Website

Hyperbole and a Half

You’ve seen Allie’s work. Go ahead, take one look at that cover and tell me you haven’t seen a meme with that artwork, or part of a story, or maybe even a whole story if you’re lucky. I was all set to write a review that basically badgered people into buying her book and giving her money, seeing as how the world has seen her work for free for years, but then I did some research into Allie. That website, for example? Seems to be dead, or at least full of viruses (according to my malware detector, anyway). She apparently went to reddit for a but, but ended up leaving that too. Basically she’s been “off the grid” (meaning internet; here’s hoping her actual life is going swell) since 2015 or so. Maybe if there’s a sudden surge of sales of her 2013 book she’ll return and give us all more stories? Hey, it’s worth a shot! If you’re one of the few people who haven’t seen her work, welcome to the internet! Thanks for somehow ending up on my website and this review before anything else. This book is a collection of stories from her website, with several that are entirely new. “Makes you laugh, makes you cry” is a cliche, sure, but that’s literally what happened here. There were several stories where I literally had to put the book down because I was laughing too hard to read it, and there were a few especially grim bits too. More funny than anything, if I had to put them on a weird story scale, but they cover damned near anything. I feel like I know her dogs (simple dog and helper dog), and I’ve rarely seen the quizzical doggie head turn done better. And she’s painfully open and raw in her discussions of depression, which to her ended up as a complete absence of emotions. Other stories deal with her discovering a time capsule from child Allie to her adult self (and the advice that she would give to several iterations of her younger self), how she tricks herself to get motivated, an epic quest to eat a cake after discovering sugar, how her mother got her lost in the woods when she was little, how she moved across country and how it affected her dogs, living a lie as a hot sauce fan, how a goose terrorized her house, the terrible parrot toy, and about a half dozen more that I’ll leave as a surprise. I checked this out of the library, but this is one of those books that I’m going to buy sooner than later, as I already want to revisit a few of these stories and/or show them to friends. And since her website is down, we have to go back to paper. Buy her book! There is absolutely no way you’ll be disappointed. Yes, I’m that sure! $17.99