the frog realized that everything is equally ridiculous. And it went sledding, because why not."



*****

The book is filled with stories, observations, and anecdotes, ranging from the bittersweet to the hilarious. Highly recommended.

You can follow my reviews at http://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com/

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Who has not seen the comics/stories by Allie Brosh? Case in point:

I was a follower of her blog, which is also the title of her first book (Hyperbole and a Half) and loved her work. But then she practically disappeared right when her book became a best seller. It was strange and worrying. This second book explains a lot about why she seemingly fell off the face of the earth for years, and well, it's not a humorous story unfortunately for her. And it's also a little unfortunate for the reader if they were hoping this second book would only be full of laughs.

But mixed in with the terrible truth of how she dealt with the past several years, are still some of Brosh's trademark hilarious vignettes of her life. In particular I laughed until I cried while reading 'Richard' and 'Bananas'.

So go into this still prepared to laugh, but also to maybe be a little depressed because life is depressing at times. And when it is, sometimes all you can do is just keep going and laugh when you can.

[Olive Fellows (abookolive) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Allie Brosh, beloved creator of the blog Hyperbole and a Half, disappeared off the face of the earth for a full seven years. She had released her first book to great acclaim and did some publicity for it before she slowly started disappearing from the internet.

She had been vocal about her struggles with depression in her book and elsewhere, so that led fans to wonder: is Allie Brosh okay? You'd even see the occasional news article pop up asking, "Where is Allie Brosh?"

Well, her long-awaited book will answer that question and then some, and dedicated fans will be a little heartbroken to hear how much has changed in her life since her early-2010s heyday.

This is obviously a book that was written over a long period of time as the art styles differ in certain sections, but Allie has all the sharp observational skills and self-deprecating humor that we remember.

I talked more about Allie Brosh's seven-year absence and reviewed this book all in one video over on Booktube.

[Paige · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would wait a thousand years for this book because I know it'll be great, take your time Allie Brosh <3

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

Hand me some ice

First of all, hand me some ice (or a bag of peas will do) because my poor wrists are achy after holding this square rock for hours. Yep, this book is heavy, and I don’t mean intense (though at times it really is pretty deep). I mean that this book is literally heavy—518 pages in a hardback. And to keep the pictures from being see-through and wrecking the back of the pages, the publisher used a thick paper stock. So not only is the book 518 pages, it’s a leaden 518 pages. My wrists pulsate just saying it, so wired with memory of pain. Okay, so I exaggerate a little. I’m known for my flair for the dramatic, after all. Still, the book hurt to hold and it was unwieldy. I had to stay still and prepare for my lap to be pressured. And turning pages was no small feat. I would have preferred a paperback but of course that wasn’t available yet—and I needed to read this book immediately because of my love affair with Brosh’s previous book, Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened. So I wasn’t fooling around. No way would it work on the Kindle; too many pictures, too many colors. So holding a giant rock was the gig—tough toenails, whiny Deb. Suck it up.

But sigh, there are always problems with expectations. After scarfing Hyperbole and a Half and giving a copy to everyone I knew, I was all a-twitch awaiting Brosh’s next book. It took seven years, but she did it. I expected her second act to be as wonderful as her first, but I didn’t go to magic-land like I did with Hyperbole.

What Big Bang Theory is to left brainers is what this book is to right brainers. It gives off an offbeat, weirdo vibe but with an artsy flair instead of a science-y one. Brosh is the consummate storyteller who starts with a crumb and ends up with a big juicy muffin; she makes an observation and then lets her mind go wild so it can think up umpteen possible meanings and motivations. She’s absolutely brilliant and she’s not short in the imagination department.

There is a lot of humor and all of it is tilted. She makes fun of herself, which is always a draw for me. She sees the absurdity in everything, and damn, she is such a keen observer! On the serious side, she also talks about her painful depression, and those essays are heartbreaking. During the long period between the two books, her sister died. Dealing with that tragedy took its toll and made her go dark. She had other big things go wrong in her life (a divorce, for example), which only made everything worse. The fact that she could churn out these entertaining stories amid such heartache is amazing.

My absolute favorite chapters are those about her childhood. Loved them loved them loved them! She takes your mind right along with her and you go to bizarre places that you never knew existed. Stuck in a bucket? She’s been there! There are many dog stories, like in Hyperbole, and there are horses, weird neighbors, annoying kids, and a fair amount of poop. Somehow she gets away with it, though if you asked me whether I usually like poop stories I would swear I do not.

The book starts with this killer sentence:

“The first time I can remember feeling truly powerless, I was three, and I was trapped sideways in a bucket in the garage.”

Who can resist THAT opening?

A few other quotes from the book to whet your appetite:

“I don’t believe in Karma, but I believe there are things that can happen that very specifically force you to understand what an asshole you are.”

“Sometimes all you can really do is keep moving and hope you end up somewhere that makes sense.”

“Anger is not a graceful emotion. I've never gotten mad and been like, "I'm glad I behaved like that!" I feel weird about it every time.”

For me, she went overboard with the cartoons. They were way too pushy—I mean they were big (literally) and squeezed out the word parts. The book seemed to lose steam as it went on (with the exception of a few doozy chapters late in the book), and the pictures seemed to get bigger, more plentiful, and less exciting. Give me more word stories, please! I always always prefer words to pictures. If you balance out the pictures with words, I’m in heaven. But get tight with the words and give me too many pictures (I’m sorry, many seemed almost identical, which in some cases I’m sure was intentional), I head for my Complaint Board, ready with chalk and a stern teacher-y look on my face.

Several of the long chapters didn’t touch me or make me laugh—dare I say they were boring? These chapters annoyed me, especially since with page turns, my wrists were screaming. Sometimes I felt left out of the joke, and I brushed that off as being maybe the wrong demographic for the book—perhaps younger generations would tune into her outlook more.

So I was sad to give this book just 3.5 stars, but I can’t help it. I wanted a Hyperbole and Half repeat, and I didn’t get it. Still, I’m happy I read it. I love this author so much, I will read everything she writes. Her struggles, her humor, her spirit, her wisdom, and her unique voice all make me want to hug her and tell her to hang on. I hope we don’t have to wait another seven years before we get to read of her beautiful off-kilter reality, but I will be patient.

By the way, don’t let the size of this book scare you. Because of all the art, it’s a fast read. I was so proud to say I read a 500-page book in just a few sittings!

Oh, and I found a wonderful interview with Brosh. Check it out:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.buzz...

[Ellen Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

After seven years of waiting, I finally read it.

It was worth the wait y’all.

——————————-

Something good is finally happening in 2020!

Seriously though, Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened, and especially "all my fish are dead" literally changed my life.

------------------------

Amazon just emailed me. There is no longer an expected release date.

In happier news, here's a corgi butt.

[Sara the Librarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had this long conversation with a friend of mine today about the need we all seem to have for answers. We call it different things but it all sort of boils down to this weird, innate need to understand what in the hell we're meant to be doing here. We, as a species, really can't seem to bear the idea that there isn't some grand plan in place that would explain the casual suffering, the loneliness, the soul destroying pain we all suffer through. We do not under any circumstances want to confront the idea that some guy can just wander into a school and kill children because he felt like it, there has to be a plan, some purpose to it. There has to be a reason.

But the weird thing is realizing that there is no point is bizarrely comforting once you get around to accepting it.

Allie Brosh has been fucking around looking for that deceptively simple truth for awhile now. She did it first with her brilliant, self deprecating blog "Hyperbole and a Half" which eventually became a book of the same name and she kept right on doing it when she abruptly vanished from the internet (and everywhere else) just as her book hit the NY Times best seller list and everyone wanted to be her friend.

I was one of those fans who saw so much of my own journey in hers. She put a face (a very, very funny and relatable face) on something that we still aren't comfortable talking about (mental health) and her insecurities, fears and adorable awkward fumbling through life made it literally impossible not to totally fall in love with her. So me and about a billion other people were pretty damn worried when she vanished almost seven years ago just when her second book was announced.

Of course she didn't really vanish. She got smacked around by a whole bunch of bullshit, much of which she gets into in the brilliant follow up to "Hyperbole and a Half" which took me approximately two hours to read, and which I refuse to spoil for you except to say I wouldn't have blamed her in the slightest if she never wrote another word or drew another bug eyed girl with a yellow pigtail. Honestly I'm a little surprised there isn't a chapter in there called "I wonder if I pissed off God?" or "Well at least I haven't actually died yet."

As much as I snort laughed my way through this book I was also struck by the depth of feeling and wisdom Brosh conveys with her stories. There's plenty of fantastically weird childhood memories and an especially insane and uncomfortable odyssey with the family pets horrifyingly called "The Poop Mystery" but they're interspersed with bold face, hard staring right into the truly terrible tragedies she's been dealing with these last few years. This girl has seem some shit and its changed her.

I can all but guarantee she'd be the last person to call herself wise, as most truly wise people are wont to do, but I don't know what else to call it. She's been knocked around and bruised by grief and the daily grind of surviving really shitty stuff and its clearly shaped who she is now as a writer and artist. For lack of a better, kinder way to say it, suffering and living through that suffering has made her better at what she does.

Her art work feels and looks richer. Her goofy looking self is more fully realized, brighter and tainted with deeper shadows at the same time. I'm reluctant to say it feels like she cares more but it does seem like she has much more to say and show us. Its as if she trusts more in her own craft. The same holds true for her writing. The frantic energy has been replaced by a stronger, steadier self assurance that even if she still has no idea what the hell is going on, she's okay with that. Its like she feels more important, or maybe more relevant to the world. Not because she's some brilliant philosopher dying to share her genius with us, but because she's arrived at that place within herself where she finally gets that its okay to have no idea what's going on, that it doesn't make life less worth living or her less worthy of being happy or at least content with her own. Its still worth moving forward even if you have no earthly idea where you're going to end up.

There's a frantic sort of aimlessness to "Hyperbole and a Half" that's delightful and funny but also a little formless. You have to spend time with it to see beyond the goofy stories about dumb dogs and cake. I always feel a little panicked when I finish reading it. Not so with this book. No lie, my abs literally ache from laughing while I read it but I'm also hanging on to the sad stuff too and it makes the jokes and goofy stories and goddamn weird ass things that girl did as a child even funnier and more delightful.

Allie Brosh is a truly beautiful utter weirdo and a goddamn gift to all of us. Go read her book.

[Hilary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really expecting to enjoy this, I loved Hyperbole and a Half but found this hugely dissapointing. I appreciate what a hard time this author has had, she must have had a heartbreaking time but I can't give this any more than 2 stars. I love this author's dog characters but even they weren't enough to make this more interesting or enjoyable for me.

[Fiona Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was worth the wait (~5 years!, not complaining, you just need to know how much of a wait it's worth) - and I'm so, so happy that finally there is something that 2020 cannot ruin. Tempting fate? Maybe. Sorry Allie Brosh. But at the very bare minimum I can't be forced in any way to un-read this book.

As per usual with Allie Brosh and the mix of drawn and written storytelling that makes up her previous book and blog Hyperbole and a Half, there are pieces of this that are actual-laugh-out-loud funny, pieces that made me cry, and pieces that make me go "huh, I never did see it from that angle before". If you haven't read any of her work before - lucky you, to start, because you get to experience it all for the first time. I envy you alot.

If you have read her work before - this is all new, but a comparable experience, if a little deeper, a little more touching - there's been a lot of life between here and there and there's no way around how that kind of thing affects a person. I think it's enriched it all; I hope you feel the same. Still absolutely one of my "get onto the escape rocket in case of meteor" books and authors.

[Steve DuBois · Rating 2 out of 5]

Looks like I'm the dissenter on this one.

Hyperbole and a Half was, by turns, poignant, clever, insightful, and gut-bustingly funny. Some of the best sections involved the author discussing her battle with depression. While painful to read, there was a stunning clarity to the work. Through anecdotes and analogies, Brosh painted a comprehensible picture of a land which, thank God, I've never had to visit.

It's fairly clear, from the content of Solutions and Other Problems, that Brosh's life has taken a downward spiral since the publication of the first book. Some of this is due to external events; much of it appears to be due to the intensification of her condition. I fear that she's slipping away from us. And one of the things that I have to say, with great regret, is that as she slips away, I think she's losing her ability to explain her condition to people who don't share it.

There are great big sections of this book which are, to me, entirely incoherent--chapters without endings, deep dives into the author's psyche in which we start down a path that sort of spirals away into nothing. There are also lengthy anecdotes which _are_ told in a coherent way, but which evoke horror as opposed to any kind of insight--the chapter recounting Brosh's drug-addled interactions with an Uber driver and a neighbor's child falls into this category.

Brosh returns repeatedly to a central moral--that existence has no real meaning and that we have to impose one upon it to stay sane. That's not a concept that's unworthy of exploration; a lot of authors have done good work with it. But I don't find that this book does much with that idea except to make it explicit.

There are moments where we see flashes of the same observational genius who gave us Hyperbole and a Half--Ugly Duckling 2 springs to mind--but from my perspective, they're relatively few. Most of the stories feel more like the echoing, garbled cries of someone trapped at the bottom of a well.

Also, the dogs are less funny in this one.

I hope Allie gets better.

[Prerna · Rating 5 out of 5]

About two years ago, just a day before my finals (of my first year Master's degree, mind you!) I was dragged to the waiting room of a psychiatrist by my roommate. It was an emergency, but I honestly wanted no part in it. I have tried several times to find out for myself what went wrong and of course it was many things - many, many things some of which I still can't wrap my mind around. But over time I recognised that I have a persistent problem with authenticity - and this points both inwards and outwards.

As I stepped into my twenties, I found that I was unable to express myself in ways that agreed with my perception of what I believed to be my "true self". As if my own short-sightedness wasn't enough, the world stopped presenting itself to me in any cogent, reasonable pattern. At the risk of sounding cliche, I daresay that I was drowning in a sea of my own uncertainties - in falsehoods and pretensions of my own making. This in turn led to a caustic vulnerability that made me irascible.

So there I was in the waiting room, tapping my foot restlessly and wanting to run away when I happened to find a copy of Hyperbole and a Half. And of course - there was no instant miracle. I did not suddenly feel fine, no epiphany dawned on me. But there was something so ironic about how authentic the distorted, disproportionate images were that it made way for comfort. And I didn't realise until much later, but as I flipped the pages, I eased into my chair until it was time for my appointment.

Two weeks ago, I happened to find a copy of Solutions and Other Problems. It's strange that I keep running into Allie Brosh at difficult junctures of my life but it's also very comforting. So I only have one thing to say - Gimme more! Unless of course, she doesn't feel like it.

[Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another fun book by Allie Brosh. Some of the stories and essays were laugh-out-loud funny and some were just okay and seemed contrived. Maybe she didn't have enough material for the book and was on a deadline so.... Quick! What's the first childhood memory you can think of that you can turn into a semi-funny cartoon?! The graphics were mostly amusing though at times seemed like filler.

I like Allie's tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic style. It's good when you need something light or for a breather in between more serious books. Not a must-read but still worth the time it took to read (a couple hours).

[Kelly (and the Book Boar) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Allie Brosh . . . .


(^^^^a lot)

If you don't get the above, you probably don't like her quite as much as me. This offering contained a couple of *sadface* selections, but all in all it was still 4 Star worthy material that made me laugh out loud more than once. Miles Finch highly recommends the entry about the cat and the toy mouse. He completely relates that one minute black mouse is your bro and the next you just need to drown his ass in your water bowl . . . .

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been seven years since Allie Brosh's incredible Hyperbole and a Half. Turns out she's been going through some things. A cancer scare revealing a fruit salad of tumors, the loss of her younger sister to suicide, a divorce and the subsequent struggling with loneliness. Hardly fodder for hilarity.

But this is warm and funny and somehow avoids maudlin sentiment. Drawing yourself as an ambulatory tadpole with anime eyes really manages to leaven the mood. But don't dismiss the drawings as completely juvenile, Brosh with a deft line manages to invoke cringey awareness, reckless glee and stunned confusion. Somehow her Vegas party-bros are spot on and she most certainly deserves the most prestigious of awards she has given herself for "fanciest horse drawing."

We are all stupid, serious, mad little animals, and that is nowhere more on display than in these crazy cartoon caricatures where a dozen or so pages of this can just break my heart.



...seriously, you've been warned.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a Kindle e-edition borrowed from the library due to the continuing pandemic and my branch library is not one of the branches that has opened for borrowing paper books.

I’ve been waiting for this second book for year. I loved the first book by this author/illustrator, Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened. (I have gone to her blog and also thoroughly enjoyed it.) This book wasn’t exactly what I’d been expecting which was autobiographical, mostly hilarious, sometimes poignant cartoon stories. T

This book was a lot more autobiographical stories, illustrated with cartoons and overall was a lot less amusing. There were some star funny stories, but there was more sadness than humor. Tragic stuff. That would have been fine with me as I enjoy that sort of narrative, even though I was reading it along with a heavy content children’s novel and expected to go to this book for some comic relief, which is did not provide. That’s not the reason I’m not giving this book 5 stars though and why I only liked it and did not love it.

I found it to be full of filler, a lot of filler, in places one drawing after another with very little text for them. The book was uneven as there were parts where I laughed out loud and parts where I felt emotionally involved, though the latter not as much as I would have expected. I think it was because what information there was superficial. Yes, that is Allie Brosh’s right but I wanted and needed more. I wanted a lot more about her sister and I wanted more about her too. As far as being uneven, it didn’t help that for me the book started out fairly strong but its last parts were weak.

I do love this line: “Having to be personally responsible for maintaining justice in the world is distressing. It makes it seem like maybe there’s something wrong at the Universal Fairness and Balance Department. Like maybe the higher-ups have lost control and they need help.”

While I feel a bit disappointed, especially given the extremely long wait, I’m glad I read this and I will read/view anything else by this author/illustrator. I guess for this collection I needed either more humor or more depth and details for the serious stories. I did like it though.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hope you will allow me to tell a little story here. Some years back, I was going through a bad time with my mental health. It’s been, what feels like a lifelong struggle, but this was a particularly rough period. I had been in the hospital and was then moved to a sort of group home to recover more. One of the counselors there had two stories by Allie Brosh printed out and we read them as part of a group activity. They were about depression and were real and sad and funny.

I felt seen. Like someone had peeked inside my head and put my thoughts into words and pictures. It was wonderful. There’s still somehow such a stigma around mental health and it was refreshing to see someone put themselves out there for the world to see. Raw and exposed. Vulnerable.

I later went on to read her whole first book and loved all of it. Most were just funny stories but there were other dark ones too. She has a gift, like I said in an update as I read this, of alternating between the dark and the light. Making you want to cry one minute and laugh the next. The perfect blend. Few authors can do this. And all in tiny comic strips.

I’m happy to say that this second collection was no different. It’s been a long time since her first book and when you read this, you find out why. A lot has happened to her since then. And because of that she has again crafted a mix of stories that make you laugh and smile and ones that make you cry. The ones about her sister were especially touching.

She makes you feel it’s ok to be weird and ok to struggle. She tells you that it’s important to be kind to yourself. And don’t forget to laugh.