Solutions and Other Problems

I originally wasn't going to pick up this book. I read Hyperbole and a Half The Book, and it was fine, but I found that what I loved about Brosh's work — the weirdness, the silliness, the seriousness — it all seemed to work better in the blog format, where I wasn't just reading post after post. There was a break between each of the blog posts, and you had to WAIT, and that made every reading experience magical. So I expected that would happen going into this one too, until I read the chapter of this book she posted on her blog as a teaser, and it made me laugh until I cried.

And sure, Solutions had those moments at the beginning where I wondered if I wouldn't enjoy this more in blog form, but then. Oh. I can see why this needed to be a book and not a series of stories on the internet, and why it took so long for this book to come to fruition. This is HEAVY with grief and loss, and depression, and struggling to find meaning, and yet somehow Brosh still made me laugh until I cried at several points; at her stories about buying bananas with her ex-husband, and the little neighbor girl who desperately wanted Brosh to come over to see her room??

And sometimes we just need to laugh until we cry.